If you have a truck that sometimes sits idle and you want to generate some income from it, you are in the right place.
In this article, I am going to cover some awesome ways to make passive income by renting out your truck. I include rental strategies for everything from a semi-truck to a simple pickup truck (and everything in between, like box trucks and vans). I have organized the article by vehicle type, so you can skip ahead to the section that is relevant to you.
How to Rent Out Your Semi-Truck
How to Rent Out Your Box Truck
How to Rent Out Your Pickup Truck
What I love about these strategies is that you can take an existing asset that is not doing much for you (at least when you’re not driving it) and you can start making extra income with basically no effort and no time commitment on your part.
If you want to take this general strategy further, you can make this a standalone business by buying or leasing trucks solely for the purpose of renting them out. Tired of being a driver? This may be a really awesome strategy for you. More on that as well.
Finally, I have added a section on renting out trailers that I think you may find interesting. If you don’t have the money to buy a truck to rent out, but can afford a trailer, you can rent that out and start making cash right away. I really like this strategy because it is even more hands off than the renting out your truck.
Trailers have far fewer moving parts and will need much less maintenance and repairs. Of course, a refrigerated trailer may need more maintenance than a normal trailer, so be mindful of that when considering this strategy.
Ok, we’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get into it!
If you would like to see a condensed version of this article in video format, check out my YouTube video on the topic below.
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The information contained in this post is for informational purposes only. It is not a recommendation to buy or invest, and it is not financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. You should seek the advice of a qualified professional before making any investment or other decisions relating to the topics covered by this article.
How to Rent Out Your Semi-Truck
If you have a semi-truck that is not seeing a lot of action, you can rent it out on sites like coop.com. They are a Ryder company, so they are certainly a reputable shop.
You can also list your semi on sites like rentalyard.com. I called them to learn more and, as of the date of this article, they confirmed that you need to buy a monthly subscription ($295 for a starter pack). For that, you can advertise your truck for rental on their online website as well as getting your truck advertised on their monthly newsletter.
Of course, you can also take a more conventional course and lease your semi-truck on to a carrier.
While this won’t be as passive like the straight up rental arrangements we just covered discussed, it is another option. When you lease on to a carrier, you’re not really just renting your truck to them.
You are agreeing to haul freight for them using your truck. But to make this as passive as possible, you will want to find a carrier that allows you to hire drivers for your trucks.
To lease on to a carrier, you don’t need your own operating authority, which can be a paperwork nightmare (more on that later). However, if you have your own authority and provide your own insurance, the carrier may be willing to give you a larger cut.
If you lease on to a carrier, they will often:
- Handle most of the paperwork
- Handle fuel tax
- Find freight for you and provide dispatching services
- Arrange insurance
- Often provide maintenance at their shop
There are a host of companies that will lease your truck from you. You may need to apply as an owner-operator for some of them, but a good number will allow you to lease your truck and have someone else drive.
You can start your search by checking out the following:
How Much Money Can You Make Renting Out Your Semi-Truck?
You may be able to earn more than $5,000 per month renting out your semi-truck according to Coop.com. They indicated that one owner generated $59,915 in 3 months using their service. Source.
If you want to get more precise estimates on how much you can make, just use their revenue tool.
You just put in how many tractors and trailers you have available to rent and how long you want to rent them out for and it provides an estimate of revenue. At the time of this article, when I typed in 1 tractor and 1 trailer for a 31 day period, it estimated revenue of $5,890.30.
That’s pretty awesome for a nearly completely passive income stream.
How to Rent Out Your Box Truck
If you have a box truck, you can rent it out on a variety of platforms. Coop.com lets you do this for box trucks, as well as semis, so check them out. There are other options as well. You can look at sites like Fetchtruck and Fluidtruck.
How Much Money Can You Make Renting Out Your Box Truck?
You can rent out your box truck at opportunistic times or you can devote your box truck to be available for rental all the time.
If you choose to rent out your box truck full time, you can make between $15,000 and $25,000 per year according to Fluidtruck. Using Coop’s calculator, you could make a little over $3,000 for a single truck renting for a 31 day period.
Either way, not too bad in my view.
Related Reading: If you want to learn how to start a box truck business in general, check out my full article on How to Start a Box Truck Business in Seven Simple Steps.
How to Rent Out Your Van
If you’ve got a van, you also have some great rental options. If you have a cargo van, you can go on places like Fetchtruck and Fluidtruck to rent out your van. You can also use more general car rental platforms like Turo.com.
How Much Money Can You Make Renting Out Your Cargo Van?
