Home / Selling Guides / New Jersey / How to Sell a Trucking Company in New Jersey

New Jersey · Trucking / Transportation

How to Sell a Trucking Company in New Jersey

Q: What multiple do trucking companies sell for in 2026?

Asset-based trucking companies averaged about 5.5x EV/EBITDA and 0.9x EV/revenue from 2019 through 2025, according to Capstone Partners' 3PL M&A Coverage Report. Smaller owner-operated fleets typically trade nearer 3x SDE (BizBuySell trucking benchmarks show a median cash-flow multiple of 3.28x), while lower-middle-market carriers with $5M-$50M in revenue generally fall in the 4x-6.5x EBITDA range. Asset-light logistics businesses trade far higher, averaging about 12x EBITDA, which is why business mix matters as much as size.

Q: Does the MC authority transfer when I sell my trucking company?

It depends on structure. In a stock sale the legal entity is unchanged, so the USDOT and MC numbers, safety rating, CSA history, IRP and IFTA registrations all carry over, along with all liabilities. In an asset sale USDOT numbers are not transferable and most buyers obtain their own operating authority, which involves a $300 application, a $750,000 minimum liability coverage requirement, and an 18-month new-entrant safety monitoring period. FMCSA's regulations on transfer procedure are currently in flux, so the mechanics should be handled with transportation counsel.

Q: Who buys trucking companies in New Jersey?

Four buyer pools. Private-equity-backed platforms such as Kenan Advantage Group, PS Logistics, Trimac and Heniff are serial acquirers, particularly in bulk and tank. Strategic carriers have been active with disclosed prices, including Werner's $282.8M acquisition of FirstFleet in January 2026 and Schneider's $390M acquisition of Cowan Systems. Drayage and intermodal are consolidating specifically, with RoadOne IntermodaLogistics assembling 100-plus terminals and Kuehne+Nagel acquiring 51% of IMC Logistics. Finally, SBA-financed individual buyers are the deepest pool for smaller fleets.

Q: Do I need to pay off my factoring line before closing?

Paying the advance balance is not sufficient on its own. Because factoring is structured as a true sale of accounts, UCC section 9-513(c) carves out sold accounts from the usual termination trigger, so the factor's duty to terminate arises only once purchased invoices are actually paid by brokers and shippers. A clean closing needs three items: a payoff letter, a letter of release sent to everyone who received the original notice of assignment, and a filed UCC-3 termination verified against the Secretary of State record.

Q: What kills a trucking company sale?

The recurring causes are undocumented owner add-backs that get stripped from earnings in diligence, customer concentration (now a formal SBA underwriting item on deals at or above $3 million as of October 1, 2026), worker classification exposure under New Jersey's ABC test, a safety history that surfaces late rather than being disclosed deliberately, owner dependence where the seller personally holds shipper relationships, and closing surprises from TRAC lease residual shortfalls or un-terminated factoring liens.

What NJ trucking companies actually sell for, how the MC authority transfer works in an asset vs. stock sale, and why NJ's port position makes this a premium market.

By Steven Reese, Founder & Principal Broker · Last updated August 23, 2026

The short answer: Asset-based trucking companies trade around 5.5× EBITDA on average (Capstone Partners, 2019–2025), with smaller owner-operated fleets closer to 3× SDE and lower-middle-market carriers roughly 4–6.5× EBITDA. Contract freight, driver retention, a clean safety record and low customer concentration move you up the range. Two 2026 items matter most for NJ sellers: record spot rates have inflated trailing earnings while new capacity is already returning, and New Jersey’s independent-contractor rule becomes operative October 1, 2026.

Part of our guide to selling a main street business in New Jersey.

Book a Free Call Get My Free Valuation Try the Calculator

What NJ Trucking Companies Actually Sell For

Most published “trucking multiples by freight type” are marketing copy with no dataset behind them. The figures below come from named sources, and where good data does not exist we say so rather than invent a number.

