The short version: a Vermont single-trip permit starts at $48 before bands, overweight and the transaction charge; an escort is first required at 12' or more wide; and the load becomes a superload at 150,000 lb or more. Everything below carries the Vermont document it came from, that document's own revision date, and the date we read it.
Corridor
1. Where the load goes next
The jurisdictions this one borders, each chip carrying the fact that decides whether that crossing is the expensive one — so the row is itself a small comparison. A multi-state lane is the actual job, and from here it is one click per state rather than a return to an alphabetical index.
Anything over one of these needs a permit. Every value links to the document that sets it.
Measure
Legal limit
Width
8'6"rev. · read § 1431: "motor vehicles and loads shall not exceed eight and one-half feet in width or 13 feet six inches in height." EXCLUSIVE ("shall not exceed"), so 102.0 in needs no permit. 8 ft 6 in = 102 in, the corpus norm. THE SAFETY-DEVICE ALLOWANCE IS PUBLISHED AND GENEROUS: "The term width shall mean the total width of the vehicle and load, excluding safety devices as determined by the Commissioner that may extend up to three inches on each side of the vehicle" — up to 6 in of measured width can be exempt, and it is recorded rather than applied because a quote does not state which appurtenances are Commissioner-determined safety devices.
Height
13'6"rev. · read § 1431, the same sentence: "shall not exceed eight and one-half feet in width or 13 feet six inches in height." EXCLUSIVE. 13 ft 6 in = 162 in, the corpus norm — Vermont does NOT publish Wyoming's 14 ft or New Hampshire's 14 ft 6 in manufactured-housing allowance for general freight. A separate and HIGHER figure governs the engineering inspection: CVO-110 triggers one over 14 ft, so a 13 ft 9 in Vermont load needs a permit but no inspection.
Semitrailer length
53'rev. · read § 1432: "On these highways, no semitrailer in a tractor-semitrailer combination longer than 53 feet and no trailer or semitrailer in a tractor-semitrailer-trailer combination longer than 28 feet shall be operated." EXCLUSIVE. "THESE HIGHWAYS" IS THE INTERSTATE AND NATIONAL NETWORK, and the figure is recorded UNCONDITIONALLY because § 1432 publishes no stricter non-Interstate semitrailer length: off the Interstate Vermont regulates the trailer through the 75 ft OVERALL cap and the 41 ft kingpin-to-rearmost-axle-group distance instead, both of which are held in their own fields. Conditioning this row to the Interstate would leave a non-Interstate quote with no trailer-length row at all and send it to review over a figure Vermont does not publish differently. Separately, a vehicle with NO trailer is capped at 46 ft: "No motor vehicle without a trailer or semitrailer attached, which is longer than 46 feet overall, shall be operated upon any highway except under special permission from the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles" — recorded here because the schema has no single-unit length field.
Overall length
75'rev. · read § 1432: "Vehicles with a trailer or semitrailer not exceeding 75 feet. If the overall length of a vehicle with a trailer or semitrailer does not exceed 75 feet, it may be operated without a permit." EXCLUSIVE — a permit is needed ABOVE 75 ft. CONFINED TO THE NON-INTERSTATE CLASSES, because the same section says that on the Interstate "no overall length limits for tractor-semitrailer or tractor semitrailer-trailer combination shall apply". A SECOND TRIGGER SITS BESIDE IT AND IS NOT ENCODED, because the measurement is not an input: § 1432(a)(2) — "If the total vehicle length is in excess of 75 feet OR THE DISTANCE FROM THE STEERING AXLE TO THE REARMOST TRACTOR AXLE IS LONGER THAN 25 FEET, a permit may be requested from the Commissioner." A tractor with more than 25 ft of steering-axle-to-rearmost-tractor-axle spread needs a Vermont permit at any overall length, and no field holds that distance.
