Motor carrier classes by state
Missouri prices a new carrier in two places that do not agree on paper, and puts one of the filings you will worry about most into your insurer’s hands rather than yours. Both of those are worth knowing before you spend anything.
A new motor carrier in Missouri meets three separate offices before it hauls a paying load, and they do not share a counter. The Secretary of State takes the entity. The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission — MoDOT Motor Carrier Services, not the Public Service Commission — takes the intrastate property carrier registration and the vehicle license that goes with it. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration takes the USDOT number. What follows is what each of those actually asks for, read at the statute and the rule rather than summarized from a checklist.
Two things about Missouri catch first-time applicants. The first is that the organizing fee appears twice in public, at different numbers, and the difference is explained on the page that carries the larger one. The second is that the proof-of-insurance filing that gates the registration is a duty the rule places on the insurance company, not on the applicant — which means the market you choose has to be one that can perform it.
Figures on this page were read at their primary source on September 3, 2026. Where a document is dated, the date is stated with it, because a fee schedule stamped years ago and a statute effective decades ago are both current until they are not, and the reader deserves to see which is which.
The Missouri file is short but unforgiving: the commission will not act on an application until eight specific records are in hand, and one of them has to be filed by your insurer.
Tell us what you plan to run and where, and we will work the coverage side against the filing the rule actually requires.
RSMo 347.179.1 is the statute. Subdivision (1) sets a fee of one hundred dollars for filing the original articles of organization; subdivision (2) sets forty-five dollars for filing them online in an electronic format prescribed by the Secretary of State. That version of the section is stamped effective August 28, 2014, and was read at revisor.mo.gov on September 3, 2026.
The Corporations Division publishes its own Schedule of Fees and Charges, and under the heading CHAPTER 347 FEES—Limited Liability Companies the paper row reads $105.00 and the online row reads 50.00. The schedule is stamped (June 30, 2015) and was read on September 3, 2026. Two published numbers for the same act, five dollars apart.
The schedule reconciles itself, and the line doing the work sits above the tables rather than inside them: “This includes $5.00 for the Technology fund, where applicable.” The same five dollars accounts for every other divergence on the sheet. The statute sets twenty dollars for an amendment and the schedule shows 25.00. The statute sets twenty dollars for a name reservation and the schedule shows 25.00. The statute sets five dollars for a change of registered office or agent and the schedule shows 10.00. A reader who compares one row and stops will think the agency is overcharging; a reader who compares five rows will see a surcharge disclosed in a sentence.
There is an asymmetry in the chapter 347 block that costs money in one direction only. The paper row is captioned domestic/foreign. The online row is captioned domestic. A company organized in another state and registering to transact business in Missouri is on the paper row by the schedule’s own wording, and RSMo 347.179.1(3) sets its statutory figure at one hundred dollars rather than forty-five.
Missouri also publishes a genuine no-fee path, and it is narrower than the headline. The schedule’s STARTUP FOR SOLDIERS block reads: “All active duty military in Missouri, including those in the Missouri National Guard, may now create new businesses without paying a filing fee with the Office of the Secretary of State.” The statutory waiver behind it is RSMo 347.179.2, and it attaches four conditions and reaches three fees. The organizer must be listed as a member in the operating agreement of the limited liability company; must be a member of the Missouri National Guard or any other active duty military; must reside in the state of Missouri; and must provide proof of such service. The fees waived are the two organizing fees and the name reservation — not the whole schedule.
Missouri corporations file an Annual Registration Report and pay for it. The schedule shows the rows twice: under CHAPTER 351 FEES—General Business Corporations at 45.00 on paper and 20.00 online, and under CHAPTER 355 FEES—Not for Profit Corporations at 15.00 and 10.00. Read September 3, 2026.
The chapter 347 block has no such row. Counted on the schedule, it runs to seven lines: the two certificate rows, amendments, merger with a limited liability company as surviving entity, winding up, termination, and certificate of withdrawal. Nothing yearly, nothing periodic, nothing to renew.