The single most important structural fact: asset-based trucking trades at a discount to asset-light logistics. Capstone Partners’ 3PL M&A Coverage Report (September 2025, using Capital IQ / FactSet / PitchBook data for 2019–2025) puts average M&A multiples at:

Target type	EV / Revenue	EV / EBITDA
Asset-light 3PL	1.2×	12.0×
Trucking (asset-based)	0.9×	5.5×
Mixed 3PL & trucking	0.9×	11.3×

That gap is why the structure of your business matters as much as its size. Brokerage, dedicated contracts, and management depth pull you toward the higher end; pure spot-market capacity pulls you toward the lower end.

By size band

Company profile	Typical basis	What drives it
Owner-operator / small fleet (under ~$2M revenue)	~3× SDE (BizBuySell trucking benchmarks show a median cash-flow multiple of 3.28×, range 2.54–3.95×, median revenue $1.76M and median SDE $407.5K)	Owner dependence, equipment condition, whether freight follows the owner
Lower-middle-market carrier ($5M–$50M revenue)	Roughly 4–6.5× EBITDA (Axial’s disclosed closed deals ran 3.77×, 4.33×, 4.43×, 5.57× and 6.38×)	Contract mix, management team, safety record, customer concentration
Scaled truckload carrier	Public truckload comps median 6.7× EV/NTM EBITDA (Capital IQ, July 2025)	Scale, network density, balance sheet
LTL operator	Public LTL comps median 14.3×	Terminal networks are far harder to replicate than trucks

Two disclosed transactions bracket the truckload range usefully: Knight-Swift acquired U.S. Xpress at roughly 5.5×, and TFI International acquired Daseke at about 6× trailing adjusted EBITDA.

What we will not tell you: there is no credible public dataset for multiples by freight type — dry van vs. reefer vs. flatbed vs. tanker. Any broker who hands you a precise number for your niche is guessing. What is well supported is the direction: specialized, credentialed and hard-to-replicate operations (tank, hazmat, temperature-controlled, port drayage) command premiums over commodity dry van, because the barrier to entry is real.

Is 2026 a Good Time to Sell a Trucking Company?

This is the question every owner asks, and right now it has an unusually clear answer: your earnings are near a cyclical peak, and the conditions creating that peak are already reversing.

Rates hit records in mid-2026

DAT’s July 2026 national spot averages (including fuel) were $3.01/mile van, $3.42 reefer, and $3.64 flatbed. In June 2026 dry van spot rates exceeded contract rates for the first time since February 2022, flatbed hit an all-time high, and year-over-year linehaul gains were the largest since June 2021 (van +45%, reefer +39%, flatbed +40%). SONAR’s National Truckload Index set an all-time high of $3.78/mile on June 28, 2026.

But this is a supply story, not a demand story

Freight volumes did not surge — capacity left. The exits were driven by enforcement on the driver side, not by shippers buying more:

English Language Proficiency enforcement became an out-of-service violation on June 25, 2025. FMCSA’s own rulemaking documents 60,399 violations and 19,045 out-of-service orders between then and March 19, 2026 — against 7,812 violations and 33 out-of-service orders in the comparable prior period.
Restrictions on non-domiciled CDLs took effect in March 2026.
ACT Research’s Driver Availability Index fell to a five-year low of 30.4 in April 2026.

Why the window matters

Capacity is already being rebuilt. Class 8 truck orders more than tripled year over year in June 2026, with backlogs at a 38-month high, and ACT expects capacity expansion to accelerate through the back half of 2026. Buyers underwrite on trailing twelve months. An owner who takes a business to market while TTM earnings reflect record rates is selling into a very different number than one who waits for those rates to normalize.

The honest caveat: nobody can time this precisely. In January 2026 industry forecasters were predicting a weak year and another wave of carrier bankruptcies; five months later rates hit records. Anyone who tells you they know where rates go next is selling certainty they do not have. What we can say is what buyers are paying today and what your trailing numbers currently support.

