1. Am I legal?
Two different kinds of answer. Dimension-legal is a cited lookup. Weight-legal is a computation over the axle layout — no table can answer it, because two identical 80,000 lb rigs differ entirely in their spacing.
The five questions, in the order they actually come up
Oversize and overweight work is one sequence of questions, and it is not the sequence the permit application asks in. Escorts are not a trailing detail after cost — on a long lane a single pilot car costs more than the entire permit total. Each step below is a page, not a paragraph.
2. What do I need?
A requirement, not a price. Which permit class, whether a pilot car is required, whether the state wants a route survey, and whether the load is a superload the agency prices by hand. An owner-operator asking "can I legally take this job" finishes here.
3. What will it cost?
The state permit fee, the transaction charge on top of it, and — stated in dollars rather than adjectives — what is not in the number. On a long lane one pilot car above $0.77 a mile costs more than the entire permit total.
4. When can I move it?
Feasibility and schedule, and the honest state of it: we publish the seasonal weight-restriction sources with the date we read each one. Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not encoded yet and are not guessed at.
5. Where do the sources disagree?
Nobody else can publish this, because finding it meant reading both documents. A state administrative code printing one fee where its own statute prints another; a band that ends one inch apart in two schedules; a mileage step that prices nothing at all at exactly 251 miles.
The reference pages
Legal limits by state
Ten measures per state — width, height, semitrailer, overall, KPRA, both overhangs, gross, single and tandem — each cell carrying the document and its revision date.
Permit fees by state
The single-trip base, how the oversize and overweight components are actually priced, and the transaction charge that the advertised fee leaves out.
Escort requirements by state
The first dimension at which a pilot car becomes required, as one sortable column — with three-valued logic, so "we cannot tell" never reads as "no escort".
Superload thresholds by state
Where the line actually sits. It is not 80,000 lb — that is the federal legal gross limit, and the real thresholds run from 120,000 lb to 254,300 lb.
Police escort rates
The published law-enforcement rates, and the states where we looked and there is nothing — a distinction a scraped table cannot draw.
Where the sources disagree
Every place two official documents give different answers, both cited, neither adopted. Generated from the engine, so it stays current on its own.
Figures in circulation, against the statute
Widely repeated numbers that no primary document supports, answered with the document that does — and with the mechanism that produced the real figure.
Federal size and weight limits
What federal law fixes and what it leaves to the states: 20,000 / 34,000 / 80,000 on the Interstate, the 102-inch floor-and-ceiling, and the grandfather rights.
The bridge formula, explained
The formula, the published table, the round-to-nearest-500 rule, the 34-34-at-36-ft exception — and the five cells where the federal table contradicts itself.
What counts as non-divisible
The federal 8-work-hour test — the operative definition of what needs an oversize or overweight permit at all, and who carries the burden of proof.
What we cover, and what we do not
21 states with a jurisdiction file behind them, 30 without, and a plain statement of what "not covered" means here.
The free calculators
Federal Bridge Formula calculator
The weight any group of two or more consecutive axles may carry, checked against every one of the N(N−1)/2 groups on the rig rather than the obvious three.
Axle weight checker
Type the axle layout, get a per-group verdict with the headroom left on each one, and the statute behind every line.
Oversize permit cost calculator
Price a multi-state lane from the same cited fee schedules these tables are built from, with every figure traceable to the document behind it.
By state
Twenty-one states have a full profile: legal limits, escort triggers, the fee schedule, the superload line, route-survey triggers, the police escort rate or the finding that there is none, and every source document behind them. 20 states and DC are not yet covered and are shown greyed rather than linked to a page that would have nothing in it.
AlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaFloridaGeorgiaHawaiiIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming
Why this is different from the other tables
Three structural things, and none of them is "more words".
- A statute and a revision date on every cell. Not one "Source:" line under a table — a document per value, with its own revision date, the date we read it, the window it is in effect for, and a pinpoint cite.
- Conflicts held open rather than adjudicated. When two in-effect official documents disagree, we show both and adopt neither. Right now that is 21 live disagreements plus 15 named gaps where nothing at all is priced. A prose "Source:" line cannot express this, which is why it cannot be copied without redoing the work.
- Positive negatives. "We looked and there is nothing published" is a finding, and it is rendered as one. Fifteen states publish no law-enforcement escort rate, and saying so is more useful than a blank.
What that looks like, on live data
Florida — legal semitrailer length
57'6"
Fla. Admin. Code r. 14-26.008 — Schedule of Fees (FDOT copy) — Florida Department of Transportation — Table 1A overdimension fees; Table 1B overweight fees; the $3.33 administrative cost and the 25-mile worked example; "(3) SPECIAL PERMIT FEES Transmission Fee $5.00"
rev. 2018-04-24 · read 2026-09-02
rev. 2018-04-24 · read 2026-09-02
57'
Fla. Stat. §316.515 — Maximum width, height, length — The Florida Senate, 2024 Florida Statutes — width 102 in (96 in on roads without a 12 ft through lane); height 13 ft 6 in (14 ft for automobile transporters); semitrailer 48 ft, or up to 57 ft with a kingpin-to-rear-axle distance not over 41 ft; front overhang 3 ft; last amended s. 2, ch. 2019-149
undated document · read 2026-09-02
undated document · read 2026-09-02
Both documents are official, both are in effect, and neither has been adopted. That refusal is computed, not typed — and it is what a "Source:" line under a table structurally cannot say.
Questions
Do I need an account to read any of this?
No. Every page under /oversize and both calculators are free, need no sign-up, and are not gated behind a form. A hauler checking one figure should not have to make an account to see it.
How many states does this cover?
Twenty-one, each with its own jurisdiction file behind it. The other thirty states and DC appear on every topic table as an honest "not yet covered" row rather than being filled in from a secondary source.
Where do the numbers come from?
State statutes, administrative codes and DOT fee schedules — 306 distinct documents. Every value carries the document, that document's own revision date, and the date we retrieved it. Nothing here is copied from another commercial site.
What happens when two official documents disagree?
Nothing is adopted. The cell says the sources disagree and shows both figures with their pinpoint citations, and the permit calculator refuses to price that field and sends it to the issuing agency.