That is a fee schedule, though, and a fee schedule would be silent about a duty that costs nothing to perform. So the negative was tested against a second document. The chapter 347 section index at revisor.mo.gov — the list of every section caption in the Missouri Limited Liability Company Act — was read on September 3, 2026 and searched for the word annual. It returns nothing. Not a report section, not a registration section, not a caption using the word at all. That is the scope of the search and the whole of it: the section captions of one chapter, not the body text of its ninety-odd sections.
The practical reading is that an operating Missouri limited liability company is not on a yearly renewal clock with the Secretary of State the way a Missouri corporation is. What it is on is a good-standing obligation that shows up somewhere else entirely, because the motor carrier rule makes standing with the Secretary of State a document the commission checks. Losing the entity quietly is not a paperwork problem in Missouri; it is an authority problem.
7 CSR 265-10.015 governs applications for intrastate motor carrier authority. Subsection (1) applies it to every application for a common carrier certificate under section 390.051, a contract carrier permit under section 390.061, temporary authority under 390.081, or a property carrier registration under Chapter 622. General freight is the last of those.
Subsection (2) sets the form of the application and its execution: “The applicant or an authorized representative of the applicant under oath or penalty of perjury shall complete, verify, and electronically file an application using the commission’s secure MoDOT Carrier Express business application.” There is no paper alternative in the rule.
Subsection (3) is the part that decides how long a new venture waits, and it is a list rather than a sequence. Its opening words are that the commission “shall not consider for final determination the request of the applicant until the commission has received the following required documentation”, and then eight lettered items follow. Nothing in the rule says which comes first. Two of the eight are not general-freight items at all — the approved tariff and time schedule is for passenger transportation other than charter service, and the executed contracts belong to contract carriage — which means a property carrier registration application is working a shorter list than the rule prints.
Subsection (4) is the clock the list creates. If the required documentation has not been filed within forty-five days from the date the application was received, the applicant is notified that no further consideration will be taken upon the pending request. That is not a denial and it is not a refund; it is a file that stops moving.
Subsection (5) gives the standard: the commission grants the application if it determines from the information filed that the applicant meets the applicable standards required in sections 390.051, 390.061, 390.063, 390.081 or Chapter 622. Subsection (6) is worth reading before an application is submitted rather than after — if the commission denies, the applicant may request a hearing in writing with the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission, and it is that body, not MoDOT, that “shall make the final determination whether to grant the operating authority requested by the applicant.” The rule’s own history shows an amendment filed May 2, 2013, effective December 30, 2013; the chapter was read in the 6/30/24 issue on September 3, 2026.
The insurance filing is the one item on the Missouri list you cannot complete yourself — the rule puts it on the insurer.
Tell us what the operation looks like and we will make sure the market behind the quote can actually make that filing.
This is the sentence that surprises people, and it is the opening of 7 CSR 265-10.030(2): “The insurance company or its authorized underwriter shall electronically file proof of insurance on behalf of a motor carrier using the MoDOT Carrier Express business application.” The duty runs to the carrier’s insurer. An applicant cannot discharge it personally, and no amount of diligence on the applicant’s side substitutes.
That single sentence changes what a new venture should be asking a prospective market. The question is not only what the policy costs. It is whether the company writing it, or its authorized underwriter, is set up to make an electronic filing in Missouri’s system on your behalf — because 7 CSR 265-10.015(3)(B) makes that filing one of the eight records the commission will not act without. A quotation from a market that cannot file is not a route to a registration.
The rest of subsection (2) gives the commission a screening power that runs in the same direction. Upon request, any insurance company that has filed or offers to file proof of insurance shall furnish evidence satisfactory to the commission that it is duly authorized to transact business in Missouri, authorized to issue the policy offered, and financially able to meet its obligations. Admitted status is not a formality here; it is a condition the commission can test at any point.