Who’s Buying Trucking Companies in 2026

Deal counts differ by source because each firm counts a different universe — Tenney Group tracked 1,150 global transportation & logistics deals in 2025 (down 21.7%), while PMCF counted 121 US-only deals. Both agree activity improved in the first half of 2026. Lincoln International summarizes the buyer mindset well: “Buyers are acquiring capabilities rather than capacity.”

Private-equity-backed platforms

Several are serial acquirers rather than one-off buyers: Kenan Advantage Group (backed by OMERS) closed five or more tank and bulk deals across 2024–25; PS Logistics (Gamut Capital and BCI) has completed 26 trucking acquisitions since 2016; Trimac has done 20 bulk deals since 2019; Heniff Transportation continues to consolidate chemical and bulk. Newer capital keeps entering asset-based trucking — Stonepeak acquired Dupré Logistics in April 2025 and Avkha Equity acquired Dart Transit in January 2026.

Strategic buyers — and what they paid

The large carriers have been buying, with disclosed prices: Werner acquired FirstFleet for $282.8M total consideration (January 2026); Schneider acquired Cowan Systems for $390M plus roughly $31M of real estate (December 2024); TFI International acquired Daseke for $1.1B; RXO acquired Coyote for $1.025B.

Drayage and intermodal consolidation is real

This matters directly for NJ operators. RoadOne IntermodaLogistics (Ridgemont Equity and Nonantum Capital) has assembled 100+ terminals and 2,500+ drivers through acquisition. Kuehne+Nagel took a 51% stake in IMC Logistics, which moves roughly 2 million TEUs a year. Hub Group acquired Marten’s intermodal operation at about 1.0× revenue.

Final mile

ADL Final Mile (Red Dog Equity / Monroe Capital) and Argosy Private Equity are active consolidators in last-mile delivery.

The counter-argument, so you hear it from us first: private equity has a structural problem with asset-based trucking. As Craig Decker of Brown Gibbons Lang put it in August 2026, fleet replacement cycles outrun the typical three-to-five-year PE hold period. The cautionary case is One Equity Partners’ Montgomery Transport — acquired in 2022, the exit collapsed, and it filed Chapter 7 in October 2025. This is why we do not simply run every seller to the same PE list. Strategics, regional carriers and 3PLs often pay better and close more reliably for asset-heavy operations.

Why you should not call these buyers yourself. Knowing a name is not the same as getting their best price. Corporate-development teams at these platforms do not publish a phone number, and approaching one alone tells them exactly what they want to know — that you have no alternatives. The value of a process is that eight qualified buyers bid against each other on price, terms, transition and how much of the business you keep. That competition is what moves the number, not the introduction.

The Port of New York & New Jersey Advantage

The Port of New York and New Jersey is the largest container port on the US East Coast and the third largest in the nation, handling roughly 8.90 million TEUs in 2025 — about 13.5% of all US port volume and 35.3% of East Coast volume. (You will see brokers call it “the #2 port in America.” That is true only for loaded containers specifically; we would rather give you the number you can defend in a buyer meeting.)

The drayage capacity picture is tighter than it looks

The Port Authority’s own PortTruckPass reporting for May 2026 shows 35,404 trucks registered in the Drayage Truck Registry but only 10,222 actually in service — 29%. Those trucks made 301,590 gate visits, averaging 29.5 visits per truck. The registered-but-inactive gap is why a genuinely active, credentialed drayage operation is harder to replicate than a raw truck count suggests.

The credential stack is the moat

Port work requires a layered set of credentials — Drayage Truck Registry registration, TWIC cards, and SEA LINK — plus equipment that meets the registry’s model-year floor (new registrations require MY2014 or newer engines, though existing registrations are grandfathered; 13.43% of registered trucks still run 1999–2006 engines). A buyer cannot simply hire drivers and start pulling containers next month. That is a real barrier to entry, and barriers to entry are what buyers pay premiums for.

What the NJ market looks like

Bureau of Labor Statistics QCEW data shows NAICS 484 (truck transportation) in New Jersey at 3,755 establishments and 37,416 employees in 2025 — establishments down roughly 15% over two years. Consolidation is happening; the surviving operators with real contracts and clean compliance are the ones buyers are competing for.

