Dive Brief:
- Unified Carrier Registration plan and agreement fees are slated to rise for carriers and other covered commercial entities by 20% on average, pending Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration approval, according to a notice posted April 7.
- The increase ranges from $9 for single truck owner-operators to over $9,000 for the largest trucking companies. FMCSA said the additional revenue will cover a projected agency shortfall of nearly $21.8 million.
- “FMCSA finds the recommended upward adjustment is within a reasonable range,” the notice said. “This fee adjustment for the 2027 registration year would provide the necessary $118 million in revenue to make the required allocations to the participating States and the UCR Plan.”
Upcoming registration fees slated to increase
| Number of commercial vehicles | Annual fee in 2025 and 2026 | Proposed fee |
|---|---|---|
| 0-2* | $46 | $55 |
| 3-5 | $138 | $167 |
| 6-20 | $276 | $333 |
| 21-100 | $963 | $1,163 |
| 101-1,000 | $4,592 | $5,548 |
| 1,001 and above | $44,836 | $54,165 |
SOURCE: FMCSA. *Note that brokers and leasing companies are included in the smallest fee bracket.
Dive Insight:
UCR leaders expected insufficient collections for 2025 and 2026, leaving an administration shortfall of $6.5 million, according to a rule summary.
In other times where there’s more revenue coming in, money can actually go back to carriers and other businesses that pay the annual fee. That’s because of a statutory cap on the total revenue that the UCR plan can collect each year, a threshold that most recently came into play in 2024.
“In past years, including 2023 and 2024, these fees were decreased because of prior excess collections, unusually large fluctuations in registrant numbers, and changes in underlying economic conditions,” the notice said.
The UCR Board of Directors makes recommendations on the program, which covers interstate carriers, brokers, freight forwarders and leasing companies. Involving 41 states, the money goes to government safety programs and regulatory enforcement.
Additionally, the latest plan proposed an increase of $250,000 in administration costs for an annual amount of $4.5 million, which includes costs to defend the plan in litigation.
People can submit comments through May 7 on the pending change. Jay Eckley, the owner of a 10-truck Nebraska-based business that has 10 drivers, notes the fee is small but questions why various registration fees are so disjointed.
Eckley pays the state over $2,000 to register each truck, and an Internal Revenue Service use tax also adds another $550 per truck. He says all those fees could just be collected in one place.
“There is no legitimate reason for the UCR to exist,” Eckley said in a public comment to FMCSA. “All of the same info is under our USDOT & MC numbers. UCR is just another tax and needs to be abolished.”
