Commercial truck lease agreement template, with notes on every clause

This commercial truck lease agreement template is a plain-language starting point for leasing a semi truck or other commercial truck from one business to another. Below you get the template as a free download, a note on what each clause does and what to check, the extra terms federal law requires when an owner-operator leases onto a carrier, and the signs that a lease is built against you.

We are a dispatch service, not a law firm or a lessor. Use the template to understand and negotiate a lease, then have an attorney licensed in your state review it before anyone signs.

Download the truck lease agreement template

Download the commercial truck lease agreement template (.txt). It opens in any text editor or word processor, with blanks for every number and checkboxes for who pays what.

The template is an equipment lease: an owner rents a truck to a user for a set term. It fits a fleet leasing a spare tractor to another carrier, a retiring owner renting out a truck, or two small operators who know each other. It is written for the deal itself, so it asks you to fill in your own numbers instead of assuming any.

Two kinds of trucking lease agreement

The word "lease" covers two different contracts in trucking, and people search for both:

A carrier lease-purchase often combines both: you lease the truck from the carrier or its affiliate and lease back onto the carrier to haul. Read those as two contracts, and check each against its own rules. Our guide to lease to own semi trucks covers that structure in depth.

The template, clause by clause

Each section below matches a numbered section in the download.

1 and 2. Parties and equipment

Use full legal business names and addresses, and the USDOT and MC numbers where they exist. Identify the truck by year, make, model and VIN, plus the odometer and engine hours at delivery. Attach a signed delivery inspection with photos as Exhibit A. Without it, every scratch at return becomes your word against theirs.

Check: the VIN on the lease matches the truck's door label and title. Decode it with our semi truck VIN decoder to confirm the engine and model year.

3. Term

Give a start date and time and an end date and time. A lease with no clear end is a lease you cannot leave cleanly. If the term renews automatically, say so in plain words and set a notice deadline to stop it.

4. Rent and payment

State the rent, how often it is due, how it is paid and the late fee. The template adds one line worth keeping: every charge appears in this section or in Exhibit B, and nothing else applies without a signed change. That single sentence prevents most surprise deductions.

5. Security deposit

Set the amount, list exactly what it can be used for, and set a deadline to return it with itemized deductions and receipts. A deposit that "may be applied to any amounts owed" is an open checkbook.

6. Use and operating authority

Name whose USDOT and MC the truck runs under. The party operating under its own authority is responsible for qualified drivers, hours of service and legal weights. List any freight or uses that are off limits, and say whether subleasing is allowed.

7. Mileage

Set an allowance per month, year or term and a price per mile over it, and when excess miles are settled. EXAMPLE: an allowance of 120,000 miles a year and a charge of $0.10 a mile; running 140,000 miles adds 20,000 × $0.10 = $2,000 for the year. Price your real lanes before you agree to an allowance.

8. Maintenance and repairs

This is the clause that decides whether a lease is affordable. Split it by category: preventive maintenance, tires, major components (engine, transmission, aftertreatment) and breakdowns. Add a dollar limit above which a repair needs approval, and who keeps the records.

The template also says emissions equipment will not be removed, disabled or altered. Removing or disabling emissions controls on a truck is illegal under the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7522), and a lessor has every reason to put that in writing.

9. Insurance

The lessee usually carries liability and physical damage, with the lessor named as additional insured or loss payee. When the truck runs for hire, liability must meet at least the federal minimum in 49 CFR 387.9. Set the physical damage value to what the truck is actually worth, and require notice before any policy lapses.

10. Registration, permits and taxes

Assign each cost by name: title and base plates, IRP apportioned plates, the heavy vehicle use tax on IRS Form 2290 (it applies to highway vehicles with a taxable gross weight of 55,000 pounds or more), IFTA fuel tax reporting, permits, tolls and fines, and any sales or use tax on the rent. The template uses a Lessor or Lessee line for each, so nothing is left to "customary."

11. Title and liens

The lessor keeps title and the lessee may not let any lien attach. Ask the lessor to state that the truck is free of liens, or to list the ones that exist. If the lessor's own lender repossesses the truck, you want that risk on paper.

12. Return condition

Define normal wear and tear in words, set the return place, and require a joint inspection with photos and an odometer or ECM reading. Compare it with Exhibit A.

13. Option to buy

Choose none, a fixed price or fair market value, and say how the option is exercised. A lease with a set residual and an adjustment at the end is a TRAC lease, which has its own federal tax treatment under 26 U.S.C. 7701(h); ask your tax professional how your lease will be treated before you sign. Our truck leasing guide compares TRAC, fair market value and full-service leases.

14. Default and early termination

List what counts as default, give a written notice and a cure period, and state what the lessor can do after an uncured default. Then write the exit: how much notice either side gives to end early and what it costs. Leases that let the lessor end the deal at will while you owe the full term are lopsided.

15 and 16. Indemnity and general terms

Indemnity decides who pays when a third party sues. Have your attorney write this one for your state. The general terms set governing law, how disputes are handled, that changes must be in writing, and where notices go.

Owner-operator lease agreement: what 49 CFR 376.12 requires

When an owner-operator leases a truck onto an authorized carrier, federal truth-in-leasing rules at 49 CFR 376.12 set what the written lease must contain. Use this as a checklist against any lease-on agreement a carrier hands you:

Escrow interest must be paid at least quarterly at a rate tied to 91-day Treasury bills, under paragraph (k). If a lease-on agreement is missing any of these, ask why before you sign. Our lease-purchase dispatch service page explains how dispatch works for drivers in these programs.

Red flags in a semi truck lease agreement

Walk away, or at least stop and get advice, when you see:

• Blank or "to be determined" numbers for rent, deposit, mileage charge or buyout.
• Open-ended chargebacks like "any costs incurred" without a list or a method.
• Every repair on you, with no say in who does it or what it costs.
• A deposit or escrow with no return date.
• Termination at will for the lessor only, while you owe the full term.
• A balloon or buyout higher than the truck will be worth, so you never really own it.
• Pressure to sign today, or refusal to let you take a copy to an attorney.

What the lease really costs: an EXAMPLE

EXAMPLE figures, not a quote. Run your own lease against a loan for the same truck in the lease-purchase vs own calculator, and read lease vs buy a truck for the full comparison. If a loan fits better, our semi truck financing guide maps the lenders.

Before you sign: a five-minute checklist

1. Every number is filled in, and the total of payments matches what you were told.
2. The VIN, odometer and condition report match the truck in front of you.
3. Each cost (repairs, tires, insurance, plates, 2290, IFTA, tolls) has a name next to it.
4. You know how the lease ends: return, buy or renew, and what each costs.
5. An attorney has read it, and you have a signed copy.

Whatever the lease, the truck has to earn its rent every week. Our owner-operator dispatch service books loads that clear your cost per mile, and the truck dispatch team works every rig we run the same way.