Truck Driver Pay in Kansas (2026)

Key numbers at a glance

Truck driver pay in Kansas: the numbers

The benchmark is the Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, May 2025 release. Kansas employs about 24,220 heavy and tractor-trailer drivers — roughly 16.8 of every 1,000 jobs in the state, above the concentration you find in metro-heavy states like Illinois (about 13.8 per 1,000). For a state with no single dominant megacity, that is a deep trucking market, built on long lanes rather than dense local delivery. Annual figures assume 2,080 hours, so treat them as full-time equivalents rather than promises.

The Kansas pattern is a raised floor under a flat-ish roof: the $43,760 10th percentile is the highest entry floor of the plains states in this series, meaning even bottom-decile full-time seats pay above $21/hour, while the 90th percentile stays just under the national mark. The 75th percentile running $1,960 above national hints at where the good money sits — Kansas City-side intermodal and warehouse distribution, refrigerated beef loads, and specialized flatbed work around Wichita's aerospace plants. BLS does not track cents-per-mile pay, and structure differs between OTR mileage seats and hourly plant jobs — confirm details with the carrier.

How miles and freight shape pay in Kansas

Kansas is a crossroads state with heavy freight and thin population. I-70 runs coast-to-coast across the entire state, and I-35 ties the Kansas City metro to Wichita and on toward Oklahoma City and Dallas–Fort Worth — two of the longest, most consistent truckload corridors in the country, which is why national carriers base OTR and regional fleets out of terminals strung from Kansas City to Salina to Wichita. On the Missouri line, the Kansas City rail hub — one of the busiest rail centers in the country — feeds intermodal ramps and a large warehouse and distribution cluster that employ drivers on both sides of the state line. To the southwest sits a different economy entirely: the beef-packing belt around Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, which generates a year-round flow of cattle in and boxed refrigerated meat out, plus wheat and row-crop freight that peaks with the summer harvest. Wichita's aircraft factories add steady flatbed and components lanes.

That mix produces a market that leans long-haul: plentiful OTR and regional mileage seats, with hourly work concentrated around the Kansas City metro, the beef plants and Wichita manufacturing rather than spread across dozens of cities. The upside of emptier highways is speed and reliability; the cost is distance — western Kansas loads can deadhead a long way from the nearest reload, and beef-plant schedules pay for patience as much as miles. Owner-operators should price empty legs and detention into every rate with the load profit calculator and recheck their cost per mile quarterly. For how Kansas stacks up nationally, see the truck driver pay by state hub.

The tax angle in Kansas

Kansas runs a two-bracket individual income tax — 5.2% on the first $23,000 of taxable income for single filers and 5.58% above it for 2025, per the Kansas Department of Revenue. A mean-wage driver at $60,480 lands squarely in the top bracket, owing roughly $3,300 to the state before the standard deduction trims it. Neighboring Missouri drivers who run Kansas freight file non-resident returns with credits at home; owner-operators apportion through their base state under IRP/IFTA rules. Kansas also levies a 6.5% state sales tax, which matters less for wages than for equipment purchases. Verify current rates and brackets with the Kansas Department of Revenue, and see the trucking tax deductions guide for the deduction basics.