An honest note on “port premium”: we could not find published transaction data proving port-adjacent carriers sell at a specific premium multiple, and we are not going to invent one. What we can document is the mechanism — credential barriers, the registered-vs-active gap, and active drayage roll-up buyers — and argue it in front of buyers with evidence.

The October 1, 2026 NJ Independent Contractor Rule — Read This First

If you use owner-operators, this is the most consequential item on this page, and the timing is immediate.

New Jersey adopted N.J.A.C. 12:11 on May 5, 2026, and it becomes operative October 1, 2026, codifying the state’s ABC test for worker classification. The rule drew over 9,500 public comments, more than 99% opposed. The final version did add a carve-out that matters for carriers: actions taken solely to comply with federal, state or local law are not, standing alone, evidence of control under Prong A.

Why NJ is different from most states

Hargrove v. Sleepy’s (NJ Supreme Court, 2015) extended the ABC test to New Jersey Wage Payment and Wage & Hour claims.
The federal preemption argument carriers rely on elsewhere has already lost in the Third Circuit — Bedoya v. American Eagle Express (2019) held that the FAAAA does not preempt application of the ABC test.

Enforcement is active, large, and aimed at the port

These are not theoretical risks. The NJ Department of Labor settled with STG Logistics / STG Drayage for $2,775,000 in July 2026, covering 300+ port drayage drivers, with a $7.5M penalty if the agreement is breached. PDX North settled for $7,000,000 covering 1,000+ drivers. Smaller settlements have run into the hundreds of thousands.

What this means for your sale. Any buyer’s counsel will price classification exposure into the deal — through the purchase price, an escrow holdback, or specific indemnities. Sellers who get ahead of this (documented contracts, defensible operational facts, counsel’s opinion in the data room) keep control of the narrative. Sellers who let a buyer discover it in diligence hand over leverage at the worst possible moment. This is one of the first things we pressure-test before going to market.

Correction to a common myth: New Jersey’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule does not impose a zero-emission purchase mandate on trucking companies. It regulates manufacturers, not fleets, and has been administratively paused through model year 2026 amid federal litigation. If a buyer or advisor tells you NJ is forcing you to buy electric trucks, they are wrong.

MC Authority: Asset Sale vs. Stock Sale

This single structural choice drives more of a trucking deal than any other, because it determines what the buyer actually receives.

Stock sale — the entity survives

The legal entity is unchanged, so the USDOT and MC numbers, the safety rating, CSA history, IRP and IFTA registrations all carry over. So does every liability, known and unknown — which is exactly why buyers demand deeper diligence, longer reps and warranties, and often an escrow.

Asset sale — a clean slate, with a cost

USDOT numbers are not transferable. In practice most asset buyers obtain their own operating authority (a $300 application, a $750,000 minimum liability coverage requirement, and an 18-month new-entrant safety monitoring period). A brand-new authority with no safety history can affect shipper qualification and insurance pricing — a real, quantifiable cost that belongs in the negotiation.

Two things that catch sellers off guard

FMCSA’s new registration system. The agency’s “Motus” platform began phasing in from December 2025, adding identity proofing and ownership-structure verification. Any change of ownership now runs through more friction than it did two years ago — build the timeline into your closing schedule.
Chameleon-carrier scrutiny. Under 49 CFR 386.73, an ordinary asset purchase can trip 8 of the 13 “substantial continuity” factors FMCSA uses to decide whether a new entity is really the old one. A buyer acquiring a carrier with a poor safety record needs a documented, arm’s-length business purpose. This is solvable, but only if it is planned for.

Deliberately not published here: a step-by-step MC transfer procedure. FMCSA’s own regulations are genuinely tangled right now — a 2013 rule eliminated the transfer application, but the modern sections were suspended in November 2023, reinstating older text that still references a filing and fee. Any broker publishing a confident checklist is guessing. The transfer must be reported to FMCSA, and this belongs with transportation counsel on your specific facts.

