Thanksgiving 2026 Oversize Load Restrictions: When Wide Loads Stop, State by State

By Peter Lehrack, Founder & Owner · Published November 5, 2026 · 7 min read

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, 2026, and several states stop permitted oversize loads before it starts. Arizona and North Carolina stop at noon Wednesday, Minnesota at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Maine and Texas bar the day itself. Plan to be parked, or delivered, before the earliest window on your route opens.

A delivery date of Friday looks fine on a calendar and fails at the state line. Below are the 2026 windows for five states, taken from each state's own code or holiday notice and checked on November 5, 2026, plus the part that actually costs drivers time: the windows don't line up, so a route through three states has three different clocks.

Wide load on a lowboy trailer parked alone on a frosty gravel pull-off at dusk in late November, with a yellow excavator on the trailer — The load that didn't make the Wednesday cutoff. It sits until the state's window reopens, however far from the dock it is.

1The 2026 windows, state by state

Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26. The day before is Wednesday the 25th and the day after is Friday the 27th. This is what five states publish for it this year.

State	Travel stops	Travel resumes	What to know
Arizona	Noon, Wednesday Nov. 25	Friday Nov. 27, half an hour before sunrise (or 3:00 a.m. if eligible for night transport)	Applies to loads over 10 ft wide, 14 ft 6 in tall, 120 ft long or 250,000 lb, among others.
North Carolina	Noon, Wednesday Nov. 25	Noon, Friday Nov. 27	Exactly 48 hours. Office closed Nov. 26 and 27.
Minnesota	2 p.m., Wednesday Nov. 25	2 a.m. "the day after the holiday"	Page lists Nov. 26 and 27 together. See the note below the table.
Maine	Thursday Nov. 26	After the weekend of Nov. 28 and 29	Nov. 26 and 27 are prohibited days, and so is the weekend that follows.
Texas	Thursday Nov. 26	Not stated on the page	Oversize loads may not move on the day unless TxDMV grants an exception. Office closed.

Minnesota's page says travel is restricted from 2 p.m. the day before the holiday until 2 a.m. the day after it, and it lists the holiday as November 26 and 27 together. Read that as 2 a.m. Saturday, November 28, and the closure runs 60 hours. Read it as 2 a.m. Friday and it runs 36. I'd treat Saturday as the answer and let the permit in your hand overrule me.

Two things jump out. First, three of the five states start the clock on Wednesday afternoon, not Thursday. If your plan says "deliver Thursday morning," your real deadline is a day earlier. Second, no two states agree on when the load can move again. Arizona releases it Friday before dawn. North Carolina holds it until Friday noon. Maine holds it through the weekend. Our general guide to oversize load holiday restrictions by state explains why, and the holiday closure list is where we keep the full set.

What it costs. I'm not printing a fine here. Penalties differ by state, and I won't publish a number I haven't checked at the source today. The cost you can count is time: a loaded unit parked for 36 to 60 hours in Minnesota, 48 in North Carolina, or from Thursday through Sunday in Maine, with the driver and the equipment sitting on the clock. A voided permit adds to that bill.

2Which loads each state means

"Oversize" isn't one thing at Thanksgiving. Each state draws the line in a different place, and that decides whether your load is in or out.

Arizona restricts a permitted vehicle that exceeds any one of these: 10 feet wide (11 feet for specialty equipment), 14 feet 6 inches tall, 10 feet of front or rear overhang, 120 feet overall length, or 250,000 pounds. A 9-foot-6 load under that weight is not in the Arizona holiday rule at all.
North Carolina bars overwidth, overheight and overlength permitted vehicles, and any combination grossing more than 112,000 pounds. There is no width number to hide behind. If the permit says over, you're parked.
Minnesota restricts loads over 12 feet 6 inches wide or 110 feet long. Overweight-only loads are not restricted unless the permit says so.
Maine says overlimit loads are prohibited on its listed holidays, without a width cutoff in the letter. Treat everything on a Maine permit as covered.
Texas says loads over the size limits may not move on the day unless TxDMV grants an exception. Manufactured housing is also barred.

That 12-foot-6 line in Minnesota is a real gap. A 12-foot load rolling through Minnesota on Wednesday night can be legal while the same load is parked in North Carolina. Overweight-only is the other split. If you're hauling dense freight in a standard-width trailer, ask whether your permit is weight-only before you assume the holiday applies, and read the line on the permit, not the one in this article. Our post on overweight permits during holiday closures covers that side.

3The permit office closes too

The road restriction is half the problem. The other half is that the permit desk goes dark. The 2026 notices say the Texas permit office is closed Thursday, November 26. North Carolina's is closed November 26 and 27. Minnesota's is closed both days, and Maine's is closed both. A load that needs a permit amendment or a route change on Thursday has nobody to approve it.

