Louisiana LTL Freight Rates & Quotes

Shipping less-than-truckload (LTL) freight to or from Louisiana? Rates depend on your specific route, freight class, and how close your pickup or delivery point is to the nearest LTL terminal. Louisiana is an energy and river state. It exported $93.4 billion of goods in 2025, about $29 billion of it liquefied natural gas, and the Port of South Louisiana handled 248.3 million tons of cargo along a 54-mile stretch of the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It is also one of the most weather-exposed freight states in the country: I-10 crosses the Atchafalaya Basin on an 18-mile bridge, and hurricanes, floods and even a rare blizzard have all closed its interstates in recent years. Home to about 4.6 million people, Louisiana rewards shippers who plan for both. Here’s what actually affects your rate.

LTL trucking regulations in Louisiana

A standard LTL tractor-trailer within legal size and weight limits does not need a permit in Louisiana. Permits matter for oversize or overweight freight, and Louisiana has several rules worth knowing:

• Permits come from the DOTD Truck Permit Office. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development issues permits before any vehicle or load exceeding legal size or weight moves. The legal width on interstates is 8 ft 6 in.
• Oversize permits are cheap; overweight ones are priced by weight and distance. A single-trip oversize permit costs $10 per trip. Overweight single-trip permits are priced by gross weight and mileage, and cover oversize dimensions at no extra charge if they are listed on the permit.
• Oversize loads stay off the road at night. Permitted loads may not travel from sunset to sunrise or on certain designated holidays.
• New Orleans has rush-hour bridge limits. In the New Orleans area, permitted vehicles may not cross any Mississippi River bridge, or be within two miles of one, from 6:30 to 9:00 a.m. and 3:30 to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.
• Tunnels are off limits. Hazardous, flammable and combustible materials, and oversize or overweight permit loads, are prohibited from using Louisiana’s two tunnels.
• Trucks must keep right on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. Commercial vehicles have been required to stay in the right lane on the 18-mile I-10 bridge since 2003. On August 13, 2026, Louisiana State Police used aerial and ground patrols there and issued 26 citations to commercial drivers.
• Tolls are rare and changing. Tolls on the Crescent City Connection in New Orleans ended after voters rejected renewing them in 2013, and a new tolled I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge at Lake Charles is under construction, with tolling planned to begin in 2031.

Current permit fees and rules are public record:

Louisiana DOTD Single-Trip Permits →

What affects your Louisiana LTL rate

• Freight class — density, handling, and liability determine your NMFC class, the single biggest factor in your rate. See our freight class guide.
• Distance — Louisiana is long and wide: I-10 runs about 274 miles across it and I-49 about 239 from Lafayette toward Shreveport, so an in-state lane can mean a full day on the road.
• The Mississippi River — crossings in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas are limited, so a delivery on the far side of the river can take longer than the mileage suggests.
• Terminal proximity — the more carrier terminals near your pickup or delivery point, the more quotes you see. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport are well served; rural parishes and the coast typically see fewer options.
• Accessorials — liftgate, residential, or inside delivery add to the base rate, same as anywhere else.

Did you know?From 6 real Louisiana lanes and 30 quotes

1. $326 to arrive 2 days sooner

   Speed has a price

   On Los Angeles, CA to Monroe, LA (1,737 miles, 500 lb), the cheapest quote at $794 took 5 days. The fastest, at 3 days, cost $1,120. On Newark, NJ to Loreauville, LA, 2-day delivery cost $880 against $710 for 4 days.

2. 5 carriers had the lowest quote

   Five different carriers won six Louisiana lanes

   AAA Cooper had the lowest quote on two lanes. ABF Freight, Central Transport, Warp, and XPO each had the lowest quote on one lane. Across the lowest quotes on every lane, 13 different carriers appeared.

3. $326 from lowest to fifth-lowest

   Same shipment, quotes $326 apart

   For 500 lb from Los Angeles, CA to Monroe, LA (1,737 miles), the lowest quote was $794 and the fifth-lowest was $1,120, a 41% gap. On Denham Springs, LA to York, PA, all five quotes landed within $39 of each other.

Get quotes for your lane →

Where freight moves in Louisiana

Louisiana’s freight geography follows the river, the coast and I-10:

• New Orleans — Port NOLA and its container trade, plus the Louisiana International Terminal being built in St. Bernard Parish.
• The river corridor from New Orleans to Baton Rouge — the 54-mile Port of South Louisiana district, a center of petroleum refining, grain and petrochemical transfer and storage.
• Baton Rouge — where I-10 and I-12 meet and the Mississippi River crossings concentrate traffic.
• Lake Charles & southwest Louisiana — the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge and the state’s western gateway toward Texas.
• Lafayette & Acadiana — where I-10 meets I-49 for the run north toward Shreveport.
• Shreveport & north Louisiana — reached by I-20 and I-49.

Weather and transit reliability

Few states close their highways as often as Louisiana, and for as many different reasons. In August 2016, up to 31.39 inches of rain fell at Watson, near Baton Rouge, and flooding closed I-10 and I-12 for several days. In August 2020, Hurricane Laura’s surge broke a casino barge loose and slammed it into the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge at Lake Charles. On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida made landfall near Port Fourchon as a Category 4 with 150 mph winds, causing about $75 billion in damage, leaving more than a million utility customers without power, and blocking I-10 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans with downed trees. Winter is no exception: during the January 20–22, 2025 Gulf Coast blizzard, the first on record there, New Orleans received up to 10 inches of snow and Baton Rouge 7.6 inches, and highways and airports closed. For LTL shippers the practical advice is simple: during hurricane season and any severe storm, build extra transit time into anything headed to or through Louisiana.