Safety Ratings and the CSA Data Buyers Cannot See

Under 49 CFR 385.3 there are three ratings: Satisfactory, Conditional (controls inadequate such that listed occurrences could result), and Unsatisfactory (they have resulted — and it triggers an out-of-service order). Most small carriers are simply Unrated, which is not a red flag.

Here is the leverage point most sellers do not know: a buyer cannot look up your CSA percentile scores. The FAST Act removed public access to property carriers’ BASIC percentiles. Buyers see roadside inspection data but not the ranked scores.

How we use that. If your safety profile is strong, it is an asset the buyer cannot verify on their own — so we produce your Safety Measurement System printouts as a controlled LOI deliverable and get credit for it in the price. If it is weak, we would far rather find that ourselves, build the remediation story, and disclose it deliberately than have it surface mid-diligence. Either way, you control the disclosure instead of the buyer controlling the surprise.

One more myth worth killing: the “new 2026 CSA scoring system” that several SEO-driven sites describe as live has not launched. The enhanced Safety Measurement System follow-up notice was never published.

Drivers: Retention Is the Real Value Driver

The industry has quietly moved off the “driver shortage” framing. In October 2025 the American Trucking Associations’ chief economist Bob Costello reframed it as “a quality problem around drivers, much more so than an absolute number,” and ATA’s current data no longer publishes a shortage figure.

The most useful data point available comes from the National Academies’ federally commissioned Special Report 355 (2024): long-run driver turnover runs about 92.7% at large truckload carriers versus 11.8% for LTL linehaul. Same CDL, same labor pool, an eight-fold difference. Turnover is a function of the job design — home time, predictability, pay structure — not of a national shortage.

For a buyer, that is the whole ballgame. Trucks can be bought. A stable, safe, tenured driver roster in a tight labor market cannot. If your turnover materially beats the truckload norm, that is one of the strongest arguments we can make on your behalf — and it needs to be documented, not asserted.

Equipment, Leases and the Balance Sheet

Equipment is a floor on value and an obligation at closing — not a simple add-on to the multiple.

Fleet age matters and the industry has aged. ACT Research puts the average Class 8 tractor age at 6.3 years, a 12-year high. A younger, well-maintained fleet is a genuine differentiator because it defers the buyer’s capital expenditure.
Used equipment values are contested right now. Average used Class 8 retail was about $61,751 in June 2026, with July down 4.4% month over month. Notably ACT Research and J.D. Power disagree on the year-over-year direction (+1.5% vs. −3.7%). We will not pretend there is a single number — we get your fleet appraised rather than argue from an index.
TRAC lease residual shortfalls are the seller’s obligation. If your leases carry residual exposure, that becomes cash off your proceeds at closing. Sellers are routinely surprised by this. It should be modeled before you set an asking price, not discovered at the closing table.

Factoring, Receivables and the UCC Trap

If you factor invoices, there is a technical issue that can delay or derail a closing, and most sellers have never heard of it.

Paying off your advance balance does not automatically release the factor’s lien. Because factoring is structured as a true sale of accounts, UCC §9-513(c) expressly carves out sold accounts from the ordinary rule that a secured party must terminate once no obligation remains. The factor’s duty to terminate arises only once the purchased invoices have actually been paid by your brokers and shippers.

What a clean closing requires — three documents, not one: (1) a payoff letter from the factor, (2) a letter of release sent to everyone who received the original notice of assignment, and (3) a filed UCC-3 termination, verified against the Secretary of State record — not merely promised. We check the filing ourselves. A stale UCC-1 sitting on the record is one of the most common causes of a last-minute delay in a trucking closing.

