Chart of the Week: SONAR Tender Lead Time Index – USA SONAR: STLT.USA Seasonality View
Shipper tender lead times for requesting truckload capacity increased 7.3% to 3.63 days in 2025, up from 3.38 days in 2024. This represents a 39% increase over the average lead time in 2019 and marks the sixth consecutive year in which shippers have given carriers more time to cover contracted loads. While truckload tender lead times may not be a headline statistic, they are a strong indicator that shippers have improved their ability to anticipate freight movements, while also helping carriers keep capacity more readily available.
The SONAR Tender Lead Time index (STLT) measures the time between a shipper’s request for coverage and the requested pickup date. For example, if a shipper tenders a load on January 5 with a pickup date of January 9, the lead time is four days. Generally, an ideal lead time falls between three and six days, as this allows carriers sufficient time to reposition equipment into the pickup market.
The fact that shippers are giving carriers a full day more to position trucks than they did in 2019 is remarkable. Prior to the pandemic, markets with ample capacity typically experienced lead-time compression. In fact, average lead times shrank by roughly 4% from 2018 to 2019 as capacity loosened.
Order lead times can be difficult to interpret, as changes can signal multiple dynamics. Lead times often increase around holidays, as shippers place orders further into the future to secure capacity after holiday disruptions—most notably around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Lead times also tend to rise when shippers anticipate potential challenges securing capacity, but they can shrink rapidly when unexpected demand emerges, making additional context critical for interpretation.
From 2023 to 2024, lead times increased by just 1.1%, the smallest gain of the past six years. This is notable given that tender rejection rates averaged more than one percentage point higher in 2024, suggesting slightly more challenging capacity conditions. While some may have expected a larger increase in lead times, it is possible that the rise in rejection rates was not significant enough to meaningfully alter shipper behavior.
Tender rejection rates measure carriers’ willingness and ability to cover contracted freight. When national rejection rates are below 5%, capacity is generally abundant. Rates above 9% signal a much more challenging environment, where spot market rates tend to rise rapidly.
The average rejection rate in 2025 was just above 6%, compared to just under 5% in 2024. In 2023, the average rejection rate was approximately 3.85%.
