Motor carrier classes by state
Vermont does not publish an axle limit so much as a band. The statutory figure carries an express 10 percent tolerance on ordinary highways, and then the tolerance disappears entirely the moment the truck crosses onto the Eisenhower Interstate system, where a lower number governs with none allowed. An aggregate hauler here is running two weight regimes on the same day.
Everything that makes a dump account a dump account — the trip counts, the pit and job-site access, the body and hoist losses that outrun a scheduled value — is generic to the work, and the dump trucking insurance page carries all of it. This page is about what Vermont adds on top of that, which is unusually specific.
What Vermont contributes is a weight statute drafted in tolerances and conditions rather than in flat ceilings. Almost nothing in Title 23, Chapter 13, Subchapter 15 states a number and stops. The axle figures carry a percentage either side of them. The higher gross allowances are conditioned on which axles are driven and braked. The permits that lift a truck above the table are annual, stacked, separately priced, and keyed to the weight the vehicle is registered for. And the local layer that can take capacity away is fenced by a statutory minimum and voided if the town misses a three-day filing deadline.
The practical consequence for an operator is that Vermont capacity is assembled rather than granted. A Vermont dump configuration is a decision about driveline and brakes, made at the point of purchase, ratified at registration, and then topped up with whichever annual permits the axle count qualifies for. None of that is discoverable from a single number, which is why this page does not lead with one.
Each figure below names the Vermont Statutes Annotated section that sets it and the amendment that version carries. The publisher states of its own text: “The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.” That qualification travels with every figure on this page.
Running Vermont aggregate on annual configuration permits? Send the permit schedule alongside the registration weights — in Vermont a permit is void if the registered weight underneath it is wrong.
Ask for a Vermont dump quote
23 V.S.A. § 1391(b) sets the ordinary axle rule and immediately widens it: no single axle load may exceed 22,400 pounds “and a 10 percent tolerance shall be allowed on each single axle load,” and no tandem axle load may exceed 36,000 pounds, “with a 10 percent tolerance allowed.” Both halves of that sentence matter. The tandem figure is 2,000 pounds above the federal tandem pair, and both figures come with a stated margin rather than a hard edge.
Subsection (c) then reverses the drafting on one class of road. Unless federal law authorizes the subsection (b) limits and tolerances to apply there, on highways designated as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways no single axle load may exceed 20,000 pounds “with no tolerance allowed,” and no tandem axle load may exceed 34,000 pounds, again “with no tolerance allowed.” The step-down is not a reduction of a few hundred pounds; it removes both the higher figure and the margin at the same time.
§ 1391(a) adds a limit that binds before either of those on narrow rubber: the maximum load on any axle may not exceed 600 pounds per inch of tire width, computed in conformity with the manufacturer’s designated width. The same subsection requires sufficient weight to be maintained on the front axle to keep the vehicle safe in operation — a front-end condition written into the weight section rather than into an equipment section. § 1391 carries amendments through 2021, No. 20, § 245.
Vermont’s extra gross weight for straight dump configurations is bought with equipment rather than with a fee. Under 23 V.S.A. § 1392(5)(A), a motor truck having three axles may gross up to 55,000 pounds across those three axles “if the two rear axles are both power driven and both equipped with adequate brakes.” The allowance overrides both the § 1391 axle provisions and the § 1392(4) spacing table, but it is available only to a truck built that way.
§ 1392(6) extends the same logic to the four-axle tri-axle configuration that does most Vermont aggregate work. A four-axle motor truck, three of whose axles form a tri-axle group with at least two of that group power driven and equipped with adequate brakes, may gross up to 60,000 pounds — subject to internal caps that are easy to miss. No two axles in the tri-axle group may support more than 42,000 pounds with a 10 percent tolerance; no single axle of the group may support more than 22,400 pounds with a 10 percent tolerance; and the group as a whole may not exceed 54,000 pounds.
Subdivision (6)(D) then defines the group by geometry rather than by intent: three or more axles within 12 feet or less are treated as a tri-axle group, and a single axle closer than eight feet to the nearest axle of that group is folded into the group’s allowance rather than counted separately. A lift axle dropped near the group does not buy a fresh allowance; it joins one. Neither the § 1392(5) nor the § 1392(6) weights and tolerances apply on the Eisenhower system unless federal law authorizes them, per § 1392(11).
