Corporate transportation spending rises 26.7%, driven by air travel
Business expenses recorded through Emburse Enterprise increased by 4.8% between January and July compared to the same period last year. Transportation was one of the main drivers of growth, with a 26.7% increase, while airline tickets accounted for more than three-quarters of the increase in this category. The higher volume of travel?and not just the rising cost of travel?accounts for much of this trend.
Corporate expenses recorded through Emburse Enterprise increased by 4.8% between January and July 2026 compared to the same period the previous year, according to the latest edition of Emburse?s Expense Intelligence Report: Travel Edition.
The analysis is based on approximately $9.1 billion in expenses processed through Emburse Enterprise and reported in U.S. dollars during the first seven months of the year.
Within the analyzed data set, transportation expenses grew by 26.7% and accounted for about 42% of the total increase, despite representing only 11% of the total amount recorded.
Air travel accounted for the bulk of the growth
Airline tickets were the main factor behind the increase in transportation spending and accounted for 75.8% of the growth in this category.
Far behind were taxis and ride-hailing services, accounting for 14% of the increase, and car rentals, at 8.2%. Fuel accounted for another 1.5%.
The data thus reflect the continued significance of air travel within budgets for business travel and its influence on the trend in business spending.
More transactions and higher average spending
The increase in the transportation budget is not solely due to rising prices. Average spending per transaction grew by 6.7%, while the number of transportation-related transactions rose by 18.7%.
The difference between these two percentages suggests that the increase in spending is related more to a higher volume of trips than to the increased cost of each trip.
Emburse believes that these spending patterns can also serve as an indicator of business activity. Michele Shepard, Emburse?s Chief Revenue Officer, notes that the data makes it possible to identify changes related to business activity, entry into new markets, or the expansion of operations.
Supplier concentration creates room for negotiation
The report also analyzes the degree of spending concentration among suppliers. In several of the transportation categories studied?including air travel, car rentals, and taxis and ride-hailing services?more than 70% of spending is concentrated among the top three suppliers.
According to Emburse, this concentration can give finance, procurement, and travel management departments greater leeway to negotiate terms with suppliers and strengthen preferred supplier programs.
The growth in the number of trips simultaneously reinforces the need to control costs, analyze compliance with travel policies, and review the terms negotiated with major providers.
A report based on data from Emburse Enterprise
The results are based on an analysis of approximately $9.1 billion in expenses recorded throughEmburse Enterprise data sources between January and July 2026 and compared with the same period in 2025.
For business travel data, Emburse analyzes 29 standardized vendor categories present in its data sources. The data on concentration by category and supplier, meanwhile, comes from another set of annual data for 2025.
The companyñspecifies that certain data on suppliers and trends are indicative and should not be interpreted as a measure of overall market trends, the market shares of individual operators, or the performance of all companies.