Reimagining Rental Operations in 2026: From Chaos to Complete Control 

Imagine handling hundreds of rental orders daily while juggling multiple spreadsheets. Keeping up with rising rental demand can be a real hassle for rental businesses, especially when they rely on manual systems to manage their operations. However, an even bigger challenge than meeting rental demand is generating consistent revenue and keeping those profit numbers high.  

Across the equipment rental industry, businesses are booking jobs, expanding fleets, and keeping equipment moving, yet still struggling to protect margins. Equipment sits idle at remote sites, maintenance issues quietly eat into rental days, billing errors go unnoticed, and teams rely on disconnected spreadsheets to manage increasingly complex operations. The result? Revenue is being lost not because customers aren’t renting, but because internal systems cannot keep up.

This challenge is especially visible among mid-market and enterprise rental companies. As operations scale, manual workflows, limited asset visibility, and reactive maintenance strategies create blind spots that directly impact utilization and revenue. At the same time, rising equipment costs, labor shortages, and tighter competition leave little room for inefficiency.

Keeping these challenges in mind, we drafted the EZRentOut State of the Equipment Rental Industry Report 2026 to uncover exactly why these breakdowns occur and what the most resilient rental businesses are doing differently to fix them. Drawing insights from heavy equipment rental business owners and managers, the report uncovers the top challenges faced by rental companies and what factors they anticipate will change the rental landscape in 2026. 

Why download this report?

• Understand the hidden revenue leaks impacting your rental operations: Missed billing, maintenance downtime, and poor asset visibility are quietly draining profits across the rental industry. 44.7% of rental businesses report missed billing as a major revenue leak, while over 53% lose revenue due to equipment downtime. These losses often go unnoticed because they’re buried in manual workflows and disconnected systems. This report breaks down where revenue is leaking and how to stop it before it impacts your margins.
• Explore why utilization is no longer a demand problem: Low utilization is caused by a lack of visibility into your rental operations, rather than a lack of customers. 34% of rental companies report utilization below 50%, often due to scheduling errors, idle assets at remote sites, and maintenance delays. Dive into the data to understand what’s really holding utilization back in 2026 and how leading rental businesses are fixing it.
• Discover how automation is reshaping rental operations: As rental operations scale, manual processes fail to keep up. That’s exactly why most of our survey respondents agreed they plan to automate their rental workflows to avoid losing revenue. Find out in the report what the top strategies are to make that happen. 
• Get actionable insights to future-proof your rental business in 2026: From digital bookings and predictive maintenance to hybrid revenue models like sub-rentals and long-term contracts, the rental industry is evolving fast. This report equips you with the insights and benchmarks you need to adapt confidently, protect margins, and scale without losing control.

So, what are you waiting for? Overcome your rental challenges and drive up your revenue through insights into how to automate quickly with the changing rental landscape. 

Whether you are a rental business owner or a fleet manager, this report provides the insights you need to upgrade your rental operations in 2026 and stay aligned with ongoing industry trends. Download the report now to have a better understanding of what the future holds for your rental business and how you can adapt accordingly.