Official wages, your waiting time
Detention and idle time: what a waiting hour costs
When a truck waits at a dock, the clock keeps running on pay and on the truck. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures what employers pay tractor-trailer drivers in every state. The employment-weighted mean is $28.71 an hour. It runs from $24.96 in Louisiana to $33.42 in Alaska. No official source we could reach says how long drivers wait in each state, so that part is left to your own logs.
SnapshotBLS wages for heavy and tractor-trailer truck driversData period: OEWS estimates labelled 2025 (May reference)Retrieved Oct 9, 2026, 11:01 UTCretrieved Oct 9, 2026
What this index is and is not
It is the pay part of an idle hour for employee drivers. It leaves out payroll tax, benefits, insurance, the truck payment and lost revenue, because the wage file does not have them. It says nothing about how often drivers wait. For that, no state figure from an official source is in our files: detention length by state = no data. Use your own load logs.
Driver pay for a waiting hour, by state
Darker states pay more per hour, so each hour of waiting costs more. Click a state or a table row.
- $24.96 to $27.32 (11 states)
- $27.59 to $28.44 (10 states)
- $28.45 to $29.13 (10 states)
- $29.16 to $30.45 (10 states)
- $30.56 to $33.42 (10 states)
- No data
| State | Mean hourly pay | Mean annual pay | Drivers employed | Index, U.S. weighted mean = 100 | Pay for 2 hours standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $27.03 | 56,230 | 36,650 | 94 | $54.06 |
| Alaska | $33.42 | 69,520 | 3,420 | 116 | $66.84 |
| Arizona | $28.30 | 58,870 | 40,150 | 99 | $56.60 |
| Arkansas | $27.59 | 57,390 | 32,220 | 96 | $55.18 |
| California | $29.82 | 62,020 | 205,090 | 104 | $59.64 |
| Colorado | $30.60 | 63,650 | 25,350 | 107 | $61.20 |
| Connecticut | $29.80 | 61,980 | 15,740 | 104 | $59.60 |
| Delaware | $27.59 | 57,380 | 9,040 | 96 | $55.18 |
| District of Columbia | $32.55 | 67,710 | 830 | 113 | $65.10 |
| Florida | $26.37 | 54,850 | 112,920 | 92 | $52.74 |
| Georgia | $27.78 | 57,780 | 74,840 | 97 | $55.56 |
| Hawaii | $29.26 | 60,850 | 4,070 | 102 | $58.52 |
| Idaho | $28.44 | 59,160 | 15,920 | 99 | $56.88 |
| Illinois | $30.01 | 62,430 | 84,200 | 105 | $60.02 |
| Indiana | $29.30 | 60,950 | 59,090 | 102 | $58.60 |
| Iowa | $28.88 | 60,070 | 35,040 | 101 | $57.76 |
| Kansas | $29.08 | 60,480 | 24,220 | 101 | $58.16 |
| Kentucky | $28.78 | 59,870 | 31,760 | 100 | $57.56 |
| Louisiana | $24.96 | 51,930 | 28,540 | 87 | $49.92 |
| Maine | $26.91 | 55,980 | 9,980 | 94 | $53.82 |
| Maryland | $29.13 | 60,590 | 29,150 | 101 | $58.26 |
| Massachusetts | $30.56 | 63,570 | 30,890 | 106 | $61.12 |
| Michigan | $27.10 | 56,370 | 60,800 | 94 | $54.20 |
| Minnesota | $30.59 | 63,630 | 38,770 | 107 | $61.18 |
| Mississippi | $26.88 | 55,910 | 24,160 | 94 | $53.76 |
| Missouri | $27.32 | 56,830 | 47,760 | 95 | $54.64 |
| Montana | $28.45 | 59,180 | 7,830 | 99 | $56.90 |
| Nebraska | $28.88 | 60,070 | 23,160 | 101 | $57.76 |
| Nevada | $31.25 | 65,010 | 15,010 | 109 | $62.50 |
| New Hampshire | $29.13 | 60,600 | 6,960 | 101 | $58.26 |
| New Jersey | $32.10 | 66,770 | 47,980 | 112 | $64.20 |
| New Mexico | $25.53 | 53,100 | 11,820 | 89 | $51.06 |
| New York | $31.63 | 65,780 | 63,700 | 110 | $63.26 |
| North Carolina | $26.83 | 55,810 | 62,400 | 93 | $53.66 |
| North Dakota | $30.45 | 63,330 | 11,870 | 106 | $60.90 |
| Ohio | $29.16 | 60,660 | 83,060 | 102 | $58.32 |
| Oklahoma | $27.73 | 57,670 | 27,840 | 97 | $55.46 |
| Oregon | $30.81 | 64,080 | 23,970 | 107 | $61.62 |
| Pennsylvania | $28.67 | 59,640 | 87,550 | 100 | $57.34 |
| Rhode Island | $28.68 | 59,660 | 3,620 | 100 | $57.36 |
| South Carolina | $26.77 | 55,680 | 34,170 | 93 | $53.54 |
| South Dakota | $28.15 | 58,550 | 6,470 | 98 | $56.30 |
| Tennessee | $29.06 | 60,440 | 64,890 | 101 | $58.12 |
| Texas | $27.88 | 57,990 | 209,680 | 97 | $55.76 |
| Utah | $29.28 | 60,900 | 25,060 | 102 | $58.56 |
| Vermont | $29.37 | 61,100 | 3,560 | 102 | $58.74 |
| Virginia | $27.78 | 57,770 | 48,750 | 97 | $55.56 |
| Washington | $32.80 | 68,230 | 40,530 | 114 | $65.60 |
| West Virginia | $25.21 | 52,440 | 12,190 | 88 | $50.42 |
| Wisconsin | $28.31 | 58,890 | 53,330 | 99 | $56.62 |
| Wyoming | $30.37 | 63,180 | 6,050 | 106 | $60.74 |
Index = the state mean hourly pay divided by the U.S. mean, which we computed by weighting each state by its number of employed drivers (both from the same BLS file). Owner-operators are self-employed and are not in this survey.
What this number means
- An hour of waiting costs at least the driver's hourly pay. In this file that is $24.96 to $33.42 depending on the state, before the truck itself.
- The truck keeps costing money while it waits: payment, insurance and permits do not pause. You know that number from your own books. The calculator asks for it.
- Detention is only worth billing if you wrote down when the truck arrived and when it left. Without timestamps the hour is a dispute, not an invoice.
- The state index is a pay level, not a waiting level. A high-wage state does not mean longer waits.
What to do about it
- Write down arrival, door-open and departure times on every load for a month. That is the data that does not exist in any official file.
- Compare the break-even number below with the detention fee in your rate confirmation. If the fee is lower, each billed hour still loses money.
- Ask for the free time and the hourly fee in writing before you accept a load, not after you wait.
- Check how many of your loads wait more than the free time. Only those hours count.
What waiting costs your fleet in a year
Your numbers in, arithmetic out. Nothing is sent anywhere. Leave the pay box empty to use the BLS state mean.
Waiting hours cost you each year
enter numbers
- Pay rate used
- Cost of one standing hour
- Billable waiting hours a year
- Collected in detention fees
- Not recovered
- Fee that breaks even
Formula: loads x weeks x share waiting x hours x (pay x (1 + add-on) + truck cost per hour). Not recovered = that cost minus hours x fee collected. The example numbers are invented placeholders. Replace them with yours.
Where the numbers come from
Related: detention pay guide, detention pay calculator.
See what your last 20 loads show.
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