The equipment condition is not left to a roadside argument. § 1392(5)(B) requires that when application is made to register a motor truck under the 55,000-pound provision, the applicant “shall submit to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles specifications as to its make, brake equipment, and manufacturer’s recommended gross weight,” and the Commissioner may refuse registration for operation under that subdivision if the specifications “would not permit its safe operation when so loaded.” That puts a Vermont dump truck’s lawful capacity inside its registration record rather than inside a permit book, and catches a configuration error at the counter rather than at a scale. The permit track is gated the same way: § 1400(a) bars issuing an overweight permit until satisfactory proof is furnished that the vehicle has been registered and the fee paid “for a gross weight equal to a maximum legal load limit for its class.”
The configuration permits written directly into the weight statute are the ones a Vermont dump fleet actually buys. Under 23 V.S.A. § 1392(13), a special annual permit costing $458.00 raises a five-or-more-axle combination registered at 80,000 pounds to a maximum gross load of 90,000 pounds on designated State Highway System routes. § 1392(14) then prices four more by configuration: $187.00 for a three-axle truck with a single steering axle and rear tandem reaching 60,000 pounds when registered for not more than 55,000; $422.00 for a four-axle truck with a single steering axle and rear tri-axle unit reaching 69,000 pounds when registered for a minimum of 60,000; and $18.00 each for four-axle and five-or-more-axle combinations reaching 72,000 and 76,000 pounds respectively.
Those last two carry a spacing penalty that is arithmetic rather than discretionary. Each requires at least 24 feet between the stated axles, and for every foot or fraction of a foot under 24, “a reduction of 2,000 pounds in the maximum gross weight shall be made.” Subdivision (14) also caps any single axle of a tandem unit at 60 percent of that unit’s total and any single axle of a tri-axle unit at 40 percent, applies the same 600-pound-per-inch tire rule, and allows a five percent tolerance on the permitted gross weights.
Above those sits § 1392(17): a truck-trailer or tractor-semitrailer combination with six or more load-bearing axles registered for 80,000 pounds may bear up to 99,000 pounds by special annual permit on designated State and town highway routes, given a minimum 51 feet between extreme axles. The fee is $458.00 for vehicles bearing up to 90,000 pounds and $671.00 up to 99,000. Overweight violations of that subdivision are penalized on a doubled schedule beyond 10,000 pounds over the permitted weight. And under § 1392(19), a holder of a (13), (14) or (17) permit may take out additional permits on the same vehicle for a lesser weight on payment of a $10.00 administrative fee each.
The general overweight permit under § 1402(a) is a separate instrument again: $48.00 for a single trip permit valid seven business days, $135.00 for a blanket permit, and for a fleet blanket permit $135.00 for the first unit plus $8.00 for each unit thereafter, with an annual all-route fleet option capped at $1,000.00. One § 1402 condition is an insurance requirement rather than a fee — an applicant whose vehicle weighs 150,000 pounds or more, or is 15 or more feet in width or height, must file a special certificate of insurance showing minimum coverage of $250,000.00 for death or injury to one person, $500,000.00 for two or more, and $250,000.00 property damage, all arising out of any one crash. § 1402 carries amendments through 2023, No. 78, § G.136, effective January 1, 2024.
Placing a Vermont aggregate fleet? Send the registrations, the annual permit schedule and the axle configurations together — reading any one of them alone will misstate what the trucks may legally carry.
Vermont splits limit-setting authority by highway class and then puts a statutory floor under the result. Under 23 V.S.A. § 1396(a), the Secretary of Transportation may vary the § 1392 limit on a highway or bridge on the State Highway System or a class 1 town highway, and the legislative body of a municipality may vary it on any class 2, 3 or 4 town highway or bridge under its jurisdiction. There is also a reverse route: on a municipality’s written request, the Secretary may set the limit on a class 1 town highway below the State highway limit, but only “if a reasonable alternative route is available for those vehicles traveling at the State highway limit.”
That availability judgment is not left open. § 1396(b) requires the Secretary to consider, at a minimum, whether the alternative routing will reduce or relieve traffic congestion in a downtown area, whether it will enhance safety, the length of the alternative route and any increase in time it makes necessary, and “whether an adverse effect has been created relative to the quiet enjoyment and property values of persons living along the alternative route.” A decision under the section may be appealed in writing to the Transportation Board within 30 days, and the Board decides within 45 days of receipt and may take evidence or testimony.
The floor sits in § 1396(c), in the same sentence as the appeal right. Except as otherwise provided, the designated legal load limit “shall not be less than 20,000 pounds” for a single traction engine, tractor, trailer, motor truck or other motor vehicle on the State system or any class 1 or 2 town highway, “nor less than 16,000 pounds for any other town highway.” A class 2 town highway is therefore set by the municipal legislative body but cannot be posted below the State-system floor. § 1396 was last amended by 2025, No. 18, § 42, effective May 13, 2025.
