Food truck monthly costs: the bills to plan for

Monthly bills at a glance

Due even on days you don't sell

Rise with sales

Figures checked: Oct 2026.

Bills due even on days you don't sell

Commissary

A commissary is a licensed kitchen you rent to prep food, wash up, fill water and dump waste. Many health departments require one.

What drives the cost: your city, how many hours of kitchen time you use and what's included.

Real prices: one commissary, Commissary 5280, publishes its rates: $20 an hour, with a $250 monthly minimum for food trucks that includes its mobile unit membership [4]. Roaming Hunger puts commissaries at $250–$750 a month, and as high as $1,000–$1,250 in cities where parking is scarce, such as Los Angeles or New York [5]. Ranges like "$400–$1,500 a month" appear on many sites, mostly with no source, so get two written quotes for the same hours and services.

What to ask: How many kitchen hours does the fee cover, and what does each extra hour cost? Are water, gray-water dumping (used sink water), grease disposal and storage included? Is there a deposit? Will they sign the commissary agreement your health permit may need?

Parking or overnight storage

What drives the cost: your city, and whether the commissary includes parking. DoorDash and Roaming Hunger both treat parking as part of the commissary cost where it's offered [6][5]. We found no published price for parking on its own, so get quotes.

What to ask: Is the lot secure and lit? Can you plug in overnight to keep fridges running? Is there a height or length limit? Can you park a tow vehicle there too, if you have a trailer?

Fuel and propane

What drives the cost: how far you drive each day, how long the generator runs and how much your menu cooks on gas.

Real prices: DoorDash gives $500–$1,500 a month for fuel and propane [6]. We found no reliable published figure for generator fuel on its own, only an owner report from the 2022 price spike (see below).

What to ask: the truck's real miles per gallon, the generator's fuel use per hour at the load you'll run, and what your propane supplier charges to refill or exchange tanks. If you're choosing a trailer, the tow vehicle's fuel counts here too; see food truck vs food trailer vs food cart.

Insurance

A food truck usually needs three kinds of cover:

• Commercial auto covers the truck on the road. Insureon's food truck customers pay a median of $209 a month for it [7].
• General liability covers injuries and damage to other people, such as a customer who gets sick. The median is $37 a month, or $96 a month for a business owner's policy, which bundles liability with cover for your equipment [7].
• Workers' compensation covers staff hurt on the job. The median is $46 a month [7].

A median is the middle price: half of buyers paid less and half paid more. At these medians, vehicle cover costs more than five times as much as liability cover. DoorDash's range for insurance overall is $200–$400 a month [6].

What to ask: Does the auto policy cover the kitchen equipment inside the truck? Will event organizers and your commissary accept the liability limit? Can you add an event as an "additional insured" without paying extra each time?

Truck payment or lease

What drives the cost: the price you finance, the interest rate and how many years you take to pay. NerdWallet lists food truck loan terms of one to 10 years and rates of 5% to 36% APR, depending on the lender, the truck, your down payment and your credit [15].

Real prices: a $30,000 to $100,000 loan over five years comes to about $560 to $3,620 a month, by our math [E2]:

We found no reliable published range for leasing or renting a truck, so get written quotes. For what the truck and the rest of opening cost, see food truck startup costs.

What to ask: the APR, not just the monthly payment; the total you'll pay over the loan; any fees for paying it off early; and, for a lease, who pays for repairs and how many miles are included.

Staff pay and your own pay

What drives the cost: how many people you schedule and for how many hours. Prep, driving, setup and cleanup count, not just selling time. One Philadelphia owner says that even when they sell for only two to three hours, they work an eight-to-ten-hour day [16].

Real prices: restaurant cooks in the U.S. earned a median of $17.98 an hour in May 2025, and the middle half earned $16.35 to $21.45 [8]. As an employer you also pay 7.65% on top for Social Security and Medicare [9]. At that middle-half pay, one full-time cook costs about $3,000–$4,100 a month [E1]. Your state's minimum wage and local pay may be higher.

Your own pay: count it as a bill. If the truck only covers its costs when you work for free, it isn't covering its costs. One simple way is to price your own hours at what you'd pay a cook.

What to ask: your state's minimum wage and payroll rules, whether you need workers' comp from your first hire, and how many hours a day the truck really takes, not just how long the window is open.

Permits and renewals

Most trucks hold several permits: a health permit from the city, county or state, a city vending permit or business license, and often a fire inspection. Many renew each year. To budget, divide each yearly fee by 12.

Real prices: rules and fees vary by place, so these are examples, not your costs.

• Oakland, California: the city's mobile vending permit costs $511 a year, about $42.60 a month. Health and fire inspections are separate [10].
• Texas: the state's license for a truck that cooks costs $876 to apply plus $500 for the first inspection, and it lasts one year. Spread over 12 months, that's about $115 a month [11].
• One Philadelphia owner spends "well over $1,000 in licensing each season" [16].

What to ask: every permit you need in each city you'll sell in, when each one renews, and what inspections cost on top of the permit.

