Arkansas
The Permit Section may require one or more law-enforcement vehicles under ARDOT Rules 3.E.7, 4.H.2 and 6.E.6. No dimension triggers it automatically and Arkansas publishes no officer rate.
The 7 states that publish a rate
A floor, before mileage — and mileage is deliberately excluded, because every state here that publishes a per-mile figure measures it from the officer's station, home or troop area rather than from your route. Multiplying a per-mile rate by the lane's miles would produce a confident number about the wrong journey.
| State | Agency | Hourly per officer | Minimum | Administrative | Floor, one officer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Alabama Law Enforcement Agencyrev. 2023-03-17 · read 2026-09-02 | $100/hr (flat) | 4 h per officer | $200 | $6004 charges the floor cannot include |
| Illinois | Illinois State Policerev. 2026-06-16 · read 2026-09-01 | $125/hr (flat) | $500 per officer | None | $5002 charges the floor cannot include |
| Indiana | Indiana State Policerev. 2019-03-01 · read 2026-09-01 | $43/hr (flat) | None published | None | Not computable3 charges the floor cannot include |
| Louisiana | Louisiana State Policerev. 2024-01-15 · read 2026-09-03 | $75/hr (flat) | 2 h per officer | None | $1503 charges the floor cannot include |
| New York | New York State Policerev. 2026-04-01 · read 2026-09-01 | $144.66/hr (overtime) | 3 h per officer | None | $433.983 charges the floor cannot include |
| South Carolina | South Carolina State Transport Policerev. 2026-07-01 · read 2026-09-05 | $50/hr (flat) | 2 h per officer | None | $1004 charges the floor cannot include |
| Tennessee | Tennessee Highway Patrolundated document · read 2026-09-03 | $65/hr (flat) | 4 h per officer | None | $2602 charges the floor cannot include |
What the floor cannot include
Each of these is a charge the state publishes and no quote can compute in advance. They are listed rather than absorbed into an estimate, because an estimate that quietly swallows them reads as a price.
- Alabama. Mileage at the current IRS rate, calculated from each officer's residence or office and back. The IRS rate is not a fixed published figure and the officers' origins are not known before ALEA assigns them.
- Alabama. $12.00 subsistence for an escort over four hours; $12.75 per diem for 6–12 hours and $34.00 for 12 hours or more. Which applies depends on the hours actually worked.
- Alabama. Cancellation: $200.00 more than 24 hours out, or $200.00 plus four hours' pay per assigned officer inside 24 hours.
- Alabama. Billable time starts 30 minutes before the scheduled start and ends 30 minutes after completion, so the charged hours always exceed the moving hours.
- Illinois. IDOT escorts are charged separately at $40.00 per hour per vehicle with an $80.00 minimum per vehicle. Whether IDOT accompanies a given move is decided when the permit is written.
- Illinois. Time is counted from pickup to completion including delays, with any fraction of an hour rounded up, so the charged hours are not the moving hours.
- Indiana. A motor carrier inspector is $34.00 per hour and each escort must include at least one sworn trooper, so the mix of officers — and therefore the blended rate — is set by ISP.
- Indiana. Hours are computed round trip from the officers' HOMES, which are not known before ISP assigns them, so no minimum can be derived from the route.
- Indiana. Vehicle mileage at Indiana's approved state rate of $0.64 per mile from 7 August 2026, applied to the same round trip from the officers' homes.
- Louisiana. A separate fee for the use of the State Police vehicle, banded by the distance the ESCORT VEHICLE travels: 0–49 mi $100; 50–99 mi $125; 100–199 mi $150; 200–299 mi $175; 300 mi and over $200. Paid to Louisiana State Police on top of the officer's time. It is banded on the escort vehicle's own distance, which includes travel to and from the troop area, and not on the load's in-state miles.
- Louisiana. One hour of travel time is added for a move beginning and ending in the same Troop area; travel across troop boundaries follows the Travel Time Remuneration Chart, which is not a published dollar figure.
- Louisiana. The mover must provide the officer a room when the move runs more than one day. No cancellation charge is published — that is unknown here, not zero.