How the Buyer Finances It — and the October 2026 SBA Change

Many trucking companies in the $1M–$5M range sell to individual buyers using SBA 7(a) acquisition financing. Two rule changes effective October 1, 2026 (SOP 50 10 8.1) directly affect how those deals get structured:

Acquisitions at or above $3 million now require a Quality of Earnings report that must specifically assess customer concentration risk. For a carrier with one or two dominant shippers, that is no longer a soft issue — it is a documented underwriting item.
Seller earnouts are prohibited in SBA deals. That removes the standard tool for bridging a concentration disagreement, which pushes the negotiation into price, escrow, or seller notes instead.

The practical consequence: if your freight is concentrated, the fix has to happen before you go to market, or the structure has to move away from SBA financing toward strategic and PE buyers who can underwrite it differently. This is exactly the kind of thing that should shape your timeline a year out, not surface in week six of diligence.

What Kills a Trucking Deal

In our experience these are the recurring causes of a trucking sale falling apart. Every one of them is solvable with lead time, and nearly unfixable once a buyer finds it first:

Undocumented owner compensation and add-backs

Personal vehicles in the fleet, family on payroll, cash fuel purchases, commingled expenses. Buyers and SBA lenders credit only what you can prove. Undocumented add-backs get stripped out of earnings at the worst possible moment — and every dollar removed comes out multiplied.

Customer concentration

One shipper at 40% of revenue is the most common single objection in trucking diligence, and as of October 2026 it is a formal SBA underwriting item on larger deals. Diversifying takes quarters, not weeks.

Worker classification exposure

See the October 1, 2026 NJ rule above. For an owner-operator fleet in New Jersey this is now the first thing sophisticated buyers examine.

Safety history that surfaces late

A Conditional rating or a bad crash history is survivable if disclosed and explained on your terms. Discovered by the buyer, it reads as concealment and repricing follows.

The owner is the operation

If you personally hold the shipper relationships, dispatch the loads, and negotiate the rates, a buyer is purchasing a job. A dispatcher or operations manager who stays through transition is worth real multiple.

Lease and lien surprises

TRAC residual shortfalls and un-terminated factoring liens (above) both hit at closing. Both are knowable months in advance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What multiple do trucking companies sell for in 2026?

Asset-based trucking companies averaged about 5.5× EV/EBITDA and 0.9× EV/revenue from 2019 through 2025 (Capstone Partners). Smaller owner-operated fleets typically trade nearer 3× SDE, while lower-middle-market carriers with $5M–$50M revenue generally fall in the 4×–6.5× EBITDA range. Asset-light logistics businesses average about 12× EBITDA — which is why your business mix matters as much as your size.

Is 2026 a good time to sell a trucking company?

Trailing earnings are near a cyclical peak. DAT’s July 2026 national spot averages were $3.01/mile van, $3.42 reefer and $3.64 flatbed, and in June 2026 dry van spot exceeded contract rates for the first time since February 2022. But this is supply-driven, and capacity is already returning — Class 8 orders more than tripled year over year in June 2026. Because buyers underwrite trailing twelve-month earnings, the timing of when you go to market materially changes the number.

Does the MC authority transfer when I sell my trucking company?

It depends on structure. In a stock sale the entity is unchanged, so USDOT and MC numbers, safety rating, CSA history, IRP and IFTA all carry over — along with all liabilities. In an asset sale USDOT numbers are not transferable and most buyers obtain their own authority ($300 application, $750,000 minimum liability coverage, and an 18-month new-entrant monitoring period). FMCSA’s transfer procedure is currently in flux, so this belongs with transportation counsel.

How does New Jersey’s October 1, 2026 independent contractor rule affect my sale?

N.J.A.C. 12:11 was adopted May 5, 2026 and becomes operative October 1, 2026, codifying NJ’s ABC test. New Jersey is a high-risk state for owner-operator models — Hargrove v. Sleepy’s extended the ABC test to state wage claims, and the Third Circuit held in Bedoya that the FAAAA does not preempt it. Enforcement is active and port-focused, including a $2,775,000 NJDOL settlement with STG Logistics in July 2026. Buyers price this into price, escrow or indemnities.

Can a buyer see my CSA scores in due diligence?