Kingpin to rear axle
41'rev. · read § 1432: "If there is a trailer or semitrailer, the distance between the kingpin of the semitrailer to the center of the rearmost axle group shall not exceed 41 feet. An 'axle group' is defined as two or more axles where the centers of all the axles are spaced at an equal distance apart." EXCLUSIVE. NOTE THE MEASUREMENT POINT IS THE REARMOST AXLE GROUP'S CENTRE, not the rearmost axle, and that Vermont defines "axle group" in the same breath — equal spacing between all centres — which is narrower than the loose sense the term carries elsewhere in this corpus. Rhode Island and New Hampshire both publish the same 41 ft; Massachusetts publishes none at all.
Front overhang
None published
Rear overhang
None published
Gross weight
80,000 lbrev. · read § 1392: "No vehicle may exceed a gross weight in excess of 80,000 pounds unless the operator or owner of the vehicle has complied with the provisions of section 1400 of this title or except as otherwise provided in this section." EXCLUSIVE. UNCONDITIONAL, AND THE TOWN-HIGHWAY FIGURES ARE RECORDED HERE RATHER THAN AS ROWS: the same section posts "24,000 pounds, upon a class 2, 3, or 4 town highway or bridge with other than wood floor, in any town or incorporated village", "16,000 pounds upon any bridge with a wood floor, wood subfloor, or wood stringers on a class 3 or 4 town highway" and "20,000 pounds on a bridge with wood floor, wood subfloor, or wood stringers on a class 1 or 2 town highway unless otherwise posted by the selectboard of such town". Those are postings on particular roads and structures, the Commissioner's permit reaches state highways and class 1 town highways (§ 1400(a)), and conditioning 80,000 lb off them would leave every quote that does not name a road class unresolvable on gross weight. § 1392(4) ALSO CARRIES VERMONT'S OWN STATUTORY AXLE-SPACING WEIGHT TABLE — 2 to 7 axles, 8 ft to 51 ft, computed "to the nearest 500 pounds", a published table rather than a formula — which was seen and NOT transcribed; `axleSpacingWeightTables` is absent rather than empty, because a partial bridge table is worse than none. § 1392(13) prices an annual 90,000 lb special permit at $458.00 on designated State Highway System routes, which is not a single-trip product and is not applied.
Single axle
By condition (2)
22,400 lb“state highway” or “town highway class 2 3 4”
Not one number per dimension — the whole staircase. Each row is a condition the state actually publishes, what it requires when that condition holds, and the clause it comes from. Where a rule requires escorts and the source states no number, the row says that in the source's own words rather than reporting no requirement.
$48rev. · read § 1402(a): "Before operating a traction engine, tractor, trailer, motor truck, or other motor vehicle, the person to whom a permit to operate in excess of the weight, width, indivisible overlength, and height limits established by this title is granted shall pay a fee of $48.00 for each single trip permit or $135.00 for a blanket permit, except that the fee for a fleet blanket permit shall be $135.00 for the first unit and $8.00 for each unit thereafter." FLAT — not banded by dimension, not stepped by weight, not per mile. ONE PERMIT COVERS SEVERAL EXCESSES: the fee is for a permit "to operate in excess of the weight, WIDTH, indivisible overlength, AND height limits", so a load that is both overwidth and overweight pays $48.00 once. A SEPARATE AND LOWER SINGLE-TRIP PRODUCT EXISTS AND IS NOT THIS ROW: § 1402(b)(1) prices a "single trip overlength permit" at $34.00 for a divisible combination longer than 75 ft. It is a different permit, not a competing figure for this one, and it is recorded in `VERMONT_OVERLENGTH_PERMIT` because the divisibility that selects it is not an input the schema holds. The annual products are not single-trip alternatives and are not applied: the $135.00 blanket permit, the fleet blanket at $135.00 plus $8.00 per additional tractor "up to a maximum fee of $1,000.00", and § 1392(13)'s $458.00 annual 90,000 lb permit.
Transaction / card
None publishedrev. · read AN AFFIRMATIVE ABSENCE — § 1402 was read in full, every sentence of it. It names no service, processing, administrative, issuance or percentage charge on top of the permit fee. The only money in the section is the permit fees and the engineering inspection. § 1402(c) adds a payment MECHANISM, not a charge: "Prepayment of permit fees. The Commissioner of Motor Vehicles may accept prepayments of fees under section 1400 of this title."
