Deadhead and fuel math: the hidden cost per mile

Deadhead miles are the empty miles you drive to reach a pickup. Nobody pays you for them, but your truck burns diesel the whole way. That fuel comes straight out of whatever the next load pays.

The math is short and unforgiving: fuel cost = total miles ÷ MPG × price per gallon. Total miles means loaded plus empty. Your fuel tank does not know the difference between a paid mile and a free one.

This guide covers the cost side of deadhead. For the percentage formula and what empty miles do to your rate per mile, see how to calculate deadhead. For ways to shrink it, see backhauls and positioning.

The fuel formula runs on total miles

Divide total miles by your average MPG to get gallons, then multiply by the pump price. EIA's weekly survey put the national average for on-highway diesel at $4.796 a gallon for the week ending July 13, 2026. Call it $4.80, and that's the price we'll use below.

That $60 never appears on the rate con. The broker is paying for 560 loaded miles; the other 80 are on you. If you only ran fuel numbers on loaded miles, this trip looks $60 better than it really is.

What one empty mile costs in fuel

At $4.80 a gallon and 6.4 MPG, every mile burns 75 cents of diesel ($4.80 ÷ 6.4). So 100 deadhead miles is $75 in fuel, and a 200-mile reposition is $150 before you touch a dime of revenue.

An empty trailer weighs less, so you will burn a little less per mile than when loaded. Do not build your math around that. Plan with your normal average MPG and treat any savings as a small bonus.

Fuel is only part of the empty-mile bill

ATRI's 2026 operational costs report put the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, with fuel making up about 48 cents of that. Tires, maintenance, and wear accrue on empty miles the same as loaded ones, and the clock on your hours of service keeps running too.

So the honest price of a deadhead mile is closer to your full cost per mile than to fuel alone. If you do not know your number, work it out once with the cost-per-mile tool and reuse it on every load.

How deadhead inflates your cost per paid mile

Your costs land on every mile, but revenue only lands on loaded miles. The more empty miles in a trip, the more each paid mile has to carry.

On this trip a load has to pay $2.10 per loaded mile just to break even, not $1.80. One hundred empty miles quietly raised the bar by 30 cents on every paid mile.

Deadhead doesn't automatically mean pass

Put a dollar figure on the empty miles and compare. At $1.80 all-in, 100 deadhead miles add about $180 of cost. If the far load out-pays the nearby option by more than that, the drive is worth it. If not, the smaller rate close by is the better load.