Freight Brokerage
Freight brokers, customs brokers, digital freight platforms, and international freight forwarders connecting shippers with carriers.
- 6
- Segments
- 24
- 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; 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 — 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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