Generally not on spot freight. Some contracts include a deadhead allowance, and brokers occasionally pay for long origin deadhead, but the default is that the carrier absorbs it.

What is a good deadhead percentage?

Lower is better, and the realistic figure depends on your lanes. Track your own over time, because the trend matters more than any benchmark.

Should deadhead be included in rate per mile?

Yes, if you want the number to mean anything. Gross RPM over loaded miles only overstates what a load pays.

Deadhead

Last updated: 5 October 2026

Definition

Deadhead is any distance a truck drives empty, most often between delivering one load and reaching the pickup for the next.

The miles cost fuel, wear and driver hours, and produce no revenue.

Where it comes from

There are two kinds. Origin deadhead is the run from where your truck sits to where the load picks up, and it is the one that gets ignored when carriers evaluate a rate. Destination deadhead is the run out of a delivery to wherever the next load starts. It is usually larger, because you had less control over where you ended up.

A truck delivering into a market with thin outbound freight can face several hundred empty miles before it earns again. That cost belongs to the load that put it there.

Why it decides whether a load pays

Deadhead is the difference between the rate you are quoted and the rate you get. Two loads at $2,600 over 1,000 loaded miles are not the same load if one starts 15 miles away and the other starts 200.

The correct treatment is to include it in the denominator:

Net RPM = (Gross − Tolls − Fees − Fuel) ÷ (Loaded Miles + Deadhead Miles)

Excluding deadhead makes every load look better than it is, consistently, in the same direction. The full calculation.

Reducing it

Search on a tight radius from the truck's actual position rather than a zip code default, plan the reload before the current load delivers, and judge a load partly on what leaves the destination market. More on reducing deadhead.