Deadhead miles in trucking are the miles a driver covers with an empty trailer attached, usually between dropping one load and picking up the next. They cost the average owner-operator between $1.50 and $1.85 for every mile driven empty, and industry data suggests roughly one in every five to six miles a commercial truck travels is an empty mile. That is a large hole in a carrier’s revenue, and how you track, insure, and minimize those miles decides whether a quarter is profitable or not.
What Counts as a Deadhead Mile
A deadhead mile happens when a tractor pulls an empty trailer to reach the next pickup, return to a home terminal, or reposition at the carrier’s direction. The trailer is attached; there is no freight inside. Freight demand is rarely balanced between two points, so a driver who delivers to a rural consignee may run a hundred miles empty before reaching a hub with outbound loads.
Deadheading is not the same as bobtailing. A bobtail tractor has no trailer attached at all. The distinction matters most for insurance, covered further down.
Federal hours-of-service rules make no allowance for empty miles. All time behind the wheel counts as driving time, and all driving time falls within your on-duty clock, whether the trailer is loaded or empty.1eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers Every deadhead mile burns the same limited hours you need for paying loads.
Personal Conveyance Does Not Cover Empty Repositioning
Some drivers assume they can log empty-trailer travel as personal conveyance and keep it off the driving clock. FMCSA has rejected that reading. Driving with an empty trailer to retrieve another load, or repositioning a tractor or trailer at the carrier’s direction, is a continuation of the commercial trip, not personal use.2Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Personal Conveyance The test is the nature of the movement, not whether freight is aboard. If you are heading somewhere for business reasons, it goes on your duty clock.3Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Personal Conveyance – Frequently Asked Questions Mislogging deadhead miles as personal conveyance is a recordkeeping violation auditors look for specifically.
What Deadhead Miles Actually Cost
Every empty mile costs nearly as much as a loaded one. Fuel runs roughly $0.50 to $0.65 per mile, and the engine burns almost the same amount whether the trailer is full or empty. Add truck payments, insurance, maintenance, tires, permits, tolls, and technology, and total operating cost for a typical owner-operator with an active truck payment runs $1.50 to $1.85 per mile. Drivers who own their rigs outright still face $1.20 to $1.40 per mile in unavoidable costs.
Some carrier contracts offer deadhead pay in the range of $0.20 to $0.40 per mile. That helps but covers only a fraction of the actual cost. The larger loss is opportunity cost: every hour spent deadheading eats into the 11 hours of driving time and 14-hour duty window you are allowed per day under federal rules.1eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers A three-hour empty run doesn’t just cost fuel and wear. It eliminates three hours you could have spent under load.
Fuel Surcharges and Tolls
Fuel surcharges are calculated only on loaded, revenue miles. You will not collect a surcharge for the empty leg of a trip even though your fuel cost during that leg is real. Industry rate calculations account for empty miles indirectly by using lower assumed fuel-efficiency figures, but the driver absorbs the fuel cost of deadheading.
Tolls do not care whether the trailer is loaded. Toll systems charge based on axle count and vehicle configuration, not cargo weight. An empty trailer through a toll plaza pays the same rate as a fully loaded truck with the same axles.
Insurance Gaps When You’re Running Empty
This is where many drivers get caught out. The coverage that protects you while hauling a load under dispatch may not protect you once that load is delivered and you are running empty looking for the next one.
A motor carrier’s primary liability policy typically covers you only while you are operating under active dispatch with a load or assignment. Drop the load and head out on your own to find the next job, and you may fall outside that coverage. An accident during an uncovered deadhead or bobtail leg can leave you personally liable with no insurance backing.
Two types of coverage fill the gap:
- Non-trucking liability (NTL) insurance covers you when you are not under dispatch, regardless of whether a trailer is attached. It applies to deadheading between jobs, commuting, traveling to a maintenance facility, or any other non-dispatched driving.
- Bobtail insurance specifically covers driving without a trailer attached. Unlike NTL, bobtail coverage typically does not apply if an empty trailer is hooked up.
Owner-operators leased to a carrier should read the lease and confirm which party is responsible for coverage during empty-mile segments. Federal truth-in-leasing regulations require the lease to clearly specify each party’s responsibility for the cost of empty mileage.4eCFR. 49 CFR 376.12 – Lease Requirements If the lease is silent on insurance during deadhead legs, resolve it before you leave the yard.
Tracking Empty Miles for IFTA and Taxes
Accurate mileage records serve two purposes: fuel tax compliance and income tax deductions. Both are audited, and both treat empty miles as reportable miles.