§ 1400c then resolves the interaction in one sentence: when a town bridge or highway is posted for State limits, the gross weight limits on town highways and bridges are the weight allowed by the State, “including any additional weight allowed by permit.” Below that, § 1392(1) fixes 16,000 pounds on a wood-floored, wood-subfloored or wood-stringer bridge on a class 3 or 4 town highway and 20,000 pounds on such a bridge on a class 1 or 2 town highway unless otherwise posted by the selectboard, and § 1392(2) sets 24,000 pounds on a class 2, 3 or 4 town highway or non-wood bridge in any town or incorporated village.
Vermont is unusual in forcing its local restrictions into a central record on a deadline, with the sanction written into the same section. 23 V.S.A. § 1400b(a) requires any municipality that has enacted special weight limits other than State legal limits to file a complete copy with the Department of Motor Vehicles each year, and it specifies the contents: a concise listing of each highway or bridge posted, the time of the year the restrictions apply, the weight limitations in effect, and the name, address and telephone number of the person or persons responsible for issuing the local permit.
Subsection (b) is what makes the filing real. “Any special municipal weight limits on highways or bridges shall be unenforceable unless they are on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles within three working days of the date of posting.” The municipality must keep records documenting the time and date a highway or bridge was posted, and must keep current restrictions on file. The Department may prescribe the filing format.
The publication side is priced. Under § 1400b(c), DMV must publish an annual list of municipal highways or bridges and their current weight limits, available to the public at a charge not in excess of $25.00, on or before April 1 of each year. Subsection (d) requires a quarterly update at a cost of not more than $5.00. Subsection (e) lets any person request information on a specific municipality for a $3.00 fee per request — and provides that where a municipality has filed nothing, the Department must supply that fact in writing and still charge the $3.00. The Commissioner may require prepayment. § 1400b carries amendments through 2021, No. 184 (Adj. Sess.), § 53, effective July 1, 2022.
Signage runs on a separate track under § 1397. Where a weight limit has been adjusted by the Secretary, a selectboard, village trustees or a city council, the adjusting body must post each restricted highway or bridge with notices “of a permanent nature” at each end of each restricted highway or on the approaches to each restricted bridge, stating the legal load limit permitted. Those notices may be omitted only on a class 4 town highway, or on a class 3 town highway serving only one residence.
23 V.S.A. § 1400(e) makes reciprocity a condition of issue rather than an administrative courtesy: “Notwithstanding any other statute or rule to the contrary, overweight permits shall not be issued to vehicles registered in another state or province, unless that state or province issues similar permits on a reciprocal basis to vehicles registered in Vermont.” The reference to a province is doing real work in a state that borders Quebec.
The entry condition for out-of-state equipment sits one subsection earlier. § 1400(b) applies the section to a vehicle registered in another state “provided the vehicle meets all weight and size requirements of this State and is registered or holds a permit in the other state for the weight that the permit is sought.” An out-of-state truck therefore has to satisfy Vermont’s own limits and carry matching authority at home before the Vermont permit question is even reached.
The annual configuration permits carry their own out-of-state expiry: under § 1392(13) and (14) they expire with the vehicle’s registration, “except for vehicles not registered in Vermont, in which case the permit shall become void on January 1 following date of issue.” The 99,000-pound permit at § 1392(17)(D) states the reciprocity point from the other direction — that weight is allowed for foreign trucks registered or permitted for 99,000 pounds in a state or province that recognizes Vermont vehicles for consistent weights. § 1400 carries amendments through 2023, No. 85 (Adj. Sess.), § 296, effective July 1, 2024.
Vermont carries a dedicated bond section for overweight permitting. 23 V.S.A. § 1404 provides that in the Commissioner’s discretion, the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles “shall require the applicant to file a bond of certificate of insurance in such amount as in his or her judgment seems adequate to cover any probable damage that may be occasioned by the use and operation” of the vehicle, executed by the applicant as principal and by a surety company authorized to transact business in the State as surety.
The condition on that bond is broader than a permit-compliance guarantee. It is conditioned to pay all injuries or damages sustained “by the State or by any municipality or person” in consequence of failure to comply with the provisions of the permit, or the excessive weight the permit allowed, or “the careless, negligent, or unlawful act of such principal or his or her agents or servants.” Three classes of beneficiary, and ordinary negligence inside the trigger — which is a broader instrument than a road-damage guarantee and worth reading against whatever trucking auto liability and general liability forms are already on the account.