Route analysis review
$800rev. · read § 1402(a): "When the weight or size of the vehicle-load are considered sufficiently excessive for the routing requested, the Agency of Transportation shall, on request of the Commissioner, conduct an engineering inspection of the vehicle-load and route, for which a fee of $300.00 will be added to the cost of the permit if the load is a manufactured home. For all other loads of any size or with gross weight limits less than 150,000 pounds, THE FEE SHALL BE $800.00 for any engineering inspection that requires up to eight hours to conduct. If the inspection requires more than eight hours to conduct, the fee shall be $800.00 plus $60.00 per hour for each additional hour required. If the vehicle and load weigh 150,000 pounds or more but not more than 200,000 pounds, the engineering inspection fee shall be $2,000.00. If the vehicle and load weigh more than 200,000 pounds but not more than 250,000 pounds, the engineering inspection fee shall be $5,000.00. If the vehicle and load weigh more than 250,000 pounds, the engineering inspection fee shall be $10,000.00. The study must be completed prior to the permit being issued." THE WHOLE LADDER IS QUOTED HERE so the single encoded figure can be audited against it: $800.00 is the rung for a load under 150,000 lb, which is every dimension-triggered Vermont superload. The $300.00 manufactured-home rung is not selectable from any input; the $60.00 hourly addition is stated and unpriced; the three weight rungs are surfaced by the `vt-engineering-inspection-*` rules.
Route with no bridges
$0rev. · read AN AFFIRMATIVE ABSENCE. § 1402(a) prices the engineering inspection by weight band and by inspector hours and publishes no reduced amount for a route with no bridges — the inspection is of "the vehicle-load AND ROUTE" at one price either way. The zero records that no separate bridgeless charge exists, not that the inspection is free: a Vermont superload on a bridgeless route still owes the full $800 / $2,000 / $5,000 / $10,000 rung.
Vermont has more than one permit issuer. A state total can be complete and still be missing a whole permit.
town or city (selectboard, board of aldermen or city council) — Any part of the move on a class 2, 3 or 4 town highway, or any highway crossing requiring a municipal permit under 23 V.S.A. § 1431(d). The Commissioner of Motor Vehicles permits state highways and class 1 town highways only (§ 1400(a)), and every engineering-inspection trigger in CVO-110 is published "except on town highways" — so the state permit and the state superload regime both stop at the town line.. We do not hold this authority's fee schedule, so the leg goes to review rather than being quoted short. 23 V.S.A. § 1431 — Height and width limits
Included in the base permit fee. § 1402 was READ IN FULL and prints no per-pound, per-ton, per-mile or stepped weight term on the single-trip permit: the $48.00 fee is expressly the fee for a permit "to operate in excess of the WEIGHT, width, indivisible overlength, and height limits", so an overweight Vermont single trip is $48.00 and nothing more up to the engineering-inspection threshold. Above that threshold the pricing does become weight-stepped, but through the engineering inspection fee ($2,000 / $5,000 / $10,000), which is additive to the permit rather than a weight band on it — see `VERMONT_ENGINEERING_INSPECTION_FEES` and the four `vt-engineering-inspection-*` rules. The one place Vermont prices weight directly is not single-trip: § 1392(13)'s $458.00 annual special permit, capped at "a maximum gross load under this special permit shall be 90,000 pounds" and excluded from the Interstate "unless authorized by federal law".
There is no weight schedule to print, and under this model there is not supposed to be one.
Seasonal posting
6. Vermont seasonal posting windows
A permit priced against an unposted-road assumption in March is simply wrong, and wrong in the expensive direction. This is the window we watch, the basis for that window in the state's own orders or statute, and the authority that posts it.
Vermont is not in the seasonal-restriction registry, so we hold no posting window for it and are not inventing one.
Superload
7. Vermont's superload threshold
Above one of these, the state stops issuing over the counter and prices the move after an engineering review.
