Food truck business plan: costs, permits and the numbers for your first season

You have found the truck, a commissary has a slot, and the lender wants a plan before anyone writes a check. A truck plan is shorter than a restaurant's, but it stands or falls on four numbers a restaurant plan never has to show.

A food truck business plan needs four numbers a restaurant plan does not: what the truck and build-out cost, your monthly commissary and insurance bill, the fee or commission at each pitch, and how many orders each trading day must sell to break even. For scale, the median SBA 7(a) loan to an independent mobile food start-up in fiscal 2024 to 2026 was $58,400, against $360,000 for a full-service restaurant. Last checked: 5 November 2026.

You will not be the only one filing in January. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics show new business applications in accommodation and food services jumping from 15,866 in December 2024 to 25,795 in January 2025, and from 20,064 in December 2025 to 26,032 in January 2026 (not seasonally adjusted).

How much does it cost to start a food truck?

No neutral survey publishes current food truck build costs; most figures online come from truck builders and equipment sellers. The best public reference point is what lenders actually lend. Our analysis of the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA loan data (as of 30 September 2026) takes 7(a) loans approved in fiscal 2024 to 2026 to businesses marked "Startup, Loan Funds will Open Business", excluding franchises:

In fiscal 2026 alone, 57 mobile food start-up loans had a median of $53,700. A loan is not the whole project: the owner adds equity, and many trucks are bought with savings or equipment finance instead. Treat the table as a sense of scale. If you buy the kitchen equipment outright, our Section 179 guide explains when its cost can be deducted in the year it goes into service. The same data shows how these loans end. Of the mobile food start-up loans approved in fiscal 2010 to 2014 that were not canceled (franchises included, the same basis as our restaurant business plan guide), 9.3% (16 of 172) were later charged off by the SBA, against 11.7% for full-service restaurant start-ups. The sample is small, so read it as "not riskier than a restaurant", not as a precise rate.

The market has grown fast. Census County Business Patterns counted 12,487 mobile food businesses with employees in 2023, up from 7,217 in 2019, and 81% had fewer than five employees. Most are owner-operated with a small crew.

What goes in a food truck startup budget?

The generic startup lines (legal, accounting, opening marketing, working capital, a 10% contingency) are in our line-by-line restaurant startup budget. These are the lines a truck adds or changes. Fill each from a written quote.

The permit line is several separate approvals from different offices, each with its own fee and renewal date. Put each fee in the budget as a quote, and put the renewals in the monthly fixed costs. Which permits you need, who issues them, what a real city charges and the order to apply in are all in our food truck licenses and permits guide.

How much does a food truck commissary cost?

A commissary is a licensed kitchen where you prep food, clean the truck, fill fresh water, empty wastewater and often park overnight. Most health departments require one and want the commissary's letter with your permit application, so it is a fixed monthly cost from the day you apply, not from your first sale.

Prices are local and set by private operators, so get three quotes and compare what each includes:

• Prep time: unlimited, by the hour or by booked shift.
• Storage: dry, cold and frozen shelf space.
• Parking: overnight, with or without power for refrigeration.
• Services: water fill, wastewater and grease disposal, propane refills.
• Paperwork: a signed commissary letter for your permit application.

A shared restaurant kitchen after hours can work as a commissary if your health department approves it. Ask before you sign anything.

How many orders does a food truck need to break even?

Work it out per trading day, then check it against each event before you book. Every figure below is an example; replace it with your own quotes.

Worked example: a Saturday brewery pitch.

Break-even sales for the day are $487 divided by 0.57, or $854. At an average ticket of $14, that is 62 orders (always round up).

That covers the day, not the business. Add a share of the monthly fixed costs:

Spread over 16 trading days a month, that is $172 a day. Full break-even is ($487 + $172) / 0.57 = $1,156, or 83 orders at $14.

Our decision rule: book an event only when you expect at least 1.3 times your full break-even orders, which is 108 orders in this example. That buffer covers weather, a slow line and the event that was smaller than the organizer promised. Ask organizers for last year's attendance and how many other food vendors are booked; a 2,000-person festival with 25 trucks is 80 people per truck before anyone eats twice.

Flat fee or commission? A flat fee costs you more on a slow day and less on a busy one. Work out the sales level at which the two are equal (flat fee divided by the commission rate: $150 / 10% = $1,500) and take the flat fee when you expect to beat that.

How do you plan for seasonality in a food truck plan?

A truck's year is uneven: weather, school calendars and the event season decide how many days you can trade. Build the cash flow month by month, and put the number of trading days in its own row, so a lender can see you have planned for the quiet months.

• Count trading days, not calendar days. Lunch spots, evening pitches, private bookings and festivals, month by month.
• Fill quiet months with booked work. Private parties, office lunches and catering pay before you show up and do not depend on foot traffic. Our catering guide covers quotes and deposits.
• Hold cash for the slow season. Set aside part of each busy month's profit until you have the fixed costs of your quietest months in the bank.

How to write the rest of the plan (sections, lender tests, the 12-month cash flow) is in our restaurant business plan guide, and a smaller-format comparison is in the coffee shop business plan.

Food truck first-season budget template

Paste this into a spreadsheet. Each month's profit is trading days times sales per day, minus variable costs and fixed costs.

FOOD TRUCK FIRST-SEASON BUDGET     Apr    May    Jun    Jul    Aug    Sep    Oct    Total
TRADING
  Trading days                     [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]
  Average orders per day           [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]
  Average ticket ($)               [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]    [ ]
  SALES                            =days x orders x ticket
VARIABLE COSTS (% of sales)
  Food and packaging               [ ]%
  Card fees                        [ ]%
  Event commissions                [ ]%
PER-DAY COSTS (x trading days)
  Staff wages and payroll taxes    [ ]
  Fuel, propane, generator         [ ]
  Pitch fees (flat)                [ ]
MONTHLY FIXED COSTS
  Loan or lease payment            [ ]
  Commissary                       [ ]
  Insurance                        [ ]
  Maintenance reserve              [ ]
  Permits (renewals / 12)          [ ]
  Phone, software, accounting      [ ]
PROFIT BEFORE OWNER PAY            =sales - all costs
CASH AT MONTH END                  =previous month + profit - owner draw

BREAK-EVEN ORDERS PER DAY = (per-day costs + monthly fixed / trading days)
                            / (average ticket x (1 - variable cost %))

Price your menu so food and packaging land where your plan says. The menu price calculator works backward from a target cost to a price.

Can TablePort handle this for you?

A truck needs a till that keeps working where the signal does not.

1. A phone behind the hatch. Run the POS on a supported phone with one supported card reader, or Tap to Pay on the phone.
2. Orders keep going offline. Orders and the menu live on the device and sync when the signal returns. Card payments fall back to Stripe's offline mode where your reader supports it, and sync when you reconnect.
3. One report per trading day. End-of-day reports show sales and top items for each day, so you can compare pitches and test your break-even.

The honest limit: Tap to Pay on a phone generally has no offline mode, and an offline payment can still be declined later, so test your setup before a big event. POS Starter is $59 a month and a card reader rental is $12 a month. See food trucks.