Freight Brokerage
Freight brokers, customs brokers, digital freight platforms, and international freight forwarders connecting shippers with carriers.
- 6
- Segments
- 23
- Verticals
Overview
Freight Brokerage covers the intermediaries who match shippers with carriers and arrange freight transportation without owning the trucks, ships, or planes: domestic truckload and LTL brokerage, international freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and ocean/NVOCC services. At roughly $135 billion across ~22,000 establishments, it is an asset-light, relationship- and technology-driven business sitting between shippers and capacity.
Revenue is highly cyclical with freight rates: the ~16% growth reflects the 2021–22 freight boom (when supply-chain disruption sent rates soaring), which was followed by a severe 2023–24 freight recession that hit brokerage hard. The domestic truckload-brokerage market is large and fragmented (C.H. Robinson the leader at well under 20% share), and the sector is being reshaped by digital freight platforms and automation, though Convoy's 2023 collapse showed the model's challenges. International forwarding is consolidated around global players.
Market snapshot
- Market size
- ~$135B
- Growth
- ~15.8%CAGR (2017–22, nominal)
- Companies
- ~15,852 firms
86.8% of firms have fewer than 20 employees: 13,754 micro-businesses, below most mandates.
- 20–99
- 1,43368%
- 100–499
- 40419%
- 500+
- 26112%
The fastest-growing logistics segment measured here, and the one most exposed to the freight cycle: brokers earn a spread between what a shipper pays and what a carrier accepts, and that spread widens exactly when capacity is short. 2022 was the peak of the widest spread in a generation. Treat the level as a cycle high, not a run rate.
NAICS 488510. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
Business model & economics
Revenue model
Brokerage margin (spread between shipper and carrier rates)
Key economics
- Revenue per firm
- $8,509,857
- Revenue per employee
- $380,114
- Employees per firm
- 20.4
- Recurring revenue
- Moderate
- EBITDA margin
- Asset-light margin; cyclical with freight rates
- Capex intensity
- Low
recurring shipper relationships; spot exposure
Characteristics
- Scale-driven: payroll is only 19% of revenue, so the cost base is assets, not headcount
- Deep strategic-buyer pool: 261 firms exceed 500 employees, so a scaled asset has trade buyers
- Asset-light matching of shippers and carriers.
- Highly cyclical (2021–22 boom, 2023–24 recession).
- Digital platforms reshaping it (with notable failures).
NAICS 488510. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses; U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census.
Geographic concentration
Texas, Illinois and Florida. Brokerage clusters at the freight crossroads of Chicago's rail and highway interchange, the Texas border and port complex, and Florida's import gateways.
U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Statistics of U.S. Businesses (firms by state), NAICS 488510. Concentration shown by location quotient.
M&A deal context
Who’s acquiring
- Brokerage majors (C.H. Robinson et al.)
- Digital-freight & logistics platforms
- PE-backed brokerage consolidators
What’s driving deals
- Brokerage roll-ups and freight-recession consolidation.
- Digital-freight and automation disruption.
- Asset-light scale and shipper relationships.
Segments in this industry
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