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States / Colorado

Colorado carriers

Every interstate carrier has to be on the FMCSA census to operate, and the census records where they are based and how many trucks they run. That makes it the only honest count of who your competition actually is.

Active carriers

9,359

Rank 26 of 51. 1.4% of the country.

Power units

129,840

Trucks they report running.

Average fleet

13.9

Nationally it is 12.9.

One-truck carriers

46%

Nationally 47%.

How big they actually are

The industry is not made of fleets. Nationally 47% of active interstate carriers report exactly one power unit, and in Colorado it is 46%. The average fleet size of 13.9 is pulled upward by a handful of large carriers and describes almost nobody.

Colorado carriers by fleet size

  • One truck4,30346%
  • 2 to 52,90831%
  • 6 to 2097210%
  • Over 204975%

These four bands do not always sum to the carrier total: a carrier that has filed no power unit count sits in none of them. The total is every active interstate carrier based in the state.

Interstate drivers reported

137,596

1.06 drivers per truck.

Carriers over 20 trucks

497

5.3% of carriers in the state.

What the count does and does not include

  • Active only. The census keeps every carrier that ever registered. Counting the inactive ones would multiply every figure here several times over.
  • Interstate only. Intrastate carriers are on the census too, and in some states they dominate: California has around 328,000 active carriers of which only about 67,000 are interstate. Comparing states needs one consistent basis.
  • Where they are based, from the physical address on file, not where they run. A carrier based here may never turn a wheel in the state.
  • Self-reported truck counts. Power units come from the carrier's own MCS-150, which is required biennially and is not always current.

Source: FMCSA Company Census. Active interstate carriers with a US physical address, aggregated by state. Read 2026-08-21.

If you are one of them

46% of Colorado carriers run a single truck, which means the numbers that decide whether this works are yours alone: what a mile costs you, what your authority and insurance run, and what the operation is worth if you ever want out.