- New York. The regular rate is $101.89 per hour and applies to hours beyond the three-hour overtime minimum. Which hours fall where is set by the assignment.
- New York. Mileage at $0.725 per mile runs from the moment a trooper leaves the STATION, so it is not the load's in-state mileage and cannot be computed from this lane.
- New York. New York publishes no required NUMBER of police vehicles, so the floor below is for a single officer and the real assignment may be larger.
- South Carolina. Billable time and billable mileage BOTH include the officer’s commute — "travel time to and from the officer’s residence" and "mileage driven by the officer to and from the officer’s residence and during the entire escort". The officer is assigned after the permit issues, so the commute cannot be computed at quote time and the figure below is a floor rather than a price.
- South Carolina. Late cancellation: "a minimum charge of $100.00 per officer" for notice inside 24 hours. A cancellation after officers are dispatched, or a delay of more than two hours from the stated origination time, "shall be deemed a cancellation and a minimum charge of four (4) hours per officer will be charged" — $200.00 per officer.
- South Carolina. The escorting agency may be "local, county, city, Highway Patrol or State Transport Police" and only the State Transport Police rate is published. A move escorted by a county or municipal agency is unpriced, and SCDOT expressly contemplates that.
- South Carolina. The request must be signed and emailed to State Transport Police 48 hours before the escort, excluding weekends and holidays — a lead time, not a charge, but it constrains when the move can be booked.
- Tennessee. Tennessee codifies no per-application administrative fee, no officer per diem and no cancellation penalty for an OS/OW escort. Their absence from the floor must not be read as their being nil.
- Tennessee. Rule 1680-07-01-.12(4) separately lets the Permit Office require law-enforcement escorts on a super-heavy movement with no threshold at all.
The 25 states where we looked and there is nothing
This is the section no scraped table can produce. Each entry below is a positive finding with the rule behind it: we searched the state's statute, its administrative code and the agency's own pages, and there is no published escort rate to quote. Two different reasons sit in this list and they are not interchangeable — a state that bills actual cost through an escrow has no rate card to find, while a state that charges for troopers and publishes nothing has one and does not print it.
California
No CHP hourly or per-mile escort rate exists in chp.ca.gov, dot.ca.gov or 21 CCR. The $50 per hour in 21 CCR §1411.3(c)(4) is Caltrans traffic-operations staff — a different agency and a different service — and must not be read as a trooper rate.
Colorado
Structural, not a gap: 2 CCR 601-4 §606.4 bills the actual cost of Colorado State Patrol time through a bond or escrow. There is no rate card to find — the number is whatever the escort actually costs.
District of Columbia
The District is the only jurisdiction here where the TRIGGER is contradicted and the RATE is absent at the same time. DDOT publishes two police-escort tables in the same year that disagree on every threshold — OSOWFAQ_2023.pdf at 15 ft wide / 14 ft 6 in high / 150,000 lb and "may be required", overweight_vehicles.pdf at 12 ft wide / 75 ft long / 13 ft 6 in high / 120,000 lb and "Yes for" — and neither document, the DDOT site, nor the Metropolitan Police Department publishes an hourly rate, minimum hours, mileage, per diem or cancellation charge. The DDOT instruction is to email MPD at [email protected] to find out whether an escort is needed at all. Both DDOT PDFs and DCMR Title 18 chapter 25 were read in full.
Florida
FHP escorts of commercial overdimensional loads are OFF-DUTY POLICE EMPLOYMENT under FHP Policy 5.10, approved troop by troop, so there is no statewide schedule. Nothing in FHP 5.10, FAC 14-26, FS 316.550 or FDOT's permit pages states a rate.
Georgia
Georgia requires police escorts for a house move and a minimum of two for a Mega Load, and publishes no hourly, per-mile, minimum-call or administrative rate for either.
Kentucky
Neither the Kentucky State Police (502 KAR, KRS Chapter 16) nor the Transportation Cabinet publishes an application fee, hourly officer rate, minimum hours, mileage charge or cancellation charge. The title index was opened and searched.
