Trucks crossing from Mexico since 1996: from 3.3 million a year to 7.6 million
US border records count 3.25 million truck crossings into the US from Mexico in 1996 and 7.59 million in 2025, about 2.3 times as many. Over the same years, the count on the Canadian border fell, and the Mexican border passed it in 2017.
Trucks carried 73.9 billion dollars of US-Mexico freight in Aug 2026, about 78% of the total, according to BTS. Our sister site covers the month; here it's set against the long record of trucks crossing the border.
Thirty years of crossings
The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) publishes counts of trucks entering the US at each land port, based on US Customs and Border Protection records. It counts crossings into the US only, and a truck that crosses twice counts twice. On the Mexican border, the count was 3,254,084 in 1996, the first year of the series, two years after NAFTA took effect on 1 Jan 1994. It reached 4,526,460 in 2000 and 7,589,315 in 2025, about 2.3 times the 1996 figure, by our arithmetic.
Before 2025, the count fell in five years: most in 2009 (down 11.8%, in the global financial crisis), 2001 (down 4.9%) and 2003 (down 3.8%), and slightly in 2008 (0.3%) and 2020 (1.1%). In 2025, the count fell 0.4% from the 2024 record of 7,617,207. From Jan to Sep 2026, it was 5,726,652, almost the same as in the same months of 2025.
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Incoming truck crossings at US land ports, millions. Mexican border: 1996 3.25; 2000 4.53; 2005 4.68; 2009 4.29; 2015 5.54; 2017 6.04; 2020 6.37; 2025 7.59. Canadian border: 5.44; 7.06; 6.78; 5.02; 5.79; 5.85; 5.21; 5.27. BTS Border Crossing Entry Data, from CBP records.
The northern border fell behind
On the Canadian border, the trend reversed. It was 5,439,108 in 1996, peaked at 7,056,259 in 2000 and stood at 5,267,459 in 2025, about 25% below that peak, by our arithmetic. The Mexican border passed it in 2017, with 6,039,774 trucks against 5,846,597, and has stayed ahead every year since.
One port, two in five trucks
Laredo, Texas, counted 1,015,905 trucks entering from Mexico in 1996, about 31% of the border's total, and 2,945,388 in 2025, about 39%, by our arithmetic. The count shows how many trucks crossed, not what they carried. Crossings held roughly flat from Jan to Sep 2026, while the dollar value of all US-Mexico freight, across all modes, was 26.7% higher in Aug than a year earlier. Together, the two suggest more value per crossing, in current dollars, though the two series measure different things.
BTS updates the crossing counts every month; the next update covers Oct.
Sources
- BTS, Border Crossing Entry Data (dataset keg4-3bc2), trucks, US-Mexico and US-Canada borders, 1996 to Sep 2026 (read through the data portal), 2026-11-01. Link
- BTS, North American Transborder Freight valued at 160.6 billion dollars in August 2026 (BTS 26-79), 2026-10-21. Link
- Wikipedia, North American Free Trade Agreement (context), 2026-11-01. Link
- Wikipedia, Laredo, Texas (context), 2026-11-01. Link
The same release, as this week's numbers, on our sister site: rutanamex.com/blog/us-mexico-freight-by-truck-august-2026.
Older: Mexico's fertility since 1960: from 6.8 children per woman to under 2