Mississippi LTL Freight Rates & Quotes

Shipping LTL freight to or from Mississippi? Rates depend on your specific route, freight class, and how close your pickup or delivery point is to the nearest LTL terminal. Mississippi is a state of two freight worlds: a distribution cluster in DeSoto County, just south of Memphis, where I-55 and I-269 feed warehouses for retailers and parts distributors, and a Gulf Coast port economy around Pascagoula and Gulfport. In between, I-55 runs about 290 miles north to south and I-20 crosses the middle, with about 3 million people spread across the state. Mississippi has no toll roads, but it has plenty of weather: a late-January 2026 ice storm left trucks stranded on I-55 and I-22, and hurricanes, tornadoes and river floods have all closed its roads before. Here’s what actually affects your rate.

LTL trucking regulations in Mississippi

A standard LTL tractor-trailer within legal size and weight limits does not need a permit in Mississippi. Permits matter for oversize or overweight freight, and Mississippi’s rules are straightforward:

• Permits come from MDOT. The Mississippi Department of Transportation’s Permit Division issues them. A permit is needed for loads wider than 8 ft 6 in, taller than 13 ft 6 in, longer than 99 ft overall, or on a trailer longer than 53 ft, and for loads over the 80,000 lb gross weight limit, 20,000 lb single axle or 34,000 lb tandem axle.
• Fees are low and published. MDOT’s fee schedule lists a $10 oversize permit, a 72-hour legal trip permit at $25, and a $100 oversize blanket permit. Overweight loads are charged $0.05 per thousand pounds of excess weight per mile traveled. A Special Heavy Haul blanket covers up to 150,000 lbs and up to 14 ft wide.
• Oversize loads move in daylight. For loads 12 ft wide or less, daylight means sunrise to sunset. For wider loads it is 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset. MDOT’s manual also bars movement after noon on the day before certain holidays unless otherwise permitted.
• Long loads need escorts. A vehicle over 99 ft long requires a permit and a front or rear escort.
• Mississippi has zero toll roads. MDOT said so in a March 2025 warning about toll-scam text messages, and the agency does not collect tolls for other states either, so no toll cost shows up in your LTL quote.

Current permit fees and rules are public record:

MDOT Permit and Motor Carrier Manual →

What affects your Mississippi 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 — I-55 alone runs about 290 miles across Mississippi, and I-59 and I-20 add 169 and 155 miles, so an in-state lane can take most of a day.
• Where in the state — DeSoto County, Jackson and the Gulf Coast are all well-served freight areas, while the Delta and rural counties typically see fewer carrier options.
• Terminal proximity — the more carrier terminals near your pickup or delivery point, the more quotes you see.
• Accessorials — liftgate, residential, or inside delivery add to the base rate, same as anywhere else.

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

1. 4× the cost per mile

   A short, light shipment cost more per mile than a long, heavy one

   A 80 lb shipment moving 409 miles (Ocean Springs, MS to Roswell, GA) had a lowest quote of $520, or $1.27 a mile. A 100 lb shipment moving 2,035 miles (Santa Maria, CA to Sumrall, MS) had a lowest quote of $663, or $0.33 a mile.

2. $275 to arrive 3 days sooner

   Speed has a price

   On Gulfport, MS to Matthews, NC (660 miles, 700 lb), the cheapest quote at $780 took 5 days. The fastest, at 2 days, cost $1,055.

3. 5 carriers had the lowest quote

   Five different carriers won six Mississippi lanes

   ABF Freight had the lowest quote on two lanes. Central Transport, Estes, Saia, and Southeastern each had the lowest quote on one lane. Across the lowest quotes on every lane, 13 different carriers appeared.

4. $366 from lowest to fifth-lowest

   Same shipment, quotes $366 apart

   For 700 lb from Gulfport, MS to Matthews, NC (660 miles), the lowest quote was $780 and the fifth-lowest was $1,146, a 47% gap. On Oxford, MS to Mooreland, OK, all five quotes landed within $41 of each other.

Get quotes for your lane →

Where freight moves in Mississippi

Mississippi’s freight geography follows its interstates and its coast:

• DeSoto County (Olive Branch, Southaven, Horn Lake) — the distribution cluster just south of Memphis on I-55, home to facilities such as an Amazon sortation center in Olive Branch and an O’Reilly Auto Parts distribution center in Horn Lake.
• Tupelo & northeast Mississippi — on the I-22 corridor toward Birmingham, near Toyota’s plant at Blue Springs.
• Columbus & the Golden Triangle — a metals and materials hub that includes Steel Dynamics.
• Jackson & central Mississippi — where I-20 and I-55 meet, and near Nissan’s plant at Canton.
• Meridian & Hattiesburg — the I-20 and I-59 corridors through east and southeast Mississippi.
• The Gulf Coast (Gulfport, Biloxi, Pascagoula) — the I-10 corridor, two ports and Ingalls Shipbuilding.

Weather and transit reliability

Mississippi’s weather has closed its freight corridors in several different ways. On January 28, 2026, black ice from a historic late-January storm shut I-55 northbound from Batesville to Senatobia and I-22 from Red Banks to the Tennessee line; Governor Tate Reeves noted that the vast majority of the vehicles stranded were 18-wheelers, and MDOT reported traffic slow or stopped along more than 100 miles of interstate. As an MDOT official put it, you cannot plow ice. Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, making a second landfall in Hancock County; US-90 was closed across the state, I-10 eastbound was closed, and 238 people died in Mississippi. On March 24, 2023, an EF4 tornado with winds of about 195 mph tracked 59.4 miles through Rolling Fork and Silver City, killing 17 people and injuring at least 165. River floods matter too: on May 19, 2011, the Mississippi River crested at 57.10 feet at Vicksburg, above the previous record of 56.2 feet set in 1927, and the 2019 Yazoo backwater flood put more than 500,000 acres under water in the Delta and closed three highways. For LTL shippers the practical advice is simple: during hurricane season and winter storms, build extra transit time into anything headed to or through Mississippi.

