Compliance guide
Oversize Load Permits: What They Cost and Who Handles Them
Oversize permits typically add $250 to $600 to a route on over-height or over-width alone; $900 to $1,650 with one escort past 12 feet wide; $1,600 to $2,200+ for dual escorts or police. On any AIG-booked load, the broker pulls the permits and prints them into the quote.
As of July 2026. These ranges come from real heavy-haul loads brokered by AIG Enterprises, licensed freight broker MC 931605.
State permit fees plus our own escort-network history feed the adders. Every permit cost is priced into the number you accept, and the dispatcher who confirms your truck is the same name on your receipt.
This page is a working shipper's summary, not legal or regulatory advice. Actual permit requirements are set by federal law and each state's DOT.
When does a permit trigger?
Federal legal limits on the interstate system are the fence line. Cross any one of them and you are into permit country in every state you touch:
- Width: above 8 feet 6 inches (102 inches)
- Height: above 13 feet 6 inches loaded (14 feet in AK, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY and a handful of others)
- Length: above 53 feet on the trailer, or overhang past 3 to 5 feet depending on state
- Weight: above 80,000 pounds gross combined
Federal law sets the ceiling, but permits themselves are issued by each state you cross. A load that goes from Texas to Michigan on a permit is really a stack of five state permits (TX, OK, MO, IL, MI) plus federal notice on the interstate.
Honest per-state fee bands
State fees are all over the map, literally. These are the ranges we see on real bookings:
| Permit type | Typical state fee range | Turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Single-trip over-height only | $15 to $85 per state | Same day |
| Single-trip over-width (up to 12 ft) | $25 to $175 per state | Same day to 24 hr |
| Wide plus over-weight combo | $80 to $500+ per state | 24 to 48 hr |
| Superload (extreme dimension or weight) | Quoted case by case | 3 to 10 business days |
Escort rules of thumb
Escorts (also called pilot cars) are separate from the permit itself. Loose national pattern, always confirmed against each state's rulebook at routing:
- Wider than 12 feet: one rear or front escort in most states.
- Wider than 14 feet: two escorts in most states; some require a police escort in urban zones.
- Over-height above 15 feet: height-pole escort required in many states to physically check underpasses.
- Overhang past 10 feet front or 15 feet rear: escort typically required.
Escort budgets run $2.50 to $3.75 per mile per escort, on top of the truck rate.
The AIG promise: permits priced in
Our "the quote is the price" guarantee applies on every AIG quote: if your load needs permits and escorts, we pull them, price them, and print them into the number. The rate you accept is the rate you pay. If routing forces a change (a state closes a bridge, an escort cancels last minute), we absorb the difference on our end. The customer never gets a "surprise, the load is now $600 more" phone call from a driver at the pickup gate.
That is possible because our rate engine runs the permit adders through the same curve as the base rate, and the dispatcher who confirms your truck is the same person whose name goes on the receipt.
Have a load that might need permits? Run it through the Rate Desk. It will tell you which states will need paperwork before it prices the move.