How Much Does an Oversize Permit Cost? State Fees, Escorts and the Bills Nobody Mentions

By Peter Lehrack, Founder & Owner · Published October 26, 2026 · 10 min read

A single-trip oversize permit costs between $5 and $97 in the states I checked this week. Add weight and the state starts charging by the mile, the ton or the axle. Add escorts, a route survey or a bridge engineer, and the permit becomes the smallest number on the bill.

Dispatchers ask me "what's a permit run?" like there is one price. There isn't. There is the state's fee, the weight fee, the big-load fees, the escort bill, and the costs that only show up when something goes wrong. I've been ordering permits since September 2006, and below are the numbers the states publish themselves, each one checked against the state's own schedule or code on October 26, 2026.

Tracked excavator chained to a lowboy trailer with red corner flags and amber beacons, rolling down a two-lane highway lined with fall trees — The permit for this load is the small number. The weight, the escorts and the route are where the money goes.

1What the state charges for the permit

Start with the easy part. Every state charges a fee for a single-trip oversize permit, and for a load that is only wide, tall or long, the fee is small. Here is what nine states publish today.

State	Single-trip oversize	Overweight	Annual
Florida	$5 up to 12 ft wide; $15 up to 14 ft; $25 over 14 ft (10-day trip permit)	$0.27 to $0.47 per mile up to 162,000 lb; above that $0.003 per 1,000 lb per mile	Not shown here
Washington	$10 for all overlegal loads except overweight	Per mile, from $0.07 for the first 9,999 lb over legal; $14 minimum	Not shown here
Minnesota	$15	Added per-mile charge figured on the overweight axle groups	$120 oversize annual; $36 job permit
Arizona	$15	$75 overweight, or oversize and overweight	Not shown here
Alabama	$20 for other oversized vehicles, loads and equipment	$10 to $100 by gross weight, plus $10 if also oversize	Not shown here
Georgia	$30 standard single trip	Superload fees once past the standard limits (section 3)	$150 standard; $500 NHS annual
Pennsylvania	$46 up to 14 ft wide; $97 over 14 ft	Plus $0.04 per ton-mile for overweight	Varies by commodity
Texas	$60 general single trip	Plus a highway maintenance fee of $150 to $375 over 80,000 lb	Not shown here
North Carolina	Superload only checked: $100 application fee, plus $12 for each over-legal dimension and $3 per 1,000 lb over 132,000 lb gross

"Not shown here" means I didn't pull that state's annual schedule for this article, not that it doesn't exist. And remember the state is one fee. A load that crosses four states pays four, and the county road off the ramp and the city street at the plant can each charge their own.

2Weight is where the fee climbs

Dimensions are mostly a flat fee. Weight is a meter. The heavier the load and the longer the route, the more the state charges, because the state is pricing what your axles do to its pavement and bridges. Each state runs the meter differently:

Texas charges by weight band. On top of the $60 permit, a highway maintenance fee of $150 for 80,001 to 120,000 lb, $225 to 160,000, $300 to 200,000, and $375 above that. Over 200,000 lb there is also a $35 vehicle supervision fee.
Florida charges by the mile. $0.27 a mile up to 95,000 lb, $0.32 up to 112,000, $0.47 up to 162,000, figured in 25-mile increments and rounded up to the dollar.
Pennsylvania charges by the ton-mile. Four cents per ton-mile for overweight, on top of the $46 or $97 permit.
Washington charges per mile by how far over legal you are. Seven cents a mile for the first 9,999 lb over, fourteen cents for 10,000 to 14,999, and up from there, with a $14 minimum.
Alabama charges by gross weight band. $10 from 80,001 to 100,000 lb, $30 to 125,000, $60 to 150,000, and $100 above that, plus $10 when the load is also oversize.