Trigger
Threshold
Gross weight
150,000 lb or morerev. · read CVO-110: "An Engineering Inspection is required when the vehicle and/or load meets or exceeds any one of the following: ... 4. Weight: One hundred fifty thousand (150,000) pounds or more except on town highways." INCLUSIVE — a load at exactly 150,000 lb is a Vermont superload. § 1402(a) independently agrees from the fee side, where the $2,000.00 rung begins at "150,000 pounds or more", and from the insurance side, where the certificate is required of "an applicant whose vehicle weighs 150,000 pounds or more". UNLIKE EVERY OTHER STATE IN THIS CORPUS, CROSSING THIS LINE PRODUCES A PRICE RATHER THAN A REFERRAL — see `VERMONT_ENGINEERING_INSPECTION_FEES`.
Width
15' or morerev. · read CVO-110: "1. Width: Fifteen feet (15') or more except on town highways." INCLUSIVE, and the list's own preamble says "meets or exceeds". § 1402(a)'s insurance gate uses the same figure inclusively — "is 15 or more feet in width or height".
Height
over 14'rev. · read CVO-110: "3. Height: More than fourteen feet (14') except on town highways." EXCLUSIVE — "more than", in the same list where width and weight say "or more". A load at exactly 14 ft 0 in is NOT a superload on height. The mixed inclusivity is the document's and is encoded as written.
Length
over 100'rev. · read CVO-110: "2. Length: More than one hundred feet (100') except on town highways." EXCLUSIVE. A load at exactly 100 ft 0 in is not a superload on length, though at 80 ft it already needs an escort.
The dimensions at which Vermont triggers a physical route inspection or an engineering review, and what the agency charges to review it.
Measurement
Inspection / review trigger
Width
15' or morerev. · read CVO-110 "ENGINEERING INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR STATE/INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS": "1. Width: Fifteen feet (15') or more except on town highways." The inspection "may take up to ten (10) working days to process" and the result is "valid for six (6) months for any part of the approved route for loads of the same or lesser dimensions and weights/weight distribution".
Height
over 14'rev. · read CVO-110: "3. Height: More than fourteen feet (14') except on town highways." EXCLUSIVE.
Length
over 100'rev. · read CVO-110: "2. Length: More than one hundred feet (100') except on town highways." EXCLUSIVE.
Police escorts
9. Police escorts
Charges exist and no schedule is published. VERMONT CODIFIES THE CIVILIAN LADDER AND LEAVES THE TROOPER ENTIRELY TO THE PERMIT. 23 V.S.A. §§1400 and 1402 and Code Vt. R. 14-050-019 set the escort thresholds — 12 ft wide, 80 ft long, 15 ft of overhang, one escort vehicle each — and name no dimension or weight that requires a Vermont State Police escort; any VSP escort on a given load is a condition the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles imposes on that permit. No rate follows from that, and none is published: the statutory fees are the $48.00 single trip and the $135.00 blanket, and neither the statute, the rule, nor the DMV CVO permitting pages states an hourly figure, minimum hours, officer minimum, mileage charge or cancellation fee for a trooper.
This is a positive finding: we searched and there is nothing to quote. It is not the same as "no police escort is ever required here".
Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not yet encoded for Vermont. The seasonal picture — which is a different question — is in section 6 above.
Why those windows are absent rather than estimated
They are not guessed at here. What we do publish is the seasonal weight-restriction picture, with the date we last read each state's own bulletin — a curfew invented from a plausible pattern is worth less than an honest gap, because a reader cannot tell the two apart on the page.
Who issues it
11. Permit office
The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure. We publish no per-state permit-office phone number.
Why there is no phone number here
We are not publishing per-state permit-office phone numbers yet, and the reason is worth stating: the two seed lists available for them are both demonstrably stale — the federal one gives two different states the same phone number — and a wrong number on a page like this costs somebody a morning. The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure, which is the part we can stand behind today.
