The Trump Administration took a number of actions in 2025 tightening enforcement on commercial drivers. Will those affect trucking capacity in 2026?
These actions included:
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A pause on certain work visas
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Greater enforcement of English language requirements
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Stricter rules for licensing drivers who live outside the country or state where the license was issued (non-domiciled CDLs)
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A shutdown of thousands of driver training programs
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Changes to electronic logging device rules.
Some of these, especially the English language proficiency and non-domiciled CDL initiatives, have raised questions about effects on the “driver shortage.”
For instance, the National Immigration Forum, an organization advocating for immigrant-friendly policies, citing industry estimates of a driver shortage of 60,000 to 80,000 drivers, noted that “foreign-born drivers have been instrumental in addressing these labor gaps, accounting for nearly one in six U.S. truck drivers. However, recent policy changes … threaten to worsen the shortage.”
However, analysts who spoke with Heavy Duty Trucking about trends for 2026 largely agreed that the stricter regulations focused on drivers haven’t yet had a significant impact on capacity. And while they will likely contribute to additional tightening in 2026, on their own, they are not a major factor.
How Will Driver Regulations Affect Trucking Capacity?
“While none of those factors individually would put much of a dent in trucking capacity, together they exert more pressure on the owner-operators that make up the majority of U.S. trucking firms and may deter new owner-operators from entering the business,” according to Michael Castagnetto, president, North American Surface Transportation, for C.H. Robinson.
The trucking analysts at Stifel believe the most meaningful measure is the crackdown on non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses, which they believe represents a low-double-digit percentage of the U.S. long-haul over-the-road market.
“English Language Proficiency enforcement, tighter visa issuance, and more stringent driver school oversight should also tighten capacity, though the effects here may be slower,” Stifel said in a report to investors.
“Ultimately, we see these regulatory changes ramping through 2026 and culminating toward the end of the year, but expect the discussions to be a meaningful part of shipper contract negotiations, thus supporting positive rate momentum earlier on,” Stifel analysts said.
FTR Vice President of Trucking Avery Vise said the firm is skeptical that the English language proficiency initiative will make a material difference in capacity on its own. The non-domiciled CDL crackdown could have more of an effect.
“What I think is more significant are the two things done more recently, and that is the tightening on ELD enforcement and the tightening on [entry-level] driver training programs.”
However, he said, when we do get a freight recovery, all of those restrictions on drivers put together “will constrict the pipeline to some degree.”
The Changing Driver Shortage Narrative
The “driver shortage” narrative has changed over the past few years as the industry has dealt with a freight recession and overcapacity.
For years, the American Trucking Associations issued estimates of the CDL driver shortage, while the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association called it a myth.
In 2021, for instance, ATA said the truck driver shortage would climb to a record high of just over 80,000 drivers. And that if those trends continued, the number could soar to 160,000 in less than 10 years.
However, during the ATA’s annual management conference in October 2025, ATA chief Chris Spear appeared to change the tone of the discussion regarding the driver shortage.
“The shortage in talent has never been about the number of people with a commercial driver’s license,” Spear said in his state of the industry address. “It’s about qualifications.
“We don’t lack people with CDLs… What we lack is a number of qualified drivers who meet our high standards of professionalism and safety.”
And as we reported in November, in announcing the FMCSA was targeting CDL Mills, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pushed back on the driver shortage narrative as well.
“I do not buy the idea that there’s not enough American truck drivers,” he said, but instead blamed it on companies hiring truck drivers without a valid CDL or who don’t meet federal safety requirements.
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