According to Fluidtruck, you can make $14,000 per year if you rent out your cargo van fulltime.
If you want a more customized estimate, check out Turo’s “Carculator.” It will provide some pretty specific earnings estimates based on the year, make and model of your van.
Related Reading: If you want to learn how to start a general transportation business with your cargo van, check out my full article on How to Start a Transportation Business With One Van.
How to Rent Out Your Pickup Truck
Like with cargo vans, you can go on sites like Fetchtruck, Fluidtruck and Turo to rent out your pickup truck.
How Much Money Can You Make Renting Out Your Pickup Truck?
According to Fluidtruck, you can make $10,000 per year if you rent out your pickup truck fulltime.
For a more precise estimate, go to Turo’s “Carculator” which, as you already know, will provide you a customized estimate of your revenue on their platform based on the year, make and model of your pickup truck.
Related Reading: If you want to learn more great ways to make money with your pickup truck, check out my full article on How to Make Money With Your Pickup Truck [9 Strategies That Work].
How to Start a Truck Rental Business
You’ve probably figured out by now that you can actually use the strategy of renting out your truck and turn that into a full scale business.
Because the rental income can often exceed the ongoing costs of owning a truck (if you do it right), it’s a viable business model. You can start off by acquiring one truck and renting it out for profit. Once you’ve proven it works, you can start to expand.
The nice thing is that there are so many financing and leasing options out there. If you have good credit and can get a low monthly payment, this becomes pretty easy (and you can leverage your good credit to really grow your business quickly).
In fact, Coop has a program specifically designed for people who want to run this type of business.
If you join, you will get access to data on utilization and rental trends so that you can pick the right vehicles for your market. Plus, you get access to vehicle parking, key management, maintenance and more to help you manage your fleet of rental trucks.
If you want to learn more, check out their program here.
How Much Money Can a Truck Rental Business Make?
Generally speaking, you can make between $10,000 to $25,000 per year for a single truck, depending on the type of vehicle you have. Obviously, the more trucks in your fleet, the more you can earn.
But the above is just an estimate, how much you actually make from your truck rental business will depend on (i) how many trucks you have, (ii) what types of trucks you have, (iii) how well those trucks rent out; (iv) how much you can rent them out for; (v) how well you manage your expenses, and a variety of other factors.
As they say, your results may vary.
I know we’ve provided the following data piecemeal throughout the article, but here is a consolidated table of how much you can expect to earn per vehicle type, according to Fluidtruck.
| Pickup Truck | Cargo Van | Box Truck 19′ or less | Box Truck 20′ or more |
| $10,000/year | $14,000/year | $15,000/year | $25,000/year |
As I mentioned, if your annual costs are less than the annual income you bring in, you have just set up a really nice little passive income business.
Remember that your acquisition costs are not the only costs – you will want to set aside some money for the occasional repairs and maintenance too.
Bottom line: If you take good care of your trucks and can get them for a good price, you can make some great passive income with this strategy.
If you want to learn more about how to start a trucking business in general, check out article on how to start a trucking business with just one truck.
How to Make Money Renting Out Your Trailer
Another strategy that is super passive is renting out trailers, instead of trucks. If you are low on funds, but like the idea of buying an asset that will make money for you each month without you having to do much, this can be the perfect strategy for you.
Here’s all you need to do.
Buy a new or used trailer on sites like trailerusa.com, trailersuperstore.com or a host of other places online. You can also search for local businesses that sell trailers.
If you find a trailer for a decent price (I would go used to begin, so you can really save some money and test out the concept), all you need to do is buy it (financing may be available too) and rent it out on places like Coop, Fluidtruck and Rentalyard.com.
Here’s an example of how it can work.
You can get a simple flatbed trailer for between $10,000 to $20,000 based on listings I saw on mylittlesalesman.com and rent them out on sites like Rentalyard.com for around $900 per month. Let’s say you paid $20,000 for it (all in cash). Your cash on cash return can be over 50%! That’s monstrous.
Another way to determine your potential revenue is using Coop’s calculator. When I typed in 1 trailer rented out for 31 days, it gave me an estimated revenue of $1,455, which is even higher than what I found on Rentalyard.
Of course, there is no guarantee that your trailer is going to be rented all the time and there may be the occasional repair needed, but those are still some pretty compelling numbers.
If you want complete guide to starting a trailer rental business, check out my article on the topic here.
Conclusion
So there you have – some great strategies on how to rent out your truck for profit, along with resources and tips to help you start making money right away. Hope this has been helpful.
If you want to learn more about passive income strategies for your truck, check out my full article on the topic here.