Source conflicts
12. Where the sources disagree
Two official documents, both in effect, giving different answers. Neither has been adopted.
legal single-axle weight
22,400 lb23 V.S.A. § 1391 — Tire and axle limits — PRIMARY. Source of the single-axle and tandem-axle limits on both sides of the Interstate split, and of the 600 lb per inch of tire width cap. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
20,000 lb23 V.S.A. § 1391 — Tire and axle limits — PRIMARY. Source of the single-axle and tandem-axle limits on both sides of the Interstate split, and of the 600 lb per inch of tire width cap. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
Both are in effect and neither has been adopted.
legal tandem-axle weight
36,000 lb23 V.S.A. § 1391 — Tire and axle limits — PRIMARY. Source of the single-axle and tandem-axle limits on both sides of the Interstate split, and of the 600 lb per inch of tire width cap. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
34,000 lb23 V.S.A. § 1391 — Tire and axle limits — PRIMARY. Source of the single-axle and tandem-axle limits on both sides of the Interstate split, and of the 600 lb per inch of tire width cap. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1391 — Tire and axle limits — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY. Source of the single-axle and tandem-axle limits on both sides of the Interstate split, and of the 600 lb per inch of tire width cap. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1392 — Gross weight limits on highways — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY. Source of the 80,000 lb gross limit, the town-highway and wood-floor-bridge postings, the § 1392(4) statutory axle-spacing weight table (seen, not transcribed) and the § 1392(13) annual 90,000 lb special permit. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1400 — Permits for excess weight, width, height, and length — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY. Names the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles as the issuer for state highways and class 1 town highways, treats class 2-4 town highways separately, and states that "No additional registration fee shall be payable to authorize the use of the traction engine, tractor, trailer, motor truck, or other motor vehicle in accordance with the terms of the permit." The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1402 — Overweight, width, height, and length permits; fees — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY, and READ IN FULL. Source of the $48.00 single-trip fee, the separate $34.00 single-trip overlength fee, the blanket and fleet products, the whole six-rung engineering-inspection ladder and the 150,000 lb / 15 ft insurance gate. It contains no mileage term, no processing charge and no percentage service fee. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1431 — Height and width limits — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY, and READ IN FULL: it publishes no front or rear overhang limit. Source of the 8 ft 6 in width and 13 ft 6 in height limits, the 3 in per side safety-device allowance, and the § 1431(d)(3) municipal crossing-permit fee of $35.00. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
23 V.S.A. § 1432 — Length of vehicles — Vermont General Assembly (Vermont Statutes Online) — PRIMARY, and READ IN FULL: it publishes no front or rear overhang limit. Source of the 75 ft non-Interstate overall cap, the explicit absence of any Interstate overall cap, the 41 ft kingpin-to-rearmost-axle-group limit, the 46 ft single-unit cap and the 53 ft / 28 ft semitrailer figures. The legislature's own host states "The Statutes below include the actions of the 2025 session of the General Assembly" and carries its own warning that the site "is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience" — recorded rather than discounted, because it is the General Assembly's own publication and no official printed copy is freely retrievable. rev. · read
Rules and Instructions Governing Overweight and Overdimension Vehicle Permits (CVO-110) — Vermont Agency of Transportation, Department of Motor Vehicles, 120 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05603 — PRIMARY, and the date is the DOCUMENT'S OWN: the control footer reads "CVO-110 1M 07/2022 MTC". Source of the three inclusive escort triggers, the escort equipment and position rules, the discretionary count escalation, the discretionary police escort, the flagger provision and the four engineering-inspection triggers. Full-text searched for "toll", "turnpike" and "bridge authority": zero hits across all 56 pages. Full-text searched for a police escort rate: none appears. rev. · read
Common questions
Questions
How much is an oversize permit in Vermont?
The single-trip base is $48, before the dimension bands, the overweight component and the transaction charge. The base alone is rarely what is paid.
When does Vermont require a pilot car?
The first width trigger is 12' or more.
What is a superload in Vermont?
Vermont's published gross-weight superload line is 150,000 lb or more. It is not 80,000 lb; that is the federal legal gross limit, not a superload threshold.
Do Vermont's own documents contradict each other?
Yes, in 2 place(s) we hold both documents for. They are set out in full above, each with its pinpoint citation, and none of them has been adopted.