South Carolina 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
10,827
Rank 22 of 51. 1.6% of the country.
Power units
57,080
Trucks they report running.
Average fleet
5.3
Nationally it is 12.9.
One-truck carriers
52%
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 South Carolina it is 52%. The average fleet size of 5.3 is pulled upward by a handful of large carriers and describes almost nobody.
South Carolina carriers by fleet size
- One truck5,67352%
- 2 to 53,02428%
- 6 to 208378%
- Over 203453%
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
51,161
0.90 drivers per truck.
Carriers over 20 trucks
345
3.2% 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
52% of South Carolina 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.