What Is a Trip Permit? Entering a State You're Not Apportioned In, With Days and Fees by State

By Peter Lehrack, Founder & Owner · Published October 30, 2026 · 10 min read

A trip permit is a state's temporary registration for a truck that isn't apportioned for that state. You buy one per state, per trip, and it runs for a set number of days: 3 in Washington, 4 in California, 72 hours in Wisconsin and Texas, 10 in Florida and Oregon. It covers registration only. Fuel tax is a second permit unless you carry an IFTA license.

Most trip permits our desk orders are for one of two reasons. A base-plated carrier wins a load that crosses three other states, or an apportioned carrier picks up a run into a state it left off the cab card. Either way, the truck is about to enter a state that has never been paid for it, and the trip permit pays that state for the week instead of the year. Here is how it works, what six states charge, and the five ways it goes wrong at the scale. Every figure was checked against the state's own code or page on October 30, 2026.

Unbranded white conventional sleeper tractor passing a green highway welcome sign on a two-lane desert road at dawn — The state line is where the trip permit has to already be in the cab. Most states do not sell them on the far side.

What a trip permit is, and what it is not
Who needs one: the 26,000-pound test and your cab card
Two permits per state: registration and fuel
The clock: when it starts and when it runs out
The limits that tell you it's time to apportion
Five ways a trip permit goes wrong at the scale
How we order them from the road
Questions drivers ask us

1What a trip permit is, and what it is not

Drivers call three different permits "a trip permit." The scale house knows the difference.

The registration trip permit. The real one. It stands in for apportioned registration in a state your plate doesn't cover. Kentucky's rule says it plainly: an apportionable vehicle running in more than one state must register under the International Registration Plan "unless a trip permit has been purchased for each trip into the jurisdiction." Every IRP state works the same way, with its own fee and its own number of days.
The fuel trip permit. Stands in for an IFTA license. The IFTA agreement says that instead of licensing, "persons may elect to satisfy motor fuels use tax obligations on a trip-by-trip basis." With IFTA decals you don't need it. Without them you need it in every state, on top of the registration permit.
The oversize or overweight permit. Not a trip permit at all. A trip permit doesn't make a wide load legal, and an oversize permit doesn't register a truck. An over-dimension load on a base-plated truck may need all three. Our oversize and overweight desk handles that side.

So when a dispatcher calls for "a trip permit for Oregon," my first two questions are: what is on your cab card, and do you have IFTA? The answers decide whether you need one permit, two, or none.

2Who needs one: the 26,000-pound test and your cab card

IRP and IFTA use the same three-part test. From the IFTA definition of a qualified motor vehicle, matched in Kentucky's IRP rule, a truck is in if it meets any one of these:

two axles and a gross or registered gross weight over 26,000 pounds; or
three or more axles, regardless of weight; or
used in a combination that weighs over 26,000 pounds.

A tandem-axle tractor is in on the second line before you hook anything to it. A two-axle straight truck grossing 25,000 pounds is out of both definitions. Everything a heavy-haul or over-the-road carrier runs is in.

Now the cab card. If you are apportioned, it lists every state you paid for. Those states need no trip permit; any state missing from the card does. If you are not apportioned, you have a base plate and nothing else, and every state outside your own needs a trip permit on every trip. Then IFTA: with decals, no fuel permits anywhere; without them, a fuel permit in every state as well. That is the whole decision in four lines.

3Two permits per state: registration and fuel

Here is what six states publish today for the two permits. These are state fees, not ours, and not what a wire service adds on top.

