How long until you get paid? Net 30 and factoring

Checked October 2026

The short answer: most contract and broker work pays about 30 days after you hand in clean paperwork — "net 30." Factoring companies will pay you in a day or two instead, and they keep roughly 1 to 5 percent of the load for it. Route work for local companies often pays weekly or every two weeks. Know your clock before you take the work: fuel is due now.

Why net 30 exists

The company you haul for is itself waiting to be paid by its customer. The 30-day clock is the industry's habit of passing that wait down the chain until it lands on the smallest business in it — you. Clean paperwork starts the clock: a signed delivery receipt sent the same day, not found in the cab a week later. Late paperwork is the most common reason a 30-day payment becomes a 45-day one.

What factoring really costs

A factoring company buys your invoice and pays you fast — often the same day or the next — minus its fee. At 3 percent, a $780 load pays you $756.60 today instead of $780 in a month. Run every load that way for a year and the habit costs real money: on $100,000 of gross, a 3 percent fee is $3,000 — roughly four months of truck payments. Factoring is a bridge, not a foundation: use it across the first months while invoices build up, or when a repair bill lands, and get off it when your own reserve can carry the wait. Watch for the traps: long contracts, hidden fees, and "recourse" terms that take the money back if the customer never pays.

Which work pays faster

Local route work for delivery and furniture companies commonly pays weekly or biweekly — one reason steady routes are worth more than their rate suggests. Moving work often pays at job completion or weekly. Amazon Relay pays on its own weekly-style clock for completed runs. Broker spot freight is the slowest — net 30 is the polite version; check a broker's days-to-pay on the board before you book, because 45 and 60 exist and the load does not say so.

The habit that protects you

Send paperwork the day you deliver. Photograph every signed receipt. And keep the reserve our startup guide insists on — two to three slow months of bills — because the clock is not an emergency when you have already paid for it in advance.