At the municipal layer the mechanism is a payment rather than a bond. Under § 1400a(c)(1), the selectboard, trustees or mayor may accept compensation for the municipality “commensurate with the extra wear or maintenance required on the highway traveled over or on any bridge by reason of the overweight allowed by any permit,” to be used for the maintenance of highways and bridges in that town, village or city. The statute fixes four factors to be considered at a minimum: the weight allowed in excess of the normal limit, the configuration and number of axles, the number and length of trips, and “the condition of the highway before and after use by the vehicle and costs associated with any needed repair.” Where the compensation agreement is in writing, failure to pay is sufficient cause to withdraw approval for the permit.
The municipal permit itself is inexpensive by comparison: § 1400a(d) sets a $5.00 administration fee for the period expiring March 31 each year, or a $10.00 administrative fee for a fleet permit covering all of the applicant’s registered vehicles in that municipality — and where a fleet permit is held, individual permits need not be carried in each vehicle. A separate fee not in excess of $5.00 may be charged for the municipality’s written approval. § 1400a was last amended by 2025, No. 18, § 42, effective May 13, 2025.
Vermont writes its construction relief into the weight subchapter itself, and it is drafted around who holds the work rather than around what is being hauled. 23 V.S.A. § 1399(b)(1) provides that nothing in §§ 1391–1398 restricts the weight of snow plows, road machines, oilers, traction engines, tractors, rollers, power shovels, dump wagons, trucks, “or other construction or maintenance equipment when used by any town, incorporated village, city, or the State in the construction or the maintenance of any highway” — but only “provided that such construction or maintenance is performed by persons employed by or under contract with such town, incorporated village, city, or the State for this purpose.”
A contractor working under a public contract is therefore inside the exemption; the same truck on private work is outside it. The section then narrows the geography in a sentence that is easy to lose in summary: “any operation of motorized highway building equipment or road making appliances used in construction work contracted by a town, incorporated village, city, or the State shall be unrestricted as to weight only within a construction area.”
The remaining exceptions in § 1399 are narrow and unrelated to aggregate work — municipal and volunteer fire apparatus and law enforcement vehicles at subdivision (2), and heavy-duty tow and recovery vehicles on the Eisenhower system at subdivision (3), where the section’s own definition requires the recovery vehicle’s gross vehicle weight to equal or exceed that of the disabled vehicle being transported. § 1399 carries amendments through 2021, No. 184 (Adj. Sess.), § 47, effective July 1, 2022.
Vermont’s equipment mandate for dump work is a driveline-and-brake mandate, as the weight sections above set out. On the question of covering a load, the general provision is 23 V.S.A. § 1454, and it is short enough to state in full. Subsection (a): a person shall not operate a motor vehicle nor draw a trailer or semi-trailer on a highway “unless the motor vehicle, trailer, or semi-trailer is so constructed and loaded that it will create no hazard to other users of the highway.” Subsection (b): “The Commissioner may, by rule, impose design and load security requirements, consistent with nationally recognized safety standards, upon motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers in order to provide for the safe and secure transport of any loads.” § 1454 carries amendments through 1997, No. 46, § 7.
That is the whole section. It states a performance standard — no hazard to other users — and delegates the specification to a rule. It names no commodity, prescribes no cover, and fixes no freeboard measurement, and the two commodity-specific securement sections in the same subchapter reach wood and wood products at § 1452 and baled products at § 1453 rather than aggregate.
The scope of that observation should be stated with it rather than left implied. It is drawn from § 1454 read in full and from a review of the securement sections of Title 23, Chapter 13, Subchapter 15. It is not a statement about Title 19, and it is not a statement about any rule the Commissioner may have made under § 1454(b) — no such rule was located, which is a different thing from establishing that none exists. An operator relying on the absence of a specification rather than on a written standard is relying on the wrong half of the section: the performance duty in subsection (a) applies to the load whether or not a rule fills in the detail, and a load that creates a hazard is a violation on the face of the statute.
Practically, that pushes the covering decision onto the contract and the loss record rather than onto the statute. Escaping material claims are ordinarily a general liability and trucking auto liability question in the first instance, and a Vermont operator who tarps by policy rather than by mandate should be able to say so, because nothing in the statute will say it for them.
Because Vermont capacity is assembled from registration and stacked permits rather than granted by a single instrument, a Vermont dump submission is mostly a reconciliation exercise. The registration weight and the permit class have to agree, because § 1400(a) and the § 1392(13)–(14) registration floors both make the permit contingent on the registered weight underneath it. A permit written against the wrong registered weight is not a paperwork defect that can be cured later; it is a permit that should not have issued.