Sample Louisiana LTL rates by route

Real quotes pulled from our platform for six different Louisiana lanes — same process, different carriers each time, spanning a huge range of weights and distances. Rates shift with capacity and fuel costs, so treat these as a snapshot rather than a guarantee for your shipment; get an instant quote for your exact route.

Rate, transit, and price-per-mile summary

Pulling the six lanes above together, the two hauls that leave Louisiana are the cheapest per mile:

Route	Distance	Weight	Price range	Transit range	Price per mile
Cape Canaveral, FL → Houma, LA	745 mi	198 lb	$286–$348	2–3 days	$0.38–$0.47
Denham Springs, LA → York, PA	1,200 mi	250 lb	$353–$392	3–5 days	$0.29–$0.33
Newark, NJ → Lafayette, LA	1,410 mi	148 lb	$483–$594	2–5 days	$0.34–$0.42
Newark, NJ → Loreauville, LA	1,414 mi	301 lb	$710–$880	2–6 days	$0.50–$0.62
Los Angeles, CA → Monroe, LA	1,737 mi	500 lb	$794–$1,120	3–5 days	$0.46–$0.64
Norco, LA → Seattle, WA	2,593 mi	180 lb	$508–$581	5–6 days	$0.20–$0.22

Price per mile runs from $0.20–$0.22 on the 2,593-mile haul from Norco, Louisiana to Seattle to $0.50–$0.62 on the 1,414-mile run from Newark, New Jersey to Loreauville. The two lanes leaving Louisiana, Norco to Seattle and Denham Springs to York, Pennsylvania ($0.29–$0.33), were the cheapest per mile, but they are also long, light shipments, so our data cannot separate direction from distance and weight; compare quotes in both directions. The two New Jersey lanes make a useful comparison. Newark to Lafayette (1,410 miles, 148 lb) and Newark to Loreauville (1,414 miles, 301 lb) are almost the same trip, ending in neighboring Acadiana towns, and the heavier shipment, at 2.03 times the weight, cost about 47% more at the low end ($709.84 against $482.51) and about 48% more at the high end ($879.95 against $594.02). The pickup dates are months apart, so some of that gap may be the date, and the carriers differ: XPO was the lowest quote on the Lafayette lane and the highest of the five lowest on the Loreauville lane. The widest spread in the data is Los Angeles to Monroe, where TForce Freight’s 3-day quote of $1,119.85 was about 41% above Warp’s 5-day $793.53, and the narrowest is Norco to Seattle, where all five lowest quotes fall within 14% of each other. The lesson is the same on every lane: compare several carriers before you book.

Major shipping hubs in Louisiana

Louisiana’s freight moves through some of the busiest water ports in the country:

• Port of South Louisiana — 248.3 million tons of cargo, handled via more than 3,534 oceangoing vessels and 53,499 barges, across a district running from river mile 114.9 to 168.5. The port ranks first in domestic trade, second in foreign trade and imports, and third in exports, and operates the Globalplex Intermodal Terminal.
• Port NOLA (Port of New Orleans) — 263,961 TEUs in the first half of 2025, up 2% from a year earlier.
• Louisiana International Terminal — Port NOLA’s new container terminal in St. Bernard Parish, which received $83.6 million of the port’s $105.3 million in capital projects in fiscal 2025.
• Port Fourchon area — the stretch of coast in Lafourche Parish where Hurricane Ida made landfall in 2021.

Highway corridors serving Louisiana

I-10 (about 274 miles in Louisiana) is the state’s main east-west corridor, running from Texas through Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I-49 (about 239 miles) runs north from Lafayette through Alexandria to Shreveport, and I-20 (about 190 miles) crosses the north of the state through Shreveport and Monroe. I-12 (about 86 miles) links Baton Rouge to Slidell, and I-55 (about 66 miles) runs north from the Lake Pontchartrain area toward Mississippi.

The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge and the new Calcasieu River Bridge

Two I-10 structures define Louisiana trucking. The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge is 18 miles of elevated highway across the swamp in Iberville and St. Martin parishes, with trucks restricted to the right lane. At Lake Charles, the aging Calcasieu River Bridge is being replaced by a $2.3 billion toll bridge, with construction under way since spring 2026, opening expected in 2030 and tolling planned from 2031. State and federal funds cover $1.2 billion of the cost. Toll rates proposed in 2024, in 2023 dollars, were $2.50 for a car with a toll tag. Rates will be indexed to the Consumer Price Index, so final figures, including truck rates, are not yet available.

What Louisiana shippers move

Louisiana’s freight is shaped by energy. According to Louisiana Economic Development data, the state exported $93.4 billion of goods in 2025. Liquefied natural gas was the largest category at about $29 billion, or 31% of the total, and the state accounted for 63% of U.S. LNG exports. Processed petroleum oils added $16.7 billion and chemicals $10.7 billion. Around the Port of South Louisiana, the main cargoes are petroleum, grain and petrochemicals. Little of that moves in LTL quantities, but the parts, equipment, supplies and finished goods that serve those industries are exactly where LTL fits.

Louisiana LTL freight: frequently asked questions

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