Sample Mississippi LTL rates by route

Real quotes pulled from our platform for six different Mississippi 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, weight and carrier choice matter as much as distance:

Route	Distance	Weight	Price range	Transit range	Price per mile
Ocean Springs, MS → Roswell, GA	409 mi	80 lb	$520–$629	1–3 days	$1.27–$1.54
Hull, GA → Yazoo City, MS	512 mi	512 lb	$235–$303	1–3 days	$0.46–$0.59
Gulfport, MS → Matthews, NC	660 mi	700 lb	$780–$1,146	2–5 days	$1.18–$1.74
Oxford, MS → Mooreland, OK	676 mi	185 lb	$331–$372	2–4 days	$0.49–$0.55
Miami, FL → Ocean Springs, MS	778 mi	1,920 lb	$559–$679	2–4 days	$0.72–$0.87
Santa Maria, CA → Sumrall, MS	2,035 mi	100 lb	$663–$764	4–11 days	$0.33–$0.38

Distance alone does not set the price here. The two lanes of about 660 and 676 miles, Gulfport to Matthews, North Carolina (700 lb) and Oxford to Mooreland, Oklahoma (185 lb), cost $1.18–$1.74 and $0.49–$0.55 per mile. The first shipment is 3.8 times heavier and cost 2.4 to 3.1 times as much in total ($780–$1,146 against $331–$372), and both were quoted for Mississippi pickups in July. Gulfport also shows the widest carrier spread in the data: ABF Freight quoted $779.98 with 5-day transit, while the next-lowest quote, FedEx Freight Economy’s $1,023.88, was about 31% higher and 2 days faster, and the other three quotes were 2-day service at $1,055–$1,146. At the other end, Oxford to Mooreland is the tightest lane: Southeastern Freight Lines, AAA Cooper and TForce quoted $331.00, $331.12 and $332.06, within $1.06 of each other. A light shipment can also cost more than a heavy one: 80 lb from Ocean Springs to Roswell, Georgia cost $520–$629, about twice the $235–$303 for 512 lb from Hull, Georgia to Yazoo City on a lane of similar length, though the pickups were six months apart and run in opposite directions, so our data cannot say why. The long haul, 2,035 miles from Santa Maria, California to Sumrall, is the cheapest per mile at $0.33–$0.38, and its quotes show how much transit varies: Estes was both the lowest and the fastest at 4 days, while TForce’s 11-day service was the slowest in the data. The lesson is the same on every lane: compare several carriers before you book.

Major shipping hubs in Mississippi

Mississippi’s freight moves through its coast, its interstates and one large distribution cluster:

• Port of Pascagoula — Mississippi’s largest port by tonnage. A University of Southern Mississippi study found it generated $18.25 billion in economic output and supported 28,345 jobs, and handled more than 845,000 tons of freight in 2024. The study says the port contributes about 22.5% of the state’s manufacturing GDP.
• Port of Gulfport — a deep-water international port reported to receive more than 160 deep-draft vessels, over 2 million tons of cargo and about 200,000 TEUs a year.
• Ingalls Shipbuilding (Pascagoula) — the state’s largest manufacturing employer, and a driver of the supplier freight that moves through the Gulf Coast.
• DeSoto County distribution cluster — the I-55 corridor through Olive Branch and Southaven, a fast-growing distribution corridor in the mid-South.
• Automotive plants — Nissan in Canton and Toyota in Blue Springs.

Highway corridors serving Mississippi

I-55 (about 290 miles in Mississippi) is the main north-south corridor, running from the Memphis area through Jackson to Louisiana; MDOT’s freight plan calls the I-55 and CN rail corridor the most heavily traveled freight corridor in the state. I-59 (about 169 miles) runs from Louisiana through Hattiesburg to Meridian and on to Alabama. I-20 (about 155 miles) crosses the middle of the state from Vicksburg through Jackson and Meridian. I-22 (about 106 miles) links the Memphis area to Tupelo and Birmingham, and I-10 (about 77 miles) runs along the Gulf Coast through Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. I-269 (about 24 miles in Mississippi) is the Memphis outer loop.

North Mississippi: where Memphis freight spills over

The last nine-mile stretch of I-269 through DeSoto and Marshall counties opened on October 26, 2018, completing a Memphis outer loop that connects I-55, I-22 and I-40. It supported the growth of DeSoto County’s warehouse district, and it also concentrates trucks in one place. MDOT’s statewide freight plan identifies I-55 in DeSoto County as one of the state’s bottlenecks, part of the larger Memphis-to-Atlanta corridor. As the January 2026 ice storm showed, a closure there is felt well beyond Mississippi.

What Mississippi shippers move

Mississippi’s freight is a mix of manufacturing and distribution. The state exported $14.2 billion of goods in 2025, led by petroleum and coal products at $4.2 billion and computer and electronic products at $2.7 billion. Major manufacturers include Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Nissan in Canton, Toyota in Blue Springs and Steel Dynamics in Columbus. MDOT’s freight plan estimates that trucks move about 67% of the state’s freight tonnage. Much of it moves in full truckloads, but the parts, supplies and finished goods around these plants and warehouses are where LTL fits.

Mississippi LTL freight: frequently asked questions

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