Honduras has the most important Caribbean gateway in Central America —Puerto Cortés— and a regulatory quirk that sets it apart from its neighbors: a minimum per-kilometer rate set by law. For anyone buying freight in 2026, that changes the floor they negotiate from.
This guide shows you the real breakdown, dollar by dollar, of a Honduran corridor modeled with our cost engine, and how it relates to that minimum rate.
Related corridors and guides
- Freight Puerto Cortés → San Salvador — CA-4 corridor breakdown.
- Freight Rate Report · Latin America 2026 — open benchmark across 8 markets (free).
- All corridor guides — Central America and Colombia.
The $1.24 per kilometer minimum rate
The most distinctive feature of the Honduran market is that heavy freight trucking has a regulated minimum rate of ~$1.24 per kilometer traveled. In 2026, the IHTT confirmed that this floor stays in place, following the agreement between the government and carriers. It's a legal floor: a freight load shouldn't be paid below that value per kilometer. But, as we'll see, that minimum doesn't equal your route's real cost.
The real cost, dollar by dollar: Puerto Cortés → San Pedro Sula
Let's take Honduras's quintessential short corridor: from the main Caribbean port to the industrial capital, just ~58 km. Here is the modeled breakdown for a Class 5 truck:
| Component | Amount (USD) | Share |
|---|---|---|
| HN Regulatory Floor | $122.85 | 53.4% |
| Empty Trip | $31.96 | 13.9% |
| Port Wait | $21.38 | 9.3% |
| Fuel | $13.27 | 5.8% |
| General/Admin Overhead | $9.74 | 4.2% |
| Detention | $8.02 | 3.5% |
| Maintenance | $7.95 | 3.4% |
| Repositioning | $5.60 | 2.4% |
| Depreciation | $5.22 | 2.3% |
| Driver | $2.94 | 1.3% |
| Insurance | $1.07 | 0.5% |
| Total (all-in real cost) | $230.00 | 100% |
Source: TruckingRates cost engine, 2026 benchmark. Includes the Honduran regulatory floor as an explicit component.
Here's the lesson: on a leg of only 58 km, the real cost runs around $230 round trip, and it's dominated, by far, by the IHTT regulatory floor (53%): in a realistic operation the costs of moving the freight on such a short leg are so low that the legal minimum itself ends up setting more than half the price. Next comes the empty return (14%); together they make up two-thirds of the trip. In other words: the legal minimum, plus the cost of bringing the truck back, weigh far more than the distance traveled. A "per kilometer" rate over 58 km falls well short of what the full cycle really costs.
How the minimum rate works in practice
The Honduran minimum rate is governed by an industry regulation enforced by the IHTT, which sets a base value per kilometer traveled — the ~$1.24/km ratified in 2026 following the agreement between the government and carriers. The idea is to protect carriers from ruinous rates in a context of rising fuel and parts costs. In practice it works as a floor: the agreed freight rate shouldn't fall below that value for the kilometers traveled. But a per-kilometer floor doesn't distinguish between a smooth trip and one with hours of yard time or an empty return — and that's where the real cost separates from the legal minimum. That's why it's best to use the minimum rate as a starting point, not as the final number.
Puerto Cortés and the CA-4
Puerto Cortés is the most important terminal on the Central American Caribbean: much of Honduras's freight —and a good part of El Salvador's and the western part of the region's— enters here. That makes it a high-turnover port, where dwell time can vary with congestion — although on this short leg it weighs less than the regulatory floor and the empty return. And as a node of the CA-4 (the customs union of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua), Honduras combines domestic flows with international transit competing for the same equipment.
Honduras versus the region
Honduras is one of the few markets with an explicit per-kilometer minimum rate — a contrast with Colombia's SICE-TAC (which models efficient per-route costs) or Panama's minimum container drayage rates. Its diesel (~$1.41/L) sits in the region's mid-band. The Honduran quirk isn't the fuel price, but that regulated floor which sets the starting point for every freight negotiation.
How to read these figures
These are modeled reference costs, not quotes: they represent what the trip should cost based on verified data on fuel, wages, tolls, and port waits, for a Class 5 configuration. The "all-in real cost" adds up the full cycle (empty return and port wait). Your specific cost will vary with the equipment, the weight, and the exact route.
How to tell whether your quote is fair
- Use the minimum rate as a floor, not a target. Confirm you're not below $1.24/km, but negotiate against the real cost.
- Demand the dwell-time assumption at Puerto Cortés. On a short leg, it's the biggest cost of the trip.
- Ask about the empty return. Around 14% of the corridor's cost — lower than on other routes because of the weight of the regulatory floor.
Calculate the real cost of your route in Honduras
TruckingRates.org builds the full breakdown —including the regulatory floor— and compares it with your carrier's quote. In under two minutes.
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