State	Registration trip permit	Fuel trip permit	What to know
California	$45 for 4 consecutive days from first use	$30 for 4 consecutive days	Not sold to trucks based in California. Must be filled out before the truck moves.
Florida	$30, expires 10 days after issuance	$45, expires within 10 days of issuance	The fuel permit does not excuse tax at the pump.
Oregon	$43 for 10 consecutive days (heavy motor vehicle trip permit)	$9 temporary pass plus weight-mile tax for every mile, 10 days	Oregon taxes by weight and mile, not fuel. Over 26,000 lb, the pass is required.
Texas	$25 for 72 hours or $50 for 144 hours, plus $4.75 processing each	$50, one entry, 20 days from entry	Each semitrailer in the combination needs its own permit or registration. Fuel permit limited to five entries a year.
Washington	$25 for 3 consecutive days from first use	$30 for 3 consecutive days	No more than three vehicle trip permits per truck in any 30 days. No refunds.
Wisconsin	$15 for 72 hours	$15 for 72 hours	$30 for both. Good for one round trip.

Two things jump out of that table. First, the days don't match. A run from Wisconsin through Washington to Oregon is a 72-hour permit, a 3-day permit and a 10-day permit, each on its own clock. Second, the fuel side is not always a fuel permit. Oregon taxes heavy trucks by weight and mile, so its second credential is a $9 pass plus tax for every mile, and the state wants the mileage up front. Our post on Oregon trip permits for non-apportioned carriers goes through that one in detail, and the Washington trip permit versus IRP post covers the 3-day state.

What it costs. A non-apportioned, non-IFTA tractor crossing those six states pays $75 in California, $75 in Florida, $52 plus mileage tax in Oregon, $79.75 in Texas for 72 hours, $55 in Washington and $30 in Wisconsin: $366.75 in state fees for one trip, plus Oregon's per-mile tax, before any service fee. Run that route twice a month and the arithmetic on apportioning changes. Our trip permit cost by state post lists more states.

4The clock: when it starts and when it runs out

Every state starts the clock differently, and the difference is where drivers get caught.

From first use. California's trip permit runs "four consecutive days, commencing with the day of first use and three consecutive days thereafter." Washington's is "three consecutive days beginning with the day of first use." You fill in the date when you cross, and the days count from there.
From issuance. Florida's trip permit "shall expire 10 days after issuance," and the fuel-use permit expires within 10 days of the date it was issued. Buy it on Monday for a Thursday crossing and you have already spent three of the ten days sitting in the yard.
From the time on the permit. Wisconsin's is "valid for 72 hours from the time and date on the permit," so a permit stamped 2:00 PM Tuesday dies at 2:00 PM Friday, not at midnight.
From entry. The Texas fuel permit is good for one entry and 20 days from the date of entry. A round trip counts as two entries.

The clock does not pause for a breakdown, a weekend or a holiday closure. If a state parks oversize loads on Thanksgiving Day and your 72-hour permit started Wednesday morning, you are free to move Friday on a permit that has already run out. Check the closure list before buying a short permit around a holiday, and buy the longer one where a state sells it. Texas sells 144 hours for $50, and its permits can be bought back to back so the periods run in sequence.

What it costs. A permit that has expired is the same as no permit. Washington treats a violation of its trip-permit section as a gross misdemeanor, and a carrier whose DOT number is out of service faces a minimum penalty of $2,500 for a first violation and $5,000 for each one after. Texas says running without a valid fuel trip permit or trucker license may bring a penalty under its Motor Fuels Tax Code. Neither is a parking ticket.

5The limits that tell you it's time to apportion

Several states cap how many trip permits one truck can buy. The cap is the state's way of saying a truck that keeps coming back should be apportioned.

Washington: no more than three vehicle trip permits for any one vehicle in any 30 consecutive days.
Texas fuel permit: only if there are no more than five entries into the state in a calendar year. Entry six needs an IFTA license or a Texas interstate trucker license.
Oregon: the Commerce and Compliance Division puts the limit on temporary weight-mile passes at five for one unit, or 35 per account, in a rolling 12-month period.
Wisconsin: one round trip per permit, every time.

If you are bumping into any of those, you are past the point where trip permits save money. The IRP math is its own article, and it's coming. Until then, our post on IRP versus IFTA explains which credential covers what.