Michigan
MDOT Special Provision 14 reads, in full, "Police supervision of traffic required on move." No width, height, length or weight triggers it, and neither the Michigan State Police nor MDOT publishes an hourly rate, minimum hours, officer minimum or mileage rate in michigan.gov/msp, T-1, either revision of T-2, the permit conditions, Form 2465 or the OS/OW FAQ. A required police escort also forces a motor-carrier-officer inspection before movement, for which no fee is published either.
Minnesota
Minnesota requires a lead LICENSED PEACE OFFICER whenever a load crosses the centerline on an undivided roadway, and publishes no rate for one. Minn. Stat. § 169.812, § 299D.085, Minn. R. 7455, the MnDOT escorts page and the May 2025 superload guide were all read; the only price in the scheme is Minn. R. 7455.0300 subp. 1(A) sets $180 initial and $90 renewal for the CIVILIAN certification course. MnDOT devolves the escort to three tiers of agency — State Patrol, county sheriffs, city police — and says "individual agency requirements may vary". Minnesota also requires the officer to hold the same § 299D.085 certificate as a civilian, so not every trooper qualifies.
Mississippi
Mississippi requires two blue-light escorts at 300,000 lb or more and contemplates a discretionary police escort by width, and neither MDOT nor the Mississippi Department of Public Safety publishes an hourly rate, minimum hours, officer minimum, mileage rate or cancellation charge. The Manual says only that "The Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS) is authorized to enforce Mississippi laws relating to commercial vehicles".
Missouri
MoDOT requires a law-enforcement escort over 18 ft wide, over 200 ft long and over 18 ft high, and publishes no hourly, mileage or fixed rate. 7 CSR 10-25 says only that permitting authority may be revoked if escorting agencies are not reimbursed.
Nevada
Nevada has no police escort rate because it has no police escort requirement to price. No provision in NAC 484D or NRS 484D mandates a Nevada Highway Patrol escort at any dimension or any weight. NAC 484D.640(12) is the only law-enforcement hook in the chapter, and it is a discretion to "coordinate additional utilities escorts and traffic control with the appropriate law enforcement agencies" over 17 ft wide on two or three lanes, over 19 ft on four or more, or over 16 ft high — coordination, not an officer escort. NAC 484D.670(5)(c) does confirm the Highway Patrol runs its own amber-light permit on the pilot car under NRS 484D.185, and publishes no price for that either. NAC 484D.500-695 and the reachable NRS 484D sections were read in full; dot.nv.gov and leg.state.nv.us were both unreachable from the researching network. Claims that every superload requires an NHP escort appear only on commercial permit-service sites and are not adopted.
New Jersey
NJDOT assigns only private escorts — "Only private escorts are assigned to permitted loads" — so there is no state police escort trigger and no rate. A Port Authority Police escort through Port Newark is arranged directly with PAPD and is not a state fee.
North Carolina
One of the three escorts over 16 ft wide must be a State Highway Patrol escort. The Highway Patrol publishes no hourly or per-mile rate; G.S. §143B-1729 requires only "a fee covering the full cost to administer, plan, and carry out the escort".
Ohio
Ohio requires a law-enforcement escort in addition to private escorts over 16 ft wide and publishes no officer count, no position and no hourly or per-mile rate.
Oklahoma
The charge is "a fee covering the full cost to administer, plan, and carry out the escort within this state" and, although the statute directs DPS to adopt a schedule of fees, no hourly, mileage or fixed schedule is published.
Pennsylvania
PennDOT publishes no numeric State Police escort rate — "State escort fees vary based on escort personnel status (e.g., overtime) and will be invoiced separately".
South Dakota
Neither the South Dakota Highway Patrol nor the Department of Public Safety publishes an escort fee schedule, hourly rate, mileage rate, administrative fee, minimum hours or cancellation charge for commercial motor carrier escorts. The Motor Carrier Handbook says only that "some permit applications require review by the Department of Transportation or the Highway Patrol" — a review of the APPLICATION, not an escort of the load, and ARSD 70:03:01:20 requires no law-enforcement escort at any width, length, height or weight. The escorts South Dakota does require are civilian pilot cars.
Texas
TxDOT may require law-enforcement traffic control, sets no threshold that would let it be predicted, and publishes no officer rate.
