How much does it cost to start a cargo van business?

Checked October 2026

The short answer: most drivers who start honestly spend somewhere between $15,000 and $40,000 to get rolling, and the cargo van itself is most of it. A work-ready used cargo van runs about $18,000 to $32,000 in the 2026 market. The searches that promise a start "for under $300" are pointing at one small filing fee and hiding everything else. Here is the whole bill, line by line.

The cargo van

This is the biggest check by far. Industry guides pricing the 2026 market put a used Transit, ProMaster, or Sprinter with 80,000 to 150,000 miles at roughly $18,000 to $32,000. A new cargo van costs far more. What matters is not the sticker alone — it is the monthly payment next to slow weeks. A smaller payment on a sound used cargo van beats a large payment on a new one for almost every new driver.

Insurance

Delivery insurance is not optional and it is not cheap. Published prices for a year of cover run from about $2,400 to about $15,000, and a driver new to this work usually pays toward the high side at first because insurers add a new-driver surcharge. Most insurers want a down payment up front and the rest monthly, so the first check is bigger than one month's share.

The business papers

These are the small numbers. Forming an LLC costs your state's filing fee, which is usually tens to a few hundred dollars. An EIN from the IRS is free. If you take the interstate path with your own authority, the federal filing for operating authority is $300, a BOC-3 process-agent filing runs roughly $25 to $100, and the yearly UCR registration for the smallest fleets is about $46 for 2026. That $300 authority fee is real — it is just one line on the bill, not the bill.

Gear and setup

Plan on the working basics: a phone and a data plan, straps and moving blankets, a hand truck, and simple safety gear. Drivers who run over-the-road expedite work often add a sleeping setup behind a wall in the cargo area. None of this is expensive next to the cargo van, but it is not free either.

The cost nobody lists: your reserve

Drivers who fail in the first year rarely fail because the work was bad. They fail because one slow week wiped them out. Loads pay weeks after you run them, while fuel and insurance bills arrive on time. Money set aside for the first two or three slow months is a starting cost, even though nobody sells it to you. Treat it as part of the price of starting.

Adding it up

A careful starter with a sound used cargo van lands near the bottom of the $15,000 to $40,000 range. A driver who buys newer, insures at new-authority prices, and funds a real reserve lands near the top. Either way, the money is spent in a known order — the cargo van, insurance, papers, gear, reserve — and the last step is finding the work itself.