IFTA Reporting
The International Fuel Tax Agreement requires carriers to report miles driven in each jurisdiction so fuel taxes are distributed correctly among the states and provinces where the truck actually traveled. Records must be kept on an individual-vehicle basis and include the date, origin and destination, route of travel, beginning and ending odometer readings, total trip miles, and a breakdown by jurisdiction.
Deadhead miles are a specific audit target. Auditors use a sequential method that compares where one trip ended to where the next trip began. If a trip ends in Tucson but the next trip sheet starts in Phoenix, the auditor flags the gap and looks for unreported miles between those two points. Unexplained differences between ending and beginning odometer readings raise the same red flag.
Electronic Logging Devices automatically capture date, time, GPS coordinates, engine hours, and vehicle miles, and that data feeds directly into IFTA compliance.1eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers ELD data gives you the backbone of your distance records, but you still need to verify that jurisdiction crossings and trip purposes are captured accurately.
Income Tax Deductions
Owner-operators can deduct vehicle expenses on Schedule C, either by tracking actual expenses or by using the IRS standard mileage rate of 72.5 cents per mile for 2026.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Sets 2026 Business Standard Mileage Rate at 72.5 Cents Per Mile Deadhead miles qualify as business mileage because you are driving for a commercial purpose even without cargo. The IRS requires specific recordkeeping for vehicle expenses; maintain written or electronic records that meet the requirements outlined in IRS Publication 463.6Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040)
Recordkeeping Penalties
Failing to maintain required records, or keeping inaccurate ones, can result in FMCSA civil penalties of up to $1,584 per day the violation continues, with a maximum of $15,846 for a single violation. Non-recordkeeping violations of hours-of-service rules carry steeper penalties: up to $19,246 per violation for carriers and up to $4,812 per violation for individual drivers.7eCFR. 49 CFR Part 386 – Rules of Practice for FMCSA Proceedings Egregious driving-time violations, such as exceeding the 11-hour limit by more than three hours, can trigger penalties up to the statutory maximum.
What the Law Says About Deadhead Pay
No federal law requires carriers to pay drivers specifically for deadhead miles. What the law requires is transparency. Under federal truth-in-leasing regulations, any lease between a carrier and an owner-operator must clearly state each party’s responsibility for the cost of empty mileage, along with fuel, tolls, permits, and other operating expenses.4eCFR. 49 CFR 376.12 – Lease Requirements The compensation method can be a percentage of gross revenue, a flat rate per mile, a variable rate by direction or commodity, or any other structure the parties agree on, as long as the lease spells it out.
Overtime rules do not help either. Most long-haul truck drivers are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirements under the motor carrier exemption. If your duties affect the safe operation of a commercial vehicle in interstate commerce, the exemption applies to all your working time, including deadhead driving.8U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 19 – The Motor Carrier Exemption Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) The exemption does not distinguish between revenue and non-revenue miles. As a practical matter, the fight over deadhead compensation plays out in lease negotiations, not labor law.
How to Reduce Empty Miles
The best way to control deadhead costs is to not run them in the first place. That starts with planning beyond the current load.
Experienced operators think two or three loads ahead rather than scrambling for freight after delivering the current one. Before accepting a headhaul, check what outbound freight is available at or near the delivery point. If the destination is a freight desert with nothing moving outbound, the rate on the headhaul needs to be high enough to cover the empty run back. Carriers who track per-mile operating cost can run that math quickly for any lane and know exactly what rate makes a trip worth taking.
Load boards and digital freight-matching platforms have made backhaul planning far easier than the phone-and-fax era. These platforms use real-time GPS data to connect drivers with shippers near their current location, and the better ones include rate analytics so you can judge whether a backhaul covers your costs or just adds miles for marginal pay. Route optimization software and transportation management systems can identify patterns in freight flow that individual drivers might miss.
Linking multiple shorter shipments into one trip is another approach. Drivers are more likely to successfully combine loads when individual shipments are lighter and cover shorter distances, since heavy shipments eat into loading time and capacity. Picking up multiple shipments from the same origin area tends to work better logistically than coordinating pickups across scattered destinations.
None of this eliminates deadhead miles entirely. Freight imbalances are structural because some regions produce more outbound goods than they consume. But the difference between running 25% empty miles and 15% empty miles on 120,000 annual miles is roughly 12,000 fewer unpaid miles, which at $1.50 per mile in operating costs is $18,000 a year.