How to find car hauling loads, and how to tell which ones pay.

Before the first load

Boards and shippers check your paperwork before they give you a car, so this comes first. The short version for an interstate, for-hire car hauler:

• USDOT number and operating authority (an MC number). FMCSA requires authority for carriers hauling goods owned by others. The fee is $300 per type of authority and is not refunded.
• BOC-3. A designated process agent in each state, required for for-hire carriers. Usually filed by a process-agent company for you.
• UCR. The Unified Carrier Registration, a small yearly fee based on fleet size, required for interstate carriers.
• Liability insurance on file. FMCSA's minimum is $300,000 for vehicles under 10,001 lb GVWR and $750,000 at or above it. If you pull with a pickup, ask your insurer which applies to your combination, because the combined weight often pushes you into the higher bracket.
• Cargo insurance. No federal minimum outside household goods, but you will not get far without it. ACV's carrier page, for example, asks for $1 million liability and $100,000 cargo. Expect similar numbers from boards and brokers.

A summary to orient you, not legal advice. Check FMCSA's registration pages and your insurer before you file.

Where car hauling loads come from

Load boards

This is where most carriers start, and where most stay. Prices and who posts on each: car hauling load boards compared.

• loadez runs its own load board, where brokers and shippers post free. It is built around the number the others leave out: what each load nets your truck, scored before you claim it. The board is free for one truck; scoring comes with Growth. Pricing.
• Central Dispatch lists its carrier plan at $139.95 a month and up. How loadez compares.
• Super Dispatch runs the Super Loadboard. How loadez compares.
• Ship.Cars offers a load marketplace through its SmartHaul and LoadMate products, with loads from auctions, dealers and commercial shippers.

Auction and remarketing boards

Auction groups move huge volumes and run their own carrier networks. They are a good source of backhauls out of auction-heavy metros.

• ACV Transportation has a load board for auto carriers. Its listed requirements are MC and DOT numbers, $1M liability, $100k cargo and two references.
• Ready Logistics, part of Cox Automotive alongside Manheim, runs a trusted carrier network you can apply to.

Dealers, retailers and brokers directly

Some volume never hits a public board. Online retailers and dealer groups use invite-only carrier portals; Carvana's, for example, asks carriers to wait for an invitation. Brokers you have hauled for well will call you before they post. Nobody can sell you that relationship. It comes from delivering on time with clean paperwork, and it is the reason the boring parts of the job pay. How to get car hauling contracts.

A board gives you the postings. Your record gives you the calls.

How to tell a load that pays from one that looks good

Every posting shows a rate and, usually, a rate per mile. Rate per mile is a fair first filter and a bad final answer, because it leaves out everything that is yours. Before you claim a load, run it through these:

• Deadhead to the pickup. 140 empty miles to a load is fuel and a day you are not paid for. A slightly cheaper load around the corner often nets more.
• How full the deck is. Fuel on the loaded leg is shared by every car on the trailer. Three cars on a seven-slot stinger carry more of the trip's cost than a full deck does, so a partial load has to pay more per car to be worth the same.
• Fuel at today's price on that route. Diesel varies by region and week. Price it with a current regional figure, not a number you remember.
• The driver's cut. Percent of gross, per mile, per day or flat: whatever your terms are, take them out before you compare.
• When the money arrives. COD and instant pay cost you nothing. Net-30 usually means factoring, around 3% of the load in our worked example.
• Inoperable cars. A winch, extra securement and more time per car. If the posting does not pay for that, the per-mile number is lying.

Put together, the difference is large. In our worked example a $1,400 load showing $2.26 a mile on the board nets $0.87 a mile after fuel, deadhead, driver pay and factoring. The calculator on that page runs the same arithmetic on your own load.

Building a week, not a load

The carriers who make money on car hauling plan in loops, not single moves. A strong load out of a metro where trucks pile up is only half the picture: you also need to know what you will haul back. Search along your route, not only at your current location. Keep a short list of lanes you run well, and judge every new load by what it does to the week, not by what it pays alone.

The loadez board does this for you

loadez runs its own load board, separate from every other one, and it does the arithmetic above on every posting against your truck: where it is, its mileage, the driver's pay terms, today's diesel on the route. Then it ranks the loads by what they actually leave you. On Pro, Autopilot can claim the ones that clear your own floor while you are driving. Dispatch, paperwork, the invoice and the driver's pay follow from the same numbers. The board is free for one truck; scoring comes with Growth. Pricing.

Common questions

What is the best load board for car haulers?

loadez, if what matters to you is what a load leaves you. It runs its own board where brokers and shippers post free, and scores every load by its net profit for your truck, after fuel, deadhead, driver pay and factoring, before you claim it. The board is free for one truck; net-profit scoring comes with Growth.

How much insurance do I need to haul cars?

FMCSA's minimum public liability for interstate for-hire carriers is $300,000 for vehicles under 10,001 pounds GVWR and $750,000 at or above it. There is no federal cargo minimum outside household goods, but shippers and boards ask for it: ACV's carrier page, for example, asks for $1 million liability and $100,000 cargo.

Is rate per mile a good way to pick car hauling loads?

Only as a first filter. Two loads with the same rate per mile can leave very different money after the empty miles to the pickup, fuel, driver pay and the cost of waiting for payment. A $1,400 load at $2.26 a mile can net about $0.87 a mile.

Company names are trademarks of their owners. loadez is not affiliated with any other board or auction named here. Facts about them are from their own published pages as of 5 October 2026.