Hours of Service Rules Explained

Who do the hours of service rules apply to?

Part 395 applies to anyone driving a commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce as defined in 49 CFR §390.5: a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of 10,001 lbs or more, one carrying placarded hazardous materials, or one designed for 9 or more passengers for compensation (16 or more otherwise). That threshold is well below a CDL, so a 12,000-lb sprinter running freight across a state line is under HOS even though its driver has no CDL.

Intrastate-only carriers follow their state’s version of the rules; most states have adopted Part 395 with minor variations, so the federal numbers are the right place to start. Passenger carriers have their own schedule in 49 CFR §395.5: 10 hours driving after 8 consecutive hours off, no driving after 15 hours on duty, and the same 60/70-hour cycle. The rest of this guide is about property carriers.

One-truck owner-operators are not exempt from any of it. If you are the carrier and the driver, you are the one keeping the log and the one responsible for it, and a dispatcher who plans a run that cannot be driven legally shares the exposure under 49 CFR §390.11 — see the dispatcher responsibilities guide.

What are the four core limits for property carriers?

49 CFR §395.3 sets all four. They apply at the same time, and the most restrictive one wins on any given day.

Three details trip up new drivers. The 14-hour window is consecutive hours from the moment you come on duty; a two-hour lunch does not extend it. The 11 hours are driving hours, so a day with three hours of loading and eleven of driving is legal only if it fits inside 14. And the 60/70-hour limit counts all on-duty time, not just driving, so dock time on Monday still shortens Friday.

On-duty time under 49 CFR §395.2is broad: waiting for dispatch at the carrier’s or shipper’s property, inspecting and servicing the truck, loading and unloading, repairing a disabled vehicle, giving a drug or alcohol test sample, and any paid work for anyone else. If you are not relieved of all responsibility, you are on duty.

How does the 34-hour restart work?

The 60/70-hour limit is a rolling total, so without a reset a busy driver runs out of hours mid-week. §395.3(c) lets any 7- or 8-day period end with the start of an off-duty period of 34 or more consecutive hours, after which the weekly count starts again at zero. There is no once-per-week limit on using it and no requirement about which hours of the day it covers; the only condition is 34 straight hours off duty (sleeper berth counts). If you never take one, you simply keep computing the rolling 7- or 8-day total and stop driving when it hits the limit.

How does the sleeper berth split work?

Normally you need 10 consecutive hours off before driving again. 49 CFR §395.1(g)(1) lets a driver with a sleeper berth split that into two rest periods, provided that neither period is shorter than 2 consecutive hours, one of them is at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, and the two together total at least 10 hours. In practice that is a 7/3 or an 8/2 split, in either order, with the shorter piece taken off duty or in the berth.

The reason to use it is the 14-hour window: qualifying rest periods under the split are excluded from the 14-hour calculation, so a 3-hour berth period at a congested dock does not eat your driving day. Driving time before and after each rest period still has to fit within 11 hours. It is a bookkeeping exercise, and drivers who use it should let the ELD do the math rather than estimating.

What is the short-haul exception?

49 CFR §395.1(e)(1) exempts a driver from keeping a record of duty status and from the ELD requirement if all of the following hold: the driver operates within a 150 air-mile radius (172.6 statute miles) of the normal work reporting location, returns to that location and is released within 14 consecutive hours, has at least 10 consecutive hours off between shifts, and the carrier keeps accurate time records showing on-duty start, end, and total hours for six months. Short-haul drivers are also exempt from the 30-minute break under §395.3(a)(3)(ii).

It is not a free pass. The 11-hour and 60/70-hour limits still apply, and the day you fail any condition — you run past 150 air-miles, or you do not make it back within 14 hours — you owe a full log for that day. A related exception for drivers of vehicles that do not require a CDL sits in §395.1(e)(2), and a narrow 16-hour extension for certain drivers who report to and return from the same location once in a cycle is in §395.1(o); read the conditions before relying on either.

What counts as adverse driving conditions?

