Roof Racks
The Best Roof Racks for Trucks
Most truck owners asking about a roof rack should be asking about a bed rack. This is the honest version of that conversation, plus the cab-roof options when the bed is full.
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A pickup is the only vehicle we cover that gives you three genuinely different places to put things, and the cab roof — the one people ask about — is usually the weakest of the three.
The cab roof on most trucks is bare, short and small. It is bare because almost no pickup ships with factory side rails, so you are starting with a clamp-on foot pack and a vehicle-specific fit kit. It is short because a cab is not a wagon roof, which limits your crossbar spread and rules out some full-size cargo boxes. And on several popular trucks, including the Tacoma, the manufacturer does not publish a cab roof load figure we have been able to verify at all.
None of which means you should not fit one. It means you should fit one for the right job: light, long things when the bed is full or open to the sky.
Quick picks
Tap any row to jump to the full write-up below. Scores are our editorial judgment on published specifications — not a star rating, and not a product we claim to have tested.
| # | Product | Best for | Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Thule WingBar EvoWith the Evo Clamp foot pack and a truck-specific fit kit, this is the quietest and most widely supported way onto a bare cab roof. | Best cab-roof crossbars | 8.2 | |
| 2 |  Yakima BaseLine towersYakima's clamp-on tower plus a vehicle BaseClip is the direct alternative to the Evo Clamp, usually for less money. | Bare-roof tower system | 8.2 | |
| 3 | Yakima JetStreamThe bar to pair with a BaseLine tower on a truck — the wing profile is worth having over a cab that already generates turbulence. | Quiet bars at a sane price | 8.3 | |
| 4 |  Thule Canyon XTIf the point of the cab roof is bulky, oddly shaped gear rather than luggage, a basket beats a box on a truck. | Carrying awkward loads above the cab | 7.4 |
Prices checked September 25, 2026. Product photographs are representative stock images, not the exact unit. Affiliate disclosure.
#1 · Best cab-roof crossbars
Thule WingBar Evo
With the Evo Clamp foot pack and a truck-specific fit kit, this is the quietest and most widely supported way onto a bare cab roof.
- Material
- Aluminum, aero profile
- Mounting
- Evo Clamp foot pack for bare roofs
- Fit kit
- Vehicle-specific pad shaped to the door aperture
- Accessory interface
- Open T-track
What works
- Aero profile matters more on a truck, which already makes plenty of noise
- Clamp-on feet fit bare cab roofs without drilling
- Fit kits cover most mainstream mid-size and full-size pickups
What doesn’t
- A short cab roof gives you a narrow bar spread whatever you buy
- Three purchases: bars, Evo Clamp feet, fit kit
- On some trucks the cab roof load limit is unpublished, which caps what you can responsibly carry
Our scoring
8.2overall
#2 · Bare-roof tower system
Yakima BaseLine towers
Yakima's clamp-on tower plus a vehicle BaseClip is the direct alternative to the Evo Clamp, usually for less money.
- Material
- Composite tower with steel clamp
- Mounting
- Clamps into the door aperture
- Fit kit
- Vehicle-specific BaseClip
- Pairs with
- JetStream or CoreBar crossbars
What works
- Good coverage of pickups and cabs with no factory rails
- Cheaper than the equivalent Thule combination on most trucks
- Removable in minutes when you do not need it
What doesn’t
- Still two or three separate purchases
- BaseClip is vehicle-specific, so it does not move with you to a new truck
Our scoring
8.2overall
#3 · Quiet bars at a sane price
Yakima JetStream
The bar to pair with a BaseLine tower on a truck — the wing profile is worth having over a cab that already generates turbulence.
- Material
- Aluminum, wing profile
- Mounting
- Yakima tower kit
- Accessory interface
- Full-length channel
- Sold as
- Bars only
What works
- Meaningfully quieter than a round or square bar
- Channel runs the full bar, useful when the spread is short
- Widely stocked in multiple lengths
What doesn’t
- Bars only — the tower kit is a separate purchase
- Fixed lengths
Our scoring
8.3overall
#4 · Carrying awkward loads above the cab
Thule Canyon XT
If the point of the cab roof is bulky, oddly shaped gear rather than luggage, a basket beats a box on a truck.
- Type
- Open steel roof basket
- Mounting
- Bolts to crossbars
- Extension
- Expandable with an add-on section
- Best with
- A cargo net or straps over the top
What works
- Takes shapes a hard box refuses
- Lower profile than a box, so less of a garage problem
- Tie-down points all the way round
What doesn’t
- No weather protection — everything needs a dry bag
- Noisy unless you fit the wind fairing
- Steel baskets are heavy before you load anything
Our scoring
7.4overall
Start with the bed, not the roof
The bed is a rated, structural part of the truck with tie-down points built into it. The cab roof is a stamped panel whose load figure the manufacturer may not even publish. That asymmetry should decide most of what you carry.
Put anything heavy in the bed. Put anything you can lift at waist height in the bed. Save the cab roof for the case it is genuinely good at: something long and light — a ladder, a pair of kayaks, lumber — where the bed cannot take the length and the load is measured in tens of pounds rather than hundreds.
And if the bed is full and the thing is heavy, the receiver is the third option. Nearly every modern pickup has a 2-inch Class IV hitch as standard, which is a stronger and easier answer than anything above the cab. Our hitch cargo carrier picks cover that route.
The cab roof limit nobody publishes
This is worth stating plainly because it is unusual. For several popular pickups, we could not find a manufacturer-published cab roof load figure at all. A 100 lb number circulates on owner forums for the Toyota Tacoma; we could not confirm it against Toyota documentation, so we do not repeat it as fact on our Tacoma fitment page.
What that means practically: check your own owner’s manual, under cargo and luggage. If there is no figure there either, treat the cab roof conservatively — light loads only — and put the weight in the bed. A rack manufacturer’s rating tells you what the bar can hold. It tells you nothing about what the roof under it can hold.
Crossbar spread on a short cab
A cab roof is short, so your front-to-back bar spread will be narrower than on a wagon or a three-row SUV. Measure it as soon as the bars are on: center of the front bar to center of the rear bar.
That number matters because cargo boxes publish a minimum mounting spread, and some full-size boxes need more than a crew-cab roof can give. A basket is far more forgiving about spread than a box is, which is part of why baskets are more common on trucks.
Common questions
Can you put a roof rack on a truck without drilling?
Bed rack or cab roof rack?
Will a cargo box fit on a truck cab?
Sources
Not sure it fits your car?
Our vehicle pages carry the published roof load limit, the roof type by model year, and what actually mounts to it — cited, and honest about what the manufacturer does not publish.