Utah
Utah publishes a real dimensional police trigger — R909-2-14 Table 3 requires "2 pilot escorts and at least 2 police escorts" over 20 ft wide on a freeway, 17 ft on a secondary highway, 175 ft long or 17 ft 6 in high — and no rate at all. R909-2 (all thirty-three sections), Utah Code §§ 72-7-402/404/406/407, three UDOT pages and the Utah Highway Patrol site were searched. R909-2-16(4)(e) says only "the permittee will assume all costs when a certified police escort or escorts are required", and R909-2-14(1)(c) puts the COUNT outside UDOT: "The number of police escorts required is determined by the Utah Highway Patrol." The $40.00 minimum UDOT does publish is for a DEPARTMENT employee and vehicle, not for police, and is itself a floor — "or the full cost ... whichever is greater".
Virginia
Virginia does not have a state police escort rate. 24VAC20-82-60.B.9 requires written authorisation from LOCAL law-enforcement personnel for each locality on the route, negotiated and priced separately with every one of them. There is no published schedule to quote.
Washington
Neither the Washington State Patrol nor WSDOT publishes an application fee, hourly rate, mileage rate, minimum hours, per diem or cancellation charge in the RCW, the WAC or their own FAQs. WSP's own answer to "When is an escort car required?" is "Please contact WSDOT".
West Virginia
West Virginia publishes neither half of the question. The TRIGGER is a commodity test plus agency discretion rather than a dimension: 157 CSR 5 § 6.4.k requires police escort of "houses or other similar oversized structures that could cause significant disruptions to the normal flow of traffic", with "The Division of Highways shall determine the need for a police escort based on the information provided in the permit application and knowledge of the roads or highways being traveled." The RATE does not exist in published form — the West Virginia State Police posts no hourly, mileage, minimum-hours or per diem schedule on its site or anywhere in the Code of State Rules, and carriers coordinate directly with the local detachment or the municipal agency with jurisdiction. 157 CSR 5 was read in full.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin publishes the FORMULA and not the rate, which is a different finding from either of the other two kinds. Wis. Admin. Code Trans 320.05(1) lists the fee components — "(a) Duty hours. (b) Rate of pay. (c) Vehicle mileage. (d) Mileage rate. (e) Meal allowance." — and every input is set outside the published code: Trans 320.02(13) defines the rate of pay by "collective bargaining agreement or state of Wisconsin compensation plan", and (6)-(7) define the allowances by reference to the internal departmental manual TAM 8-6, obtainable only by writing to the Division of State Patrol. § 348.26(2) attaches no dimensional trigger at all — a traffic officer is required "whenever the officer or agency issuing such permit deems it necessary". The one fixed figure in the scheme is a $100 surcharge for cancelling with under 24 hours of notice (Trans 320.03(15)).
Wyoming
NOT CHECKED — a gap in our data rather than a finding about Wyoming, and the only row in this dataset of that kind. The research run that produced the Wyoming legal limits and fee schedule terminated mid-sentence partway through the fee section and never reached the escort rules, so neither an escort trigger nor a Highway Patrol rate has been read for this state. Wyoming permits 117,000 lb legal gross over mountain two-lane highways and certainly publishes escort triggers; every Wyoming load over a legal dimension is therefore sent to manual review rather than quoted at zero escorts. Chapter 5 § 5-6(c) separately makes the applicant pay "the cost of sending personnel to accompany load movement" above 250,000 lb, which is a departmental escort charge with no published rate. Remove this row when the escort section is sourced.
Questions
What does a police escort actually cost?
Only 7 of the 32 covered states publish enough to compute a floor, and the floor is not the price — every one of them adds charges measured from the officer's own station, residence or troop area, distances no quote can know in advance.
Why is "no published rate" listed at all?
Because it is a finding, not a blank. There is a real difference between a state that bills the actual cost through an escrow (so no rate card can exist) and a state that charges for troopers and publishes nothing. A scraped table renders both as an empty cell.
Is the minimum charge per officer or per move?
Per officer, in every schedule here that states one. Where the state also publishes a minimum number of officers, the floor multiplies. One state bills its minimum hours at the overtime rate rather than the regular one, which raises its floor by well over a hundred dollars per officer.