The second reconciliation is between the routes and the layer of authority. § 1400 gives the Commissioner permits over State highways and class 1 town highways; § 1400a routes everything else to the municipality’s legislative body or its designee, on an application form of a uniform type developed by the Commissioner after consulting municipal officials and representatives of the State’s trucking industry. A fleet running town roads to a pit is dealing with a different issuer from the one that wrote its State-system permit, and possibly with a road-wear compensation agreement as well.
The third is the equipment record. Because 55,000 and 60,000 pounds are conditioned on which axles are driven and braked, and because § 1392(5)(B) puts brake specifications in front of the Commissioner at registration, a Vermont file should be able to evidence the driveline configuration of each unit rather than asserting a gross weight. That record is also what supports a physical damage schedule reflecting how these trucks are actually specified. A fleet that also floats its own iron between sites runs into the § 1402 stack and the 150,000-pound certificate threshold, which makes oversized and overweight trucking insurance part of the same placement.
The state minimum is a licensing threshold. The program an operator actually needs is built from these lines:
We write dump and aggregate hauling as a named class rather than as an exception to general trucking, and we read each account against the weight and permit regime of the state it operates in. For a Vermont operator that means starting from what the trucks are actually licensed and configured to carry, sizing physical damage to bodies and hoists rather than to a chassis value, and treating pit, stockpile and job-site work as its own exposure rather than an extension of the highway auto form.
If the operation also runs freight under separate authority, the Vermont trucking insurance page covers the state’s broader motor carrier picture, and the dump trucking insurance page covers the class mechanics that apply wherever the operator runs.
On ordinary highways, yes, and it is written into the statute rather than allowed by practice. 23 V.S.A. § 1391(b) sets 22,400 pounds on a single axle and 36,000 pounds on a tandem, and states that a 10 percent tolerance is allowed on each. The tolerance is part of the rule, not an enforcement margin.
Both the figure and the margin. Under § 1391(c), unless federal law authorizes otherwise, the single axle limit on the Eisenhower Interstate system is 20,000 pounds with no tolerance allowed and the tandem limit is 34,000 pounds with no tolerance allowed. The § 1392(5) and (6) configuration allowances are also switched off there by § 1392(11).
Because the extra gross weight is conditioned on it. § 1392(5)(A) grants 55,000 pounds to a three-axle truck only if both rear axles are power driven and equipped with adequate brakes, and § 1392(6) grants 60,000 pounds to a four-axle truck with a tri-axle group only where at least two axles of that group are driven and braked.
For operation under the 55,000-pound provision, it can. § 1392(5)(B) requires the applicant to submit the make, brake equipment and manufacturer’s recommended gross weight, and permits the Commissioner to refuse registration for operation under that subdivision if the specifications would not permit safe operation when so loaded.
The statute prices them individually. § 1392(13) is $458.00 for a five-or-more-axle combination to 90,000 pounds; § 1392(14) is $187.00 for a three-axle truck to 60,000, $422.00 for a four-axle truck to 69,000, and $18.00 each for combinations to 72,000 and 76,000; § 1392(17) is $458.00 to 90,000 and $671.00 to 99,000. Adding a lesser-weight permit to the same truck costs $10.00 under § 1392(19).
Not below a statutory floor. § 1396(c) provides that except as otherwise provided, the designated legal load limit may not be less than 20,000 pounds on the State system or any class 1 or 2 town highway, nor less than 16,000 pounds on any other town highway. A decision under the section can be appealed to the Transportation Board within 30 days.
Only if it is filed. § 1400b(b) makes any special municipal weight limit unenforceable unless it is on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles within three working days of the date of posting, and requires the municipality to keep records of the time and date of posting. DMV publishes the filed limits annually by April 1 at a charge not in excess of $25.00.
Only on a reciprocal basis. § 1400(e) provides that overweight permits shall not be issued to vehicles registered in another state or province unless that state or province issues similar permits on a reciprocal basis to vehicles registered in Vermont. Under § 1400(b) the vehicle must also meet all Vermont weight and size requirements and hold matching registration or a permit at home.
The weight subchapter’s general provision, 23 V.S.A. § 1454, does not prescribe a cover. Read in full, it requires a vehicle to be so constructed and loaded that it will create no hazard to other users of the highway, and authorizes the Commissioner to impose design and load security requirements by rule. That reading is scoped to § 1454 and the subchapter’s securement sections; no rule made under § 1454(b) was located, and nothing here speaks to Title 19.
Every figure on this page was read at the source below on August 11, 2026, with the effective date of the version read. Treat each as current as of that date rather than as permanent.
Send the declared or registered weights alongside the axle configurations, and tell us where the material moves from. We will size the program against the work the trucks actually do rather than against a statutory floor.
