Trip and Fuel Permits by State: Who Issues Them, How Long They Last, and What They Cost

Two temporary credentials cover a truck that is not set up for a state it is about to enter. A trip permit stands in for IRP apportioned registration. A fuel permit — called a fuel trip permit, temporary fuel-use permit, or motor fuel use tax permit depending on the state — stands in for an IFTA license. Every IRP and IFTA member state sells some version of each. Most run 72 hours to 10 days, and the fees we could verify today range from $10 (Missouri) to $50 (the Texas 144-hour permit). The table is the reference. The sections around it cover the rules that get drivers cited even when they bought the right permit.

What a Trip Permit and a Fuel Permit Each Replace

IRP registers a truck once, through its base state, and apportions the registration fee across every jurisdiction it runs. IFTA does the same for fuel tax on one quarterly return. A truck that meets the qualifying definition — more than 26,000 lbs, or three or more axles — but holds neither credential has to buy the state’s temporary version before it crosses. The two are separate purchases, and in many states they come from separate agencies: Texas sells the registration permit through TxDMV and the fuel permit through the Comptroller; California splits them between DMV and CDTFA. A truck with neither IRP nor IFTA needs both permits in every state it enters.

Both are per vehicle. One permit does not cover a second truck, and the clock runs from the start date and time printed on the permit, not from the moment the truck actually crosses the line.

How to Read the Table

Fees shown were read today on the issuing agency’s page or in the statute or regulation that sets them. Where the agency page could not be checked, the cell says “verify” — call the office or open its portal rather than trust a third-party price list, because these numbers move. “Online” means the agency itself sells the permit through a portal; several states still route sales through approved wire services, permit services, or the first port of entry, and the last column says which. Each state name links to our own state page with the agency contact.

States the searches also ask about — New Mexico, Nevada, Tennessee, North Carolina, Iowa, Mississippi — all sell temporary registration and fuel permits through their motor carrier office, ports of entry, or approved wire services. New Mexico adds a temporary weight-distance permit on top of the registration and fuel pieces. Verify the current window and fee with the agency; the state pages list the contact for each.

States That Cap How Many Temporary Permits You Can Buy

A trip permit is designed for the occasional crossing, and several states put a number on “occasional.” Washington will not issue more than three trip permits for one vehicle within a 30-day period. Idaho limits temporary registration permits (120-hour and 30-day) to three per vehicle per calendar year unless the vehicle is a wrecker, transporter, laden dealer unit, or on a manufacturer plate. Texas allows the fuel trip permit only if the vehicle makes no more than five entries into the state in a calendar year — and a round trip counts as two. New York caps HUT trip certificates at ten per calendar year. Oregon tells carriers to open an account once any one vehicle exceeds five temporary passes or the account exceeds 35 in twelve months.

Read the caps as the state telling you when it expects registration. A truck that hits one of these ceilings mid-year does not get a sixth Texas fuel permit; it gets IFTA or it stays out of Texas.

Buy Before You Cross

No state on the table sells a retroactive permit. Georgia’s trip permit “must be secured prior to entry into Georgia” and stay with the vehicle. California’s fuel trip permit is issued for specific dates and is not valid before or after them, and CDTFA says to complete it before entering the state. Illinois fuel single-trip permits must be purchased before entering Illinois. Florida’s permits are checked at the port-of-entry weigh stations that sit just inside the state line on I-10, I-75, and I-95. The Texas fuel trip permit is the slowest of the group: you apply on the Comptroller’s Webfile, mail a cashier’s check or money order, and the receipt is the permit, so a same-morning Texas entry on a fuel permit is not realistic.

The other timing trap is the window itself. A 72-hour permit that starts at 6:00 a.m. Monday is dead at 6:00 a.m. Thursday whether or not the trailer got unloaded. If the delivery appointment is soft, buy the longer window where the state offers one (Texas 144-hour, Oklahoma 120-hour fuel) rather than gambling on a second purchase from the shoulder.

When to Stop Buying Trip Permits

The math turns fast. A single Texas round trip on temporary credentials is two 144-hour permits ($109.50 with processing) plus two fuel trip permits ($100) — about $210 in state fees for one truck, one lane, one week, before any service fee. A truck doing that lane monthly spends more in a year on paper than an IRP registration plus IFTA decals would cost, and it burns through Texas’s five-entry fuel cap by March. The trip permit vs annual permit guide walks the break-even, but the short version is: more than three or four crossings a quarter into any state, and the ongoing credential wins.

Once a truck is apportioned, the Full Reciprocity Plan makes its cab card valid in every IRP jurisdiction, so the trip-permit line of the table disappears entirely. Once it holds IFTA decals, the fuel line disappears too — replaced by the quarterly IFTA return.

What Trip and Fuel Permits Do Not Cover

Registration and fuel are two of the credentials a scale checks; they are not all of them. Five states tax distance separately, and each has its own temporary version: New York HUT (the $25 trip certificate above), Kentucky KYU (the $40 10-day permit above, for trucks over 59,999 lbs), New Mexico WDT, Oregon’s weight-mile temporary pass, and Connecticut HUF (verify trip-style coverage with CT DRS). A load over legal weight or dimensions needs the state’s oversize/overweight permit no matter what registration it carries. And two of the biggest freight states layer intrastate authority on top: California requires a CA number and Motor Carrier Permit, and Texas requires TxDMV operating authority for for-hire loads that stay inside the state. The state trucking permits overview maps the whole stack.

Getting One Filed

If you would rather not juggle five portals and a mailed money order, trip and fuel permits are filed for you directly with the issuing agency for $75 flat per permit. You provide the truck (plate, VIN, declared weight), the state, and the entry date and start time; the state issues the credential and it is sent to the cab. Start from the state page — Texas, Florida, California, Oregon — or the permit cost guide if you are pricing a whole lane.