Drivers Demand Instant Pay, but Trucking Firms Aren’t Listening

In the logistics world, speed is everything. Goods must move swiftly, efficiently and predictably. Payments, too, have increasingly followed suit, especially when it comes to fueling the journey.

Data from the latest “Money Mobility Tracker®,” a PYMNTS Intelligence collaboration with Ingo Payments, shows that 97% of trucking and transportation companies surveyed view fuel payments as urgent. These firms pay their fuel providers instantly, with zero hesitation.

But the report, “All Systems Go: Instant Payments in Trucking and Transportation,“ also found that when it comes to compensating the people driving those fuel-powered rigs — the truckers themselves — the industry hits the brakes. Only 44% of companies apply the same urgency of instant payments when it comes to paying drivers.

Truckers aren’t just another cog in the logistics machine. They are the engine. Yet the data suggests companies are quicker to fund the trucks than the humans behind the wheel.

This disparity, referred to by PYMNTS Intelligence as the “urgency gap,” is more than a payment timing quirk. It may just be a red flag signaling deeper operational misalignment — one that could risk destabilizing fragile supply chains.

A Demand Signal That’s Being Misread

The urgency gap between fuel and driver pay isn’t rooted in technological constraints. The infrastructure for instant payments is already embedded across many sectors — from gig work and food delivery to healthcare and construction. What’s missing in transportation is prioritization.

This is particularly problematic given the preferences of the workforce. According to the same PYMNTS Intelligence study, 93% of truck drivers would choose instant payments if given the option. Yet most transportation payers estimate that only half of drivers care.

That misread has direct consequences for recruitment and retention. Drivers increasingly expect to access their wages in real time, not days after delivery or according to legacy payroll schedules.

Drivers who are paid instantly report significantly higher levels of satisfaction. In the study, 85% of truckers who receive instant pay described themselves as “very or extremely satisfied,” a figure that outpaces both their non-instant counterparts and the broader U.S. workforce.

There’s also willingness to pay: 37% of drivers say they would accept a fee in exchange for immediate access to earnings — a rate 25% higher than the average U.S. consumer. That speaks not just to preference but to perceived value.

The gap between what firms offer and what workers want is widening. The companies that bridge it early will hold a competitive advantage.

Read the report: All Systems Go: Instant Payments in Trucking and Transportation

While instant pay is often discussed in the context of convenience or user experience, it can prove itself to be an operational asset.

For transportation firms, the barrier to entry is now low. Real-time payment rails like the FedNow® Service and the RTP® Network are widely accessible, and embedded finance platforms can enable secure, compliant disbursements with minimal integration overhead.

Moreover, most firms are already using instant payments elsewhere in the business. Nearly half report using them for ad hoc vendor payments — up from just 28% last year.

The same architecture can support driver pay.

In addition, embedded finance platforms and digital wallet providers have created turnkey solutions tailored for payroll disbursements — including for independent contractors and 1099 workers. These platforms include compliance monitoring, fraud prevention and integration application programming interfaces that reduce implementation time.

Operationally, real-time wage solutions are also reducing reliance on manual reimbursement processes, fuel advances and time-consuming reconciliation. These cost factors are often overlooked in favor of headline pay figures, but they represent real internal savings.

The opportunity is clear: close the urgency gap, meet workforce expectations and modernize labor payments to match the pace of the rest of the supply chain. As digital payment standards evolve, real-time earnings access is transitioning from benefit to baseline.