The carrier’s Q4 operating revenue totaled $179.4 million in the most recent quarter, compared with $242.6 million in Q4 2024. (Heartland Express)
February 3, 2026 5:21 PM, EST
Key Takeaways:
- Heartland’s $19 million impairment tied to its fleet consolidation drove a larger quarterly loss and sharply increased its operating ratio amid the prolonged freight rate recession.
- Despite weaker revenue and a higher OR, the carrier reported steady adjusted OR gains through 2025 as internal process upgrades and fleet integration took hold.
- Heartland expects freight market improvements later in 2026 while pursuing long-term goals of a stronger OR, profitable growth and eliminating debt from its 2022 acquisitions.
Losses at Heartland Express jumped in the fourth quarter of 2025 after the carrier took a $19 million impairment charge on a fleet consolidation and rebranding in order to prepare for the expected upturn in the freight market as 2026 progresses.
Heartland posted a loss of $19.4 million in the most recent quarter, compared with a $1.9 million loss in the year-ago period.
Truckload carrier Heartland merged its Contract Freighter’s Inc. and Heartland Express fleets in Q4. Heartland bought CFI in August 2022, shortly after acquiring Smith Transport in May 2022.
North Liberty, Iowa-based Heartland ranks No. 39 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America and No. 11 among truckload carriers.
As a result of the impairment charge and lower revenue from the ongoing freight rate recession — the longest in the career of most freight market participants — Heartland’s operating ratio spiked.
A carrier’s OR provides insight on how well a company is balancing its costs and revenue generation. The lower the ratio, the better a company’s performance.
Heartland’s OR in Q4 was 112.7, while its OR without the impairment charge was 101.6, compared with 99.6 and 98.9 — adjusted for non-generally accepted accounting principles — in the year-ago period, respectively.
The carrier’s Q4 operating revenue totaled $179.4 million in the most recent quarter, compared with $242.6 million in Q4 2024.
“We believe the investments made to improve our internal processes and systems, along with the strategic decision to consolidate our two largest operating fleets of drivers into Heartland Express at the end of 2025, have and will continue to allow us to improve our operating results,” Heartland Express CEO Mike Gerdin said.
“Further, we believe that this gives us the best probability for success and allows us to better capitalize on potential industry and market improvements in 2026,” he added in comments accompanying the results.
Heartland said the advances were illustrated by quarter-by-quarter improvements in the adjusted OR from 107.1 in the first three months of 2025, 106 in the second quarter of 2025, 103.5 in the third quarter of 2025, and 101.6 in Q4.
Further improvements at Heartland and across the freight market are expected as 2026 progresses, although much of the latter will take until the second half of the year, the company said.
“We believe we are seeing positive signs across the landscape of the transportation industry to reduce excess capacity through both regulatory enforcement and more abrupt exits of capacity,” Gerdin said.
“We do not believe that there will be meaningful improvement until some months later in 2026. We are, however, seeing early trends of positive shifts in customer volume, certain rates and increasing customer expectations, which are a positive change from the last three years of operation,” he added.
Heartland borrowed $494.1 million to buy CFI and Smith in 2022 and expects to become debt-free in 2027, one of three financial goals for the company.
“Our financial goals continue to be (i) generate an operating ratio in the low to mid-80s, (ii) grow revenue profitably, organically and through acquisitions and (iii) carry a debt-free balance sheet,” Gerdin said.
As of Dec. 31, Heartland owed $159.8 million linked to the 2022 acquisitions after making $41.2 million in debt payments in 2025.