Tractor-trailer stopped in the inspection lane at a port of entry, with the booth window and the scale platform in late afternoon light — The port of entry reads the permit, the cab card and the decals together. If one is missing, the other two don't help.

6Five ways a trip permit goes wrong at the scale

These are the five that come across our desk most.

Bought on the wrong side of the line. California's trip permit "shall be completed prior to operation of the commercial motor vehicle on any highway in this state." Washington's must be signed "before operation of the vehicle on the public highways." Texas requires the fuel permit before entry, and Oregon's trip permit "must be obtained before operation." Driving to the first truck stop inside the state to buy it is driving without a permit.
Corrected by hand. Washington says it twice, once for each permit: altering or correcting the date, the plate or the VIN "invalidates the trip permit." Florida says any erasure or alteration renders the fuel permit "invalid and of no effect." A VIN is 17 characters. If one is wrong, the fix is a new permit, not a pen.
Permit for the tractor, nothing for the trailer. Texas is explicit: a tractor on a 72-hour or 144-hour permit cannot pull a semitrailer on a Token Trailer plate, and each semitrailer in the combination needs its own permit or trailer registration. Dispatch sends the tractor's VIN and forgets the trailer more often than you'd think.
Registration permit, no fuel permit. The trip permit does not cover fuel tax. A base-plated truck without IFTA needs both in every state, and Florida will remind you that even the fuel permit "is not exempt from paying the fuel tax at the pump."
Running out of days. Section 4 above. Count from the day the state counts from, not the day you think the trip starts, and remember that Florida and Texas both count from issuance or entry rather than from first use.

None of these is a big mistake on paper. All of them park the truck, and some add a fine. Our post on how oversize permits get voided covers the same paper errors on the oversize side.

7How we order them from the road

Most of the trip permits we issue are ordered from a cab. A driver crosses one state on the permit we sent the night before and calls from a fuel island to order the next three. We take the cab card, the IFTA status, the tractor and trailer VINs, the crossing date and the route. We know which states want the permit before the line, which count from issuance, and which want the trailer on its own paper. Each permit goes to the driver's email the moment the state issues it, so it is in the cab before the welcome sign.

A trip permit is a small permit. Getting it wrong is not a small problem. Start at our trip and fuel permits page, and when the same truck needs the same states every month, ask us whether apportioning makes more sense. We'll tell you straight, even when the answer costs us the order.

Truck driver on the phone beside the open door of his tractor in a rest-area parking lot at dawn — One state down, three to order. The call from the rest area is how most of our trip permits start.

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

What is a trip permit in trucking?

It is a state's temporary registration for a truck that is not apportioned for that state. You buy one per state for each trip, it runs for a set number of days, and it takes the place of IRP registration for that trip only.

What states require trip permits?

Every IRP state does, for any apportionable truck entering a state that is not on its cab card. A base-plated, non-apportioned truck needs one in every state outside its own. Apportioned trucks need one only for states they left off the cab card.

Is a trip permit the same as a fuel permit?

No. The trip permit covers registration. The fuel permit covers fuel tax and stands in for an IFTA license. A truck without IFTA decals needs both in each state, and Oregon's version is a weight-mile pass rather than a fuel permit.

How long is a trip permit good for?

It depends on the state: 3 consecutive days in Washington, 4 in California, 72 hours in Wisconsin and Texas, 10 days in Florida and Oregon. Some count from first use, others from the date of issuance, so the day you buy it can matter.

How much does a trip permit cost?

In the six states we checked, the state fee for the registration permit runs from $15 in Wisconsin to $50 for 144 hours in Texas, and the fuel permit from $15 to $50. Those are state fees before any permit-service or wire-service charge.

Can I buy a trip permit after I cross the state line?

Usually not. California, Washington, Texas and Oregon all require the permit to be completed or obtained before the truck operates on their highways. Driving to the first truck stop inside the state to buy it is driving without a permit.

Sources

Rules checked October 30, 2026. Penalties change, and the permit in your cab plus the issuing state's current rule are always the final word.