New trucking companies in Rhode Island, April 2026
Rhode Island is adding about 22 new for-hire carriers a month (average of the three complete months to April 2026), +60% versus the prior three months and +5% versus a year earlier. The provisional count for August 2026 is 6, 4 of them single-truck operations. Over the last 12 months Rhode Island added 200 new carriers against 1,605 currently active, a 12.5% annual entry rate.
The two most recent months are provisional (census lag and MC-docket assignment delay); read trends on the three-month averages.
| Month | New carriers | With ≥1 power unit | Single-truck | Share of US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 2026 (provisional) | 6 | 5 | 4 | 0.2% |
| July 2026 (provisional) | 31 | 30 | 20 | 0.4% |
| June 2026 (undercounted) | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0.1% |
| May 2026 (undercounted) | 8 | 7 | 6 | 0.2% |
| April 2026 | 28 | 23 | 19 | 0.4% |
| March 2026 | 20 | 20 | 17 | 0.3% |
| February 2026 | 19 | 17 | 16 | 0.3% |
| January 2026 | 14 | 12 | 9 | 0.2% |
| December 2025 | 16 | 15 | 11 | 0.3% |
| November 2025 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 0.2% |
| October 2025 | 22 | 20 | 19 | 0.4% |
| September 2025 | 21 | 20 | 15 | 0.3% |
| August 2025 | 17 | 14 | 10 | 0.3% |
| July 2025 | 20 | 17 | 13 | 0.3% |
| June 2025 | 15 | 11 | 7 | 0.3% |
| May 2025 | 12 | 11 | 8 | 0.2% |
| April 2025 | 23 | 21 | 15 | 0.4% |
| March 2025 | 19 | 16 | 16 | 0.3% |
| February 2025 | 22 | 20 | 15 | 0.4% |
| January 2025 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 0.2% |
| December 2024 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 0.2% |
| November 2024 | 11 | 10 | 8 | 0.2% |
| October 2024 | 13 | 12 | 8 | 0.3% |
| September 2024 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 0.2% |
Browse the carriers themselves, with authority and insurance status, on USDOT Index: Rhode Island carriers.
May 2026 and June 2026 are undercounted. FMCSA moved carrier registration to a new system on 2026-05-14 and stopped writing the MC docket into the census for several weeks. This series counts carriers that carry a docket, so those months show roughly half their true entries; the underlying registration rate did not change. The headline averages on this page skip them, and the monthly table marks them. Treat any average spanning the cutover as a floor rather than a measurement.
Method
Active carriers in the FMCSA Company Census with a physical address in Rhode Island, an MC docket, and a USDOT number issued in the month shown. Older months understate entries slightly because carriers that have since gone inactive are excluded. Source: FMCSA via data.transportation.gov (public domain), reloaded monthly.
Last updated 2026-09-08 · first published 2026-09-07. Data sources are listed on each page; see About for methodology.