Here is what that does to one load. Take a 120,000-pound combination that is also over width. In Alabama the state fee is $30 plus the $10 oversize surcharge, so $40. In Texas it is $60 plus the $150 maintenance fee, so $210. In Florida, 200 miles at $0.47 is $94 for the weight alone. Same load, same day, and the fee runs from $40 to $210 depending on the state line. That is why I never quote a "national price" for a permit, and why you should be careful with anyone who does.

What it costs. The weight fee is figured from the numbers on your application, so an axle sheet that is wrong is a fee that is wrong. Ordering on a guessed gross weight either underpays, which voids the permit at the scale, or overpays, which you don't get back. Texas will not refund a permit fee once the permit number is issued unless the error was the state's.

3Superloads: engineering, bridges and county fees

Once a load crosses a state's superload line, the fee schedule changes shape. Now you are paying for people: engineers, bridge analysts, route reviewers. Our post on oversize versus superload covers where each state draws that line. Here is what crossing it costs.

Arizona adds a review fee of $15 for loads 18 feet or less in height or width and $25 above 18 feet. If an engineering analysis is needed, it is $75 per 50-mile increment of route when your engineer prepares it and ADOT reviews it, or $125 per 50-mile increment when ADOT's engineer prepares it. A 300-mile route analyzed by ADOT is six increments: $750 before the permit itself.
North Carolina charges a $100 non-refundable application fee, a $12 base fee for each over-legal dimension of height, length, width or weight, and $3 per 1,000 pounds over 132,000 pounds gross. A 180,000-pound load that is also over width and height pays $100, plus $36 for three over-legal dimensions, plus $144 for the 48,000 pounds over the line: $280.
Pennsylvania charges a superload preliminary fee of $68 plus $12 for every county on the route, then the regular permit fee and ton-mile charge on top, and the schedule warns that additional fees could occur.
Georgia charges $125 for a Superload Single, and $500 each for a Superload Plus and a Mega Load. Superload Plus requires a bridge analysis and Mega Load requires outside engineering.

And the fee is only half of the superload cost. The other half is time. A superload in North Carolina wants 10 business days of lead time, and the heaviest classes in Washington and Georgia take weeks. Our post on how long a permit really takes has the state-by-state clock. A rig sitting in a yard waiting on a bridge study costs money every day it sits.

4Escorts and police: usually the biggest line

On most wide loads, the permit is not the expensive part. The escorts are. The permit tells you when you need them, and the state doesn't pay for them; you do.

North Carolina's superload publication is a good example of how fast escorts stack up. One front pole car for loads over 14 feet 5 inches tall. A front escort over 12 feet wide on two-lane roads. A rear escort over 110 feet long, or with 15 feet or more of rear overhang. A front escort for 150,000 pounds or more. And over 16 feet wide, three escorts, one of which must be the State Highway Patrol.

Private pilot cars set their own rates, and those rates move with the market, the region and the season, so I won't print a number that would be wrong by spring. Police escorts are different, because the agencies publish them. Alabama's Law Enforcement Agency charges a $200 administrative fee for each superload request, then $100 per hour per officer with a 4-hour minimum. Billing starts 30 minutes before the scheduled escort and ends 30 minutes after it finishes, and mileage is billed at the current IRS rate on top. So the floor for one trooper on one Alabama superload is $600 before a single mile, and two officers billed for six hours each come to $1,400 plus mileage.

Line that up against the permit. North Carolina's whole superload permit for that 180,000-pound load was $280. One trooper for half a day in Alabama is more than double it. When a customer asks me why the job costs more than the permit, this is usually the answer. Our pilot car page and our post on when you need a pilot car cover the triggers in more detail.

Close view of a heavy-haul trailer's rear axles and dual tires resting on a weigh station scale, with a steel load above — Weight fees are figured on axles and miles. The scale checks the math.

5The costs nobody puts on the quote

Every one of these has cost a carrier more than the permit did.

