Truck driver salary calculator

How the calculator works

The calculator turns a pay model into dollars per week, then per year.

• Per mile: weekly pay = rate per mile x paid miles per week.
• Percent of the load: weekly pay = your percent x load revenue per week.
• Hourly: weekly pay = hourly rate x hours worked per week.

Yearly pay is weekly pay times the weeks you actually work. Fifty-two weeks is rarely real once home time, holidays and time off are counted. The hourly equivalent divides weekly pay by the hours you work, which is the fairest way to compare a long-haul job with a local one.

Picking a job type fills in starting values: a pay model, typical miles or hours, and weeks worked. These are EXAMPLE values to get you going, not survey data. Change them to match the offer you have in hand.

The national benchmark

For reference, the result card shows the national median wage for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported it as $58,640 in May 2025 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025Heavy and Tractor-trailer Truck Drivers: PayU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025. Checked 2026-10-11.Open the source. That figure covers employed drivers, not self-employed owner-operators, and it's a midpoint: half of drivers earned more and half earned less. Location, experience, freight type and the company all move pay a lot.

A worked example

An over-the-road offer pays 55 cents a mile. The driver expects about 2,300 paid miles a week and roughly 60 working hours, and plans to work 46 weeks a year after home time.

Run a local hourly job with 50 hours a week at $27 an hour and 50 weeks a year, and the yearly total is $67,500, with an hourly figure that is easy to compare. Neither number is a promise. Each depends on the miles and hours really being there, week after week.

Reading your result

Yearly pay is the headline, but the hourly equivalent tells you more. A job that pays well per week because of very long hours may pay less per hour than a shorter local job. And per-mile pay only works when the miles are steady. A slow week at the same rate is a smaller paycheck.

Before you accept an offer, ask:

• How are miles counted, and what's a typical week in miles for drivers on this account?
• What pays separately: stops, detention, layovers, breakdowns, training?
• How much home time is real, and is it paid?
• Which benefits come with the job, and what do they cost you?

Our guide to the types of truck drivers explains how OTR, regional, local, dedicated and team jobs differ day to day. For the bigger picture on pay and the workforce, see our truck driver statistics.

Owner-operator pay is different

An owner-operator doesn't earn a wage. They earn what's left after the truck, fuel, insurance and every other cost is paid. A leased owner-operator on percentage pay may see a large share of the revenue, but much of it goes back into the truck. Owner-operators with their own authority keep the whole rate and pay every cost themselves.

To see what's really left, work out your costs with the trucking cost per mile calculator, and set money aside with the quarterly estimated tax calculator. Waiting time is part of pay too. The detention pay calculator shows what dock delays should be worth.

Already driving your own truck? Pay works differently there, and our owner-operator dispatch page explains how.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Heavy and Tractor-trailer Truck Drivers: Pay (2025).