Texas adds a second warning on its holiday page: permits that need coordination with TxDOT "may be delayed when that agency is closed during a holiday that the TxDMV Oversize/Overweight Permits office is open." In other words, even on a day the state office answers the phone, a permit that needs a second agency can sit. The page also shows a day-after-Thanksgiving closure with a 2025 date, which looks like a typo, so I'm not going to tell you Friday is open or closed in Texas. Call before you count on it.

Red flag and OVERSIZE LOAD banner on the rear of a wide load on a frosty morning, with an escort pickup and amber light bar behind it — Banner, flags and escort do not change the holiday rule. The window decides when the load can be on the road at all.

This is why I tell carriers to treat the week as shorter than it looks. Permits you'll need for Monday, November 30 should be ordered before the Wednesday cutoffs,. Our post on how long an oversize permit really takes has the honest numbers, and the permit checklist is what we need on the call.

4Plan the route as a chain of clocks

Here is arithmetic, not a customer story. Say a 13-foot-wide load has to cross Minnesota and North Carolina on one permit run, and you want it parked at its destination for the holiday. Minnesota calls it oversize (it's over 12 feet 6 inches) and stops it at 2 p.m. Wednesday. North Carolina stops it at noon Wednesday and holds it until noon Friday. Whichever state the truck is in at those hours decides where it sits, and the other state's clock still applies the moment it crosses back in. Every state on the route has its own start, its own end and its own width cutoff, and the strictest one wins wherever the truck happens to be.

So the useful question isn't "when does Thanksgiving restriction start?" It's "where will the truck be at noon Wednesday, and is that a good place to sit for two days?" A load that's legal and parked at a shipper's yard is fine. A load that's legal and parked on a shoulder is a problem. The permit gives you the road, not a place to park, and your driver will be sitting at a truck stop that holiday weekend with everyone else. If you want a second opinion on routing around a window, that's what our route consulting desk does, and the oversize and overweight desk handles the permits themselves.

Superloads are a different animal. Their permits carry their own conditions, so don't assume the table above describes yours. See superload permits and read the travel-day conditions on the permit itself.

5Exceptions exist. Don't plan on them.

Each state also writes in a way out, and each is narrow.

Arizona lets the department approve holiday transport under a Class C special permit when it decides the exception is in the interest of public safety.
Maine allows overlimit loads to move on prohibited days only if permission is obtained under its emergency off-hour moves section.
Texas says an exception can be granted by TxDMV.

None of those is a scheduling tool. They're written for loads that have to move for a reason the state agrees with, and the office you'd ask is the one that's closed. If your plan depends on an exception, call us before you load, not after.

6Christmas is next

North Carolina has already published its Christmas window: noon Thursday, December 24 until noon Monday, December 28, 2026. That's four days, double the Thanksgiving closure, and other states will stack their own on top of it. I'll write that one in early December. The holiday permit restrictions map is the place to start in the meantime.

The five states above are the ones I could confirm against their own 2026 notices today. Several others, including Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Dakota, publish their own lists, and some of those sites blocked our checks, so I'm not giving you times from memory. As I write this, our closure page still shows the Labor Day edition. Until the Thanksgiving edition is up, the fastest way to get your route checked is the phone.

Truck driver on the phone at a fuel island with his tractor in the background at dusk — The easy time to ask is before the fuel stop, not after the cutoff.

If you ever need a permit, click to call.

A specialist picks up and checks the holiday windows on your route. Oversize, overweight, superload, trip and fuel permits in every U.S. state and Canadian province.

Call (888) 949-4220

Questions drivers ask us

Can oversize loads travel on Thanksgiving?

Often not. In 2026 Texas bars oversize loads on Thursday, November 26 unless TxDMV grants an exception, and Maine prohibits them on the 26th and 27th and the weekend after. Arizona, North Carolina and Minnesota stop them Wednesday afternoon.

When do oversize load holiday restrictions start for Thanksgiving?

Noon Wednesday, November 25 in Arizona and North Carolina, and 2 p.m. Wednesday in Minnesota. Maine and Texas list Thursday, November 26. Other states set their own windows, so check the permit and the state's notice for each one on your route.

Do the Thanksgiving restrictions apply to overweight-only loads?

It depends on the state. Minnesota does not restrict overweight-only loads unless the permit says so. Arizona restricts a load over 250,000 pounds, and North Carolina restricts a combination over 112,000 pounds. Read the conditions printed on your permit.

Is the permit office open on Thanksgiving?

No. The 2026 notices show Texas closed November 26, and North Carolina, Minnesota and Maine closed November 26 and 27. A permit change you need on those days has no one to approve it, so finish the paperwork before Wednesday.

Can I get an exception to move on Thanksgiving?

Some states write one in. Arizona can approve a Class C special permit for public safety, Maine allows emergency off-hour moves, and Texas can grant an exception. They are narrow, and the office that grants them is usually closed.

Sources

Rules checked November 5, 2026. Penalties change, and the permit in your cab plus the issuing state's current rule are always the final word.