Not directly. The FAST Act removed public access to property carriers’ CSA BASIC percentile rankings, so buyers see roadside inspection data but not ranked scores. That means a strong safety profile is an asset a buyer cannot independently verify — which is why it is usually best produced as a controlled Safety Measurement System deliverable at the LOI stage, so you get credit for it in pricing.

Who buys trucking companies in New Jersey?

Four pools. PE-backed platforms (Kenan Advantage Group, PS Logistics, Trimac, Heniff) are serial acquirers, especially in bulk and tank. Strategic carriers have been active with disclosed prices — Werner acquired FirstFleet for $282.8M in January 2026, Schneider acquired Cowan Systems for $390M. Drayage is consolidating specifically (RoadOne IntermodaLogistics, Kuehne+Nagel’s 51% of IMC Logistics). And SBA-financed individual buyers are the deepest pool for smaller fleets.

Do I need to pay off my factoring line before closing?

Paying the advance balance is not enough on its own. Because factoring is a true sale of accounts, UCC §9-513(c) carves out sold accounts from the usual termination trigger — the factor’s duty to terminate arises only once purchased invoices are actually paid. A clean closing needs three things: a payoff letter, a letter of release to everyone who got the notice of assignment, and a filed UCC-3 verified against the Secretary of State record.

What kills a trucking company sale?

The recurring causes: undocumented owner add-backs that get stripped from earnings in diligence; customer concentration (a formal SBA underwriting item on deals ≥$3M as of October 1, 2026); worker classification exposure under NJ’s ABC test; a safety history that surfaces late instead of being disclosed on your terms; owner dependence; and closing surprises from TRAC lease residual shortfalls or un-terminated factoring liens.

How does New Jersey's October 1, 2026 independent contractor rule affect my sale?

N.J.A.C. 12:11 was adopted May 5, 2026 and becomes operative October 1, 2026, codifying New Jersey's ABC test for worker classification. New Jersey is a high-risk state for owner-operator models: Hargrove v. Sleepy's extended the ABC test to state wage claims, and the Third Circuit held in Bedoya v. American Eagle Express that the FAAAA does not preempt it. Enforcement is active and port-focused, including a $2,775,000 NJ Department of Labor settlement with STG Logistics in July 2026 and a $7,000,000 settlement with PDX North. Buyers price this exposure into purchase price, escrow or indemnities, so sellers using owner-operators should address it before going to market.

Related Guides

Sell a Port Drayage Company (NJ)

Distribution Routes NJ/NY

Sell a Main Street Business in NJ

Quality of Earnings Guide

NJ Closing Checklist

Free Confidential Valuation

Sources & Methodology

We publish the sources behind our numbers so you can verify them — and so you can tell the difference between market data and broker marketing. Figures on this page are current as of August 2026; the freight market moves quickly and any multiple or rate should be re-checked at the time you go to market.

Multiples: Capstone Partners 3PL M&A Coverage Report (Sept 2025); S&P Capital IQ public comparables (July 2025); Axial disclosed closed-deal data; BizBuySell trucking benchmarks; IBBA Market Pulse Q3 2025.
Freight market: DAT Freight & Analytics monthly rate data (July 2026); FreightWaves SONAR National Truckload Index; ACT Research (Class 8 orders, driver availability, used equipment).
Regulatory: FMCSA (operating authority, Motus registration, ELP enforcement data); 49 CFR 385.3 and 386.73; FAST Act §5223; N.J.A.C. 12:11; Hargrove v. Sleepy’s, 220 N.J. 289 (2015); Bedoya v. American Eagle Express (3d Cir. 2019); NJ Department of Labor settlement announcements; SBA SOP 50 10 8.1.
Port & market size: Port Authority of NY & NJ PortTruckPass reporting and annual volume statistics; BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (NAICS 484).
Labor: National Academies (TRB) Special Report 355 (2024); American Trucking Associations.

Nothing on this page is legal, tax or accounting advice. Classification, authority transfer and lien matters should be reviewed by qualified transportation counsel on your specific facts.