49 CFR §395.1(b)(1) lets a driver who cannot safely finish a run because of adverse conditions drive up to 2 additional hours beyond the driving and duty limits in §395.3(a). Adverse conditions are defined in §395.2 as snow, ice, sleet, fog, other adverse weather, or unusual road or traffic conditions that were not known, or could not reasonably be known, when the driver started the day or the carrier dispatched the run.

Who needs an ELD, and who does not?

Under 49 CFR §395.8(a)(1) a carrier must require every driver who has to keep a record of duty status to use an electronic logging device registered with FMCSA. Paper or software logs remain permitted only for drivers who keep RODS on no more than 8 days in any 30-day period, drivers in driveaway-towaway operations, and vehicles manufactured before model year 2000. Short-haul drivers under §395.1(e) keep time records instead of a log, so they need no ELD.

Choose from FMCSA’s registered device list, and keep the data-transfer and malfunction instruction sheets plus at least eight days of blank paper logs in the cab under §395.22(h). The carrier keeps RODS and supporting documents for six months under §395.8(k), and the driver carries the previous seven days. Unassigned driving time and edits without driver certification are among the most common ELD findings at audit; assign or annotate every segment.

What happens when you break an hours of service rule?

• At roadside, an inspector who finds a driver over the 11- or 14-hour limit, or without a current log, can place the driver out of service until enough off-duty time has passed to drive again.
• On your record, HOS violations feed the Hours-of-Service Compliance BASIC in FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System, which brokers and insurers read. See CSA scores and OOS rate.
• At audit, HOS is one of the factors an investigator reviews under Part 385, and falsified logs are treated as a separate and more serious violation than exceeding a limit. FMCSA civil penalties are set in 49 CFR Part 386, Appendix B, and are inflation-adjusted every year.
• For the carrier, a pattern of violations points at dispatch. A one-truck owner-operator owns the whole chain; a fleet owner owns the schedule that made the violation necessary. Our audit defense guide covers how HOS is reviewed and what records to have ready.

Common questions about hours of service

Can I drive 11 hours straight?

No. Driving is not permitted once more than 8 cumulative hours of driving have passed without at least a 30-consecutive-minute interruption, so the longest legal stretch is 8 hours before a break. The break can be off duty, in the sleeper berth, or on duty not driving, such as fueling or waiting at a dock. After it, you may finish the remaining 3 hours of the 11, still inside the 14-hour window.

Does off-duty time during the day extend my 14 hours?

No. The 14-hour window runs continuously from the time you come on duty after 10 consecutive hours off, and ordinary breaks or off-duty stretches do not pause it. The only time excluded from the window is a qualifying rest period under the sleeper-berth split in §395.1(g), and that period must be at least 2 hours and pair with a 7-hour-plus berth period totaling 10.

Do the hours of service rules apply to a one-truck owner-operator?

Yes, exactly as they apply to a company driver, and the owner-operator is also the carrier responsible for keeping the logs six months. Leasing onto a larger carrier does not change the limits; it changes whose ELD you log on and whose record the violation lands on. The short-haul exception is available to an owner-operator who genuinely stays within 150 air-miles and returns home within 14 hours.

Do local drivers need an ELD?

Usually not. A driver who qualifies for the 150 air-mile short-haul exception every day keeps no record of duty status, so no ELD is required, but the carrier must keep time records for six months. The exception is lost on any day the driver exceeds 150 air-miles or is not released within 14 hours, and a driver who exceeds the exception on more than 8 days in a 30-day period must move to an ELD.

What is personal conveyance?

Under FMCSA guidance, personal conveyance is off-duty movement of the CMV for the driver’s own purposes while relieved of all work responsibility, such as driving from a truck stop to a restaurant. It is logged as off-duty, and the test is commercial benefit to the carrier: moving toward the next load or a repair facility for the carrier’s convenience is not personal conveyance. Set a written policy before drivers use it.

Have the hours of service rules changed for 2026?

No. The limits in 49 CFR Part 395 described on this page are the rules currently in force, including the 2020 revisions to the 30-minute break, the sleeper split, the short-haul radius, and the adverse-conditions extension. FMCSA continues to receive exemption requests and pilot proposals; our HOS rule status post tracks anything that reaches a final rule.