Dry Van.

What it is

A dry van is a standard enclosed 53-foot box trailer — non-refrigerated, non-temperature-controlled — and the most common trailer type in US trucking. Freight covers consumer goods, dry food and beverage, retail merchandise, packaged products, and anything else that doesn't need temperature control or open-deck loading. New dry van trailers run roughly $30K–$50K, with used trailers in the $10K–$25K range depending on age and condition. That's significantly cheaper than reefer or specialty trailers.

Loading and unloading happens via standard dock doors or ground-level handling. No special permits are required for typical dry van loads — overweight or oversized exceptions handled the same way as on flatbeds. Dispatch is the simplest of the major freight classes: pick up at origin dock, deliver at destination dock, no tarping, no temperature monitoring, no specialized rigging.

Why it matters for trucking finance

Lender risk on dry van financing is the lowest among trailer classes — dry vans hold value reasonably well and have the broadest secondary market for resale or repossession. Insurance pricing is also lower: no reefer breakdown exposure, lower hazard than flatbed loading. For new owner-operators, dry van is often the entry point because of cheaper equipment and operational simplicity. The trade-off is rate per mile — dry van pays the lowest of the major freight classes because the work is the easiest to do.

Related terms

• Reefer — Refrigerated trailer (or the freight that requires temperature control); standard equipment for hauling produce, frozen goods, and pharma.
• Flatbed — Open trailer with no walls or roof, used for oversized, irregularly shaped, or top-loaded freight; requires tarping and load securement skills.
• Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) — Freight model where carriers consolidate multiple shippers' loads into a single trailer; loads are typically 100–10,000 lbs and below truckload.

Related Dispatched products

• Equipment financing