Buying it twice. A permit ordered on the wrong dimension, the wrong trailer or the wrong date is a new permit. Texas doesn't refund an issued permit for a customer error. Pennsylvania charges a $52 refund processing fee. Our permit checklist exists to catch those mistakes before the order goes in.
A voided permit at the scale. If the load doesn't match the paper, the permit doesn't protect you, and you are hauling an oversize load without one. Our post on how permits get voided walks through the seven ways it happens and what each one costs.
A slipped date. North Carolina voids a superload application after 90 days because its bridge studies expire. Miss the window and you pay the $100 application fee again and wait for the analysis again.
Days you can't move. Most states park oversize loads on major holidays, and some stop them on weekends or at night. A load that arrives at a state line Wednesday afternoon of Thanksgiving week can sit until Monday. The closure list shows which days are gone before you book.
The local permits. Pennsylvania charges $12 per county on a superload. Many counties and cities issue their own permits for their own roads, and nobody's state permit covers the last mile to the jobsite.

6When an annual permit pays for itself

If you run the same kind of load in the same state over and over, the math on an annual permit is simple division. Georgia's standard single trip is $30 and its standard annual is $150, so the annual breaks even on the fifth trip and every trip after it is free. Minnesota's single trip is $15 and its oversize annual is $120, so it breaks even on the eighth.

The catch is that an annual permit covers only the loads inside that state's annual envelope, and every state sets its own. The moment a load is wider, taller or heavier than the annual allows, you are back to buying a single trip for that move. Ask before you buy one: what's the biggest load I'll haul in that state this year, and does the annual cover it?

7What our desk adds, and what it saves

I'll be straight. A permit service charges a fee on top of the state's, and so do we. Ask us on the phone and we'll tell you exactly what it is for your load. What you're paying for is everything above this line: knowing which states meter weight by the mile and which by the band, which ones want the escort booked first, which county wants its own permit, and getting every number right so you buy each permit once.

Plenty of carriers order their own permits, and some do it well. Others call us because one void at the scale or one reordered superload costs more than a year of service fees. When your dimensions come in by email, our system reads them into the order in about 20 seconds, so nothing gets retyped. The permit goes to you the moment the state issues it. And when we get a permit wrong on our side, we fix it on our dime, not yours. For loads that need more than a permit, our oversize and overweight permit desk, superload permits and route consulting start from the same phone call.

Truck driver on the phone beside his tractor at a fuel island at dusk, with a flatbed of steel beams behind him — Before the load is booked is the cheapest time to ask what the permits will run.

If you ever need a permit, click to call.

A specialist picks up. Oversize, overweight, superload, trip and fuel permits in every U.S. state and Canadian province.

Call (888) 949-4220

Questions drivers ask us

How much does an oversize permit cost?

For a load that is only over dimension, the state fee for a single trip runs from $5 in Florida to $97 in Pennsylvania for loads over 14 feet wide, among the nine states we checked. Every state on the route charges its own, and counties and cities can add theirs.

Why does an overweight permit cost more than an oversize permit?

Most states meter weight. Texas adds a $150 to $375 highway maintenance fee over 80,000 pounds, Florida charges up to $0.47 a mile, and Pennsylvania charges $0.04 per ton-mile, because heavy axles wear pavement and bridges.

What does a superload permit cost?

It depends on the state and the engineering. North Carolina starts at a $100 application fee plus per-dimension and per-1,000-pound charges, Georgia charges $125 to $500, and Arizona's own engineering analysis is $125 per 50 miles of route.

Who pays for escorts and police escorts?

The carrier does. Alabama's Law Enforcement Agency, for example, charges a $200 administrative fee per superload request and $100 per hour per officer with a 4-hour minimum, plus mileage.

Is an annual oversize permit cheaper?

If you haul the same kind of load in one state often enough, yes. Georgia's $150 annual equals five $30 single trips, but an annual covers only loads inside that state's annual limits.

Can I get a refund on a permit I don't use?

Often not. Texas does not refund a permit once the number is issued unless the state made the error, and Pennsylvania charges a $52 refund processing fee.

Sources

Rules checked October 26, 2026. Penalties change, and the permit in your cab plus the issuing state's current rule are always the final word.