Repairs and maintenance

Treat this as money you set aside each month, even in months when nothing breaks. We found no reliable published figure for it, and the cost depends heavily on the truck's age and condition. Owners list "breakdowns, tire blowouts, generator issues" among their costs [16].

What to ask: Before you buy, ask a mechanic to inspect the truck and estimate what it will need in the next year (tires, brakes, belts, battery), then divide by 12. Ask what the generator's servicing costs, what a kitchen equipment repair visit costs locally, and what two or three owners of similar trucks spent last year.

Card reader plan

What drives the cost: the POS plan you choose. POS (point of sale) means the card reader and the app you take orders on.

Real prices: Square's plans cost $0, $49 or $149 a month per location [12]. We couldn't find plan prices on Toast's or Clover's pricing pages, so ask them for a quote.

What to ask: the monthly plan cost, the hardware cost, whether there's a contract or a monthly minimum, and whether the reader takes cards with no signal, since trucks often park where coverage is weak.

Phone and software

We found no published price range for food trucks, so get quotes for the plans you'd actually use: a phone line, mobile data for the card reader, and any scheduling, payroll or accounting apps.

What to ask: whether your card reader needs its own data plan, and which apps charge per user or per location.

Bills that rise with sales

Food and packaging

What drives the cost: your menu, portion sizes, supplier prices and waste. Nearly every order goes out in packaging.

Real prices: DoorDash puts food truck ingredients at 28%–35% of sales [6]. Limited-service restaurants reported a median of 32.4% of sales for food and non-alcohol drinks in 2024 [17]. Packaging comes on top; price it per order from your supplier.

What to ask: your suppliers' delivery minimums and price lists, and what each menu item costs to make, packaging included.

Card fees

Real prices: Square charges 2.6% + 15¢ per in-person card payment on its free plan, 2.5% + 15¢ on Plus and 2.4% + 15¢ on Premium [12]. Card fees are charged on the whole payment, including sales tax and tips.

What to ask: the fee per payment, any monthly minimum, and how fast the money reaches your bank.

Event and market fees

Events and markets charge either a flat fee or a share of your sales.

Real prices: the Washington State Food Truck Association says a flat fee shouldn't exceed $300 a day, and a percentage fee should ideally be 10% or lower and never more than 15% [13]. The Cincinnati Food Truck Association says trucks expect fees of about 5%–10% of the day's sales [14]. These are the associations' recommendations; owners report paying more at big events (see below). A flat fee is due however the day goes.

What to ask: how many people the organizer expects, how many other trucks are booked, whether there's a minimum sales guarantee, and what happens to your fee if it rains.

What owners say they actually pay

These are individual accounts, not typical.

Commissary. Tacos del Tigre, a Los Angeles taco cart, pays $400 a month to store the cart at its commissary (2024) [18]. In Snohomish County, Washington, Warpig Smokehouse pays $1,000 a month for unlimited kitchen hours, and Hay Girl Coffee pays $500 a month just to dump wastewater (2024) [19].

Permits. The taco cart's permit fees came to nearly $1,000 in 2023 [18]. Always Cooking NOLA pays Tarrant County, Texas, $600 a year to permit its trailer (2025) [20].

Fuel, during the 2022 price spike. South Cow Food Truck in Kentucky went from about $50 to up to $100 a fill-up, and from $10 to $30 to fill its generator [21].

Event fees. At a 2014 fireworks show, a park took 15% of Bistro Bus's gross that day, and a 2015 festival was charging it a flat $500 [22]. Oak City Fish & Chips paid a $4,500 flat fee to work a past 11-day North Carolina State Fair [23].

Your own written quotes are what count.

Free printable: food truck monthly bills checklist

Our free one-page worksheet lists each bill, how it's usually billed and what to ask, with room for two quotes. Take it with you when you call commissaries, insurers and event organizers. Download the checklist (PDF), free, no sign-up.

Once you have quotes, see how many orders a day they add up to in how many orders a day a food truck needs.

Planning an opening? Our Simple Food Truck Opening Planner is a spreadsheet for Excel or Google Sheets. See the planner

How we worked out our estimates

These are our own estimates, built only from the sources listed. Money is rounded to the cent, and ranges are rounded outward.

E1. One full-time cook: $3,000–$4,100. Full time is 40 hours × 52 weeks ÷ 12 = 173.33 hours a month. At $16.35 an hour: 2,080 × $16.35 ÷ 12 = $2,834.00, plus 7.65% ($216.80) = $3,050.80. At $21.45: 2,080 × $21.45 ÷ 12 = $3,718.00, plus 7.65% ($284.43) = $4,002.43. Rounded outward: $3,000–$4,100. The hourly figures are the 25th and 75th percentiles for restaurant cooks (BLS, May 2025) [8]; the 7.65% is from the IRS [9].

E2. Truck payments. Standard loan payment formula, 60 monthly payments, at three rates inside NerdWallet's 5%–36% range [15]. The $30,000–$100,000 amounts match published prices for used trucks [6][15]. Lowest: $30,000 at 5% = $566.14. Highest: $100,000 at 36% = $3,613.30. Rounded outward: $560–$3,620.