Motor Carrier Desk

UCR · Form 2290 · IFTA · operating authority

What does your trucking paperwork cost this year?

Motor Carrier Desk takes the fee tables the UCR Plan, FMCSA, the IRS and IFTA, Inc. publish and turns them into calculators you can use in a minute. Start with UCR: the 2027 fees took effect when registration opened on October 1, 2026, and every bracket rose about 20 percent.

Calculate my UCR fee New authority start-up cost

A white Kenworth tractor pulling a dry-van trailer, parked at a truck stop
The federal filings in this calculator apply to any tractor-trailer in interstate commerce. Photo: Patrice Raunet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (resized)
1234
  1. 1UCR 2027, 0–2 trucks $55
  2. 2Form 2290, 80,000 lb $550
  3. 3States not in UCR 10
  4. 4FMCSA authority filing $300
Drawing with the page's key figures; the numbered callouts link to the calculators.

UCR fee calculator

Count the commercial motor vehicles you operated in the preceding calendar year: self-propelled, 10,001 lb or more (GVWR, GVW or GCWR), or any weight if placarded hazmat, or built for more than 10 passengers. Fleet changes during the year are reported next year.

Your bracket
B2
3–5 vehicles
UCR fee 2027
$167
UCR Plan / 49 CFR 367.50
Other year
$138
2026: up $29 for 2027
Per vehicle
$55.67
at 3 vehicles
0–2 vehicles$553–5 vehicles$1676–20 vehicles$33321–100 vehicles$1,163101–1,000 vehicles$5,5481,001+ vehicles$54,165
UCR 2027 fee by fleet-size bracket, bars to scale. Source: FMCSA final rule, 49 CFR 367.50 (FR Doc. 2026-17893, Docket FMCSA-2025-0655).

Brokers, freight forwarders without vehicles and leasing companies pay the smallest-bracket fee by statute, whatever their size.

Registration years shown
2026 · 2027
2027 fees took effect October 1, 2026
Average increase
20%
$9 to $9,329 per registrant
States not in UCR
10
AZ, HI, FL, MD, NV, NJ, OR, VT, WY, DC
Form 2290 cap
$550
vehicles over 75,000 lb, per year

How the UCR fee works

The Unified Carrier Registration fee is a flat annual charge set by fleet size, not by miles or revenue. There are six brackets, from 0–2 vehicles to 1,001+ vehicles, and the whole fee is decided by which one you land in. One extra truck can move you up a bracket: a carrier with 5 vehicles pays $167 for 2027, and a carrier with 6 pays $333. The vehicles that count are the ones you operated during the preceding year; what you plan to run next year does not matter yet.

For the 2027 registration year FMCSA adopted a new fee table in a final rule published in the Federal Register as FMCSA final rule, 49 CFR 367.50 (FR Doc. 2026-17893, Docket FMCSA-2025-0655). The brackets stayed the same; every fee went up, by $9 in the smallest bracket and $9,329 in the largest, an average of 20 percent on the 2026 fees. Those 2027 fees stay in force for later years until FMCSA issues another rule.

20262027$46B1 26$55B1 27$138B2 26$167B2 27$276B3 26$333B3 27$963B4 26$1,163B4 27$4,592B5 26$5,548B5 27
UCR fee per bracket B1–B5, 2026 beside 2027, columns to scale. B6 ($54,165) is left off so the others stay readable.

Who has to register

Any extent of interstate commerce triggers registration; the fee does not depend on how much the carrier operates. A carrier that crosses a state line a handful of times a year owes the same fee as one that does it daily. Private carriers hauling their own goods interstate are included; purely intrastate carriers are not.

Base state, and the 10 states that do not participate

You register through a base state, normally the state of your principal place of business. 10 jurisdictions do not take part in UCR: Arizona, Hawaii, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Wyoming, District of Columbia. A carrier based in one of them still has to register; it picks a base state from a list the UCR Plan assigns by region. Each state page spells out the rule for that state.

The other three bills new carriers forget

Heavy Vehicle Use Tax (Form 2290)$100 at 55,000 lb, $550 over 75,000 lb, prorated by first-use month. IFTA fuel taxDiesel rates for 46 jurisdictions, 4Q2026, and a net-tax calculator by state. Operating authority start-upEvery FMCSA filing fee under 49 CFR 360.3T, itemised for your authority types and fleet. DOT physical standardsThe 13 qualification standards in 49 CFR 391.41 and how often the medical card renews.

Look up a carrier

Checking a USDOT or MC number before you hire a carrier, lease on, or sign a broker agreement takes a few seconds in FMCSA's SAFER system. The lookup page builds the exact SAFER query for you and explains each field of the company snapshot.

Sources on this page: FMCSA final rule, 49 CFR 367.50 (FR Doc. 2026-17893, Docket FMCSA-2025-0655); UCR Plan — fee brackets; UCR Plan — FAQ; IRS Form 2290 (Rev. July 2026), Tax Computation. All checked 2026-10-23. Methodology.