Trucking got 6% pricier in a year, and transport is now nearly half of Colombia’s logistics cost

Running a truck in Colombia cost 6.07% more in August 2026 than a year earlier, according to DANE’s road freight cost index. DANE is the national statistics agency, and the index tracks what it costs to operate a cargo vehicle: driver, tolls, fuel and maintenance. The index is up 5.62% so far this year, and transport is the largest component of logistics cost in Colombia.

That increase lands on an already high base. The most recent national measurement of logistics cost in Colombia is the National Logistics Survey from DNP, the national planning department, with 2024 data. Of every 100 pesos a company bills, 15.6 go to logistics: moving goods, storing them and holding inventory.

Logistics cost in Colombia has come down, but it is still far from the target

Seen as a series, the figure tells a less straightforward story:

• 2020: 12.6%
• 2022: 17.9%
• 2024: 15.6%

The country sits 3 points above its 2020 level and 5.6 points above its 10% target.

Against other economies, the gap is close to two to one. According to figures cited by El Tiempo, the average for the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group made up mostly of developed economies, is 8%. The World Bank puts the global average between 11% and 13%. For an exporter, that gap ends up in the price it competes at in the destination market. For an importer, it ends up in the landed cost of what it sells locally.

Where the spending is concentrated

Component	Share of logistics cost (2024)
Transport	44.5%
Storage	22.4%
Inventory	17.7%

Together they add up to about 85%.

Applying that 44.5% to the overall 15.6% gives roughly 7 pesos of every 100 a company bills going to transport. On its own, that figure comes close to the 8% that all logistics costs on average in the OECD. It is a rough calculation, because it depends on how the survey builds each base, but it shows where the gap lies.

What got more expensive in 2026

DANE’s index breaks down the August annual increase like this:

• Driver and helper labor: around 15% a year, the component that pushes the index the most.
• Fixed costs and tolls: 7.33% versus August 2025.
• Fuel: 6.17%.
• Parts and maintenance: 3.69%.
• Supplies: 1.12%.

An increase driven by wages, tolls and fixed costs tends to stick, unlike one driven by fuel, which moves up and down with the market. In August the index fell 0.11% from July, a small breather that does not change the direction of the year.

Every hour of waiting has a price too

Colombia’s Ministry of Transport reported that each additional hour of loading and unloading raises costs by 7.9%, and that the hourly operating cost rose between 21% and 30% in January and February, mostly because of fixed costs.

For importers and exporters, the time a truck waits at a port gate or a warehouse gets billed. Companies that schedule their appointments and docks well pay less for the same route. Those with slow operations end up paying part of the freight in waiting time.

SICE-TAC now covers empty containers and light cargo

In May the Ministry of Transport issued resolution 20263040018445, which updated SICE-TAC, the system that calculates efficient road freight costs. The update added costs for empty containers and brought in light cargo vehicles, from 3,500 to 7,500 kg, with a three-month transition starting in June.

For foreign trade, the empty container matters because moving it back now has a reference cost. Light cargo vehicles are also the ones that usually handle final distribution of imported goods.

Who feels the increase most

The hit is not evenly spread. Companies that produce in the interior and haul their goods to the ports carry the full cost, and that spending cuts into their margin or raises the price of what they sell abroad. Exporters with plants near the coast have a relative advantage, because their overland leg is shorter.

Importers bringing cargo to Bogotá, Medellín or other inland cities pay that same leg in the opposite direction. In our view, the weight depends on the value of the cargo. A container of high-value goods spreads the freight across the final price. Bulky, low-value cargo, such as bulk inputs or raw materials, feels it far more.

A supply chain that depends on the road

Concentrating freight transport on highways exposes supply chains to road closures, weather problems and swings in fuel prices. Analdex, the national foreign trade association, has long pushed for multimodal transport, better infrastructure and more security on road corridors.

Beyond the rate, the cost of the road also lies in uncertainty. When transit times vary, companies hold more inventory and more storage space to cover themselves. Those two items add up to about 40% of logistics cost in Colombia, so part of what shows up as warehouse and inventory spending starts on the road.

Changing transport mode means repeating procedures across agencies

Moving cargo by rail, river, sea or air instead of only by road is the most cited way out of truck dependence. The obstacle, according to an analysis by an international trade lecturer, is the lack of interoperability among the tax and customs authority (DIAN), the agricultural health agency (ICA), the food and drug regulator (Invima) and the police, which means some procedures have to be repeated when cargo switches mode.

If every change of mode restarts the paperwork, the freight savings get lost in time. Interoperability among agencies weighs as much on cost as the condition of the roads.

What we are watching

From our offices in Medellín, Bogotá, Cartagena and Buenaventura we see the cargo’s full route, from the interior to the port and back. Three things will shape what comes next: whether the August breather in DANE’s index holds, how the expanded SICE-TAC shows up in freight rates, and what the 2026 National Logistics Survey, expected around the end of 2027, shows about whether logistics cost in Colombia stays below the 17.9% of 2022.