Truck Driver Salary in Texas 2026,
$56,290 Median | BLS Data by City

Texas heavy and tractor-trailer drivers earn a median $56,290 a year, $27.06 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $46,680 and $64,820 and a full range of $38,150 to $79,400. That is 4.0% below the $58,640 national median, and Texas takes no income tax out of it.

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington at $59,530, then Eagle Pass at $58,600, Odessa at $58,370, Midland at $58,200 and Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos at $57,110. Eagle Pass, Odessa and Midland are the interesting entries: border drayage at the Mexican ports of entry and Permian Basin oilfield hauling both pay above the statewide median in places where living costs are far below Dallas's.

Through the Texas Department of Public Safety. You obtain a commercial learner's permit, complete entry-level driver training with an FMCSA-registered provider — a federal requirement before the skills test — pass the knowledge and skills examinations, and hold a valid medical examiner's certificate for interstate driving. Class A covers tractor-trailers, and endorsements for tankers, doubles and hazardous materials each carry their own testing and, for hazmat, a security threat assessment.

No. Texas has no personal income tax and no local income tax, so a driver at the median of $56,290 pays nothing to the state on wages, mileage pay, detention or bonuses. Because interstate drivers are generally taxed where they are domiciled rather than where they drive, Texas residency is a genuine financial advantage in this occupation and is a documented reason carriers domicile drivers in the state.

Specialised hauling, in three forms. Oversize and heavy-haul work requires permits and route planning and pays accordingly. Crude, pressurised and chemical tanker work out of the Permian and the Houston petrochemical complex requires endorsements and carries hazard premiums. And owner-operator arrangements shift the economics entirely, at the cost of taking on the equipment. Those are the routes from the Texas median of $56,290 to the $64,820 seventy-fifth percentile and the $79,400 ninetieth.

Two things no other state has at this scale. First, the Mexican border: Laredo is the largest US land port by trade value, and the drayage economy around Laredo, Eagle Pass and El Paso — short hauls, heavy documentation, cross-dock transfers — operates on different rates from long-haul freight. Eagle Pass at $58,600 above the statewide $56,290 median is that market showing up in the data. Second, the Permian Basin: Odessa at $58,370 and Midland at $58,200 reflect oilfield hauling of sand, water, crude and equipment, which pays a premium for hours and conditions general freight does not demand.

The published figure is an annualised wage, and most Texas drivers are paid by the mile, by the load or by percentage rather than by the hour. That means actual annual earnings depend heavily on miles run, home-time policy and detention, none of which the median captures. It also means the $38,150 tenth percentile largely reflects first-year training-fleet pay and part-time local work rather than a career rate. Owner-operator income, which is a large part of the Texas market, is not wage income and is not in this figure at all.

Endorsements, freight type and equipment ownership. Hazmat, tanker and doubles endorsements each open lanes that pay above general dry van, and in Texas the tanker market — crude, chemicals, pressurised gas — is unusually deep because of the Permian and the Gulf Coast petrochemical corridor. Heavy-haul and oversize permits pay more again. Beyond that, moving to owner-operator changes the economics entirely. All of these increments are untaxed by Texas, which is why the same nominal upgrade is worth more here than in a graduated-rate state.