One duty does stay with the carrier, and it is easy to miss because it sits in subsection (1) rather than (2). A completed and executed endorsement must be attached to the public liability policy and form a part of it, and “A true copy of the insurance policy with the endorsement attached shall be maintained at the motor carrier’s principal place of business, and produced upon request for inspection by the commission.” A digital certificate in an inbox is not that. Subsection (1) also allows an executed surety bond to be accepted in lieu of a certificate of public liability insurance, which is the door the bond alternative comes through.
The limits themselves, the ten-day cancellation mechanism and the treatment of replacement coverage are set out on our Missouri hot shot page and are not repeated here. The rule was amended by a filing dated December 8, 2023, effective July 30, 2024, and was read in the 6/30/24 issue of 7 CSR 265-10 on September 3, 2026.
Missouri publishes a self-insurance route, and it is worth reading precisely because reading it settles the question for almost every new venture. 7 CSR 265-10.035(1) requires an application to the director of the division on the Application for Self-Insurer Status Form, with Exhibits A, B, C, D and E as described in the form wherever applicable, and it forbids the supporting information from repeating or duplicating what the form and exhibits already carry.
The exhibits are where the arithmetic closes. Exhibit B is a balance sheet prepared within the last six months prior to the filing of the application. Exhibit C is an income statement showing in detail the applicant’s operating results for the twelve month period immediately prior to the date of filing. Exhibit D is a record of all accidents, losses and claims filed in the five year period immediately prior to the date of filing, with a complete explanation of the disposition of the claims. Exhibit E covers cancellation of any insurance policies issued to the applicant by companies authorized to do business in this state, where the coverage related to the applicant’s operation as an authorized motor carrier.
A carrier that has not operated cannot produce twelve months of operating results as a carrier, and cannot produce a five-year claims history it has not had. That is not a discretionary refusal — it is the form asking for records that do not exist yet.
There are two continuing duties on anyone granted the status. Under 265-10.035(2) a self-insurer files, within sixty days after the close of the previous calendar year, a balance sheet, an income statement and a statement listing claims filed against it out of accidents in that year plus unresolved claims from previous years, stating for each claim the amount, nature and status including whether it is disputed or undisputed and how much remains unpaid. Under (3) a carrier whose plan has been approved by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration files the approving order and gives immediate notice of any proceeding that could suspend, revoke or terminate it. Subsection (4) makes failure to comply with either a revocation of the commission’s approval. The rule’s history shows an amendment filed June 3, 2022, effective January 30, 2023.
The vehicle-side charge is separate from the authority and it is small. RSMo 390.136.1 requires that no motor carrier, except as provided in section 390.030, operate any motor vehicle unless the vehicle is accompanied by an annual or seventy-two-hour regulatory license issued by the state highways and transportation commission, and it states the price in words: “The fee for each such regulatory license shall be ten dollars per year”. That version of the section is stamped effective August 28, 2004 and was read on September 3, 2026.
The same subsection carries an election that matters to anyone pulling a trailer: where a motor carrier uses a truck-tractor for pulling trailers or semitrailers, the carrier may elect to license either the truck-tractor, the trailer or the semitrailer. Subsection 3 prices surge capacity — in case of emergency, temporary, unusual or peak demand, additional vehicles may run on a seventy-two-hour license, and the fee is five dollars for each seventy-two consecutive hours or any portion thereof.
Two practical provisions sit at the end of the section. Subsection 6 says the regulatory license fee may be paid at any state weigh station. Subsection 5 says a carrier who violates or fails to comply with the section is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars. Subsection 7 lets the commission stagger issuance at quarterly intervals during a calendar year and issue partial or over-one-year licenses to accommodate a carrier adding vehicles mid-year.
7 CSR 265-10.020 is the rule underneath it, and it sets the calendar precisely. All annual regulatory licenses are effective from January 1 through December 31 of the year for which they are issued and expire at 12:01 A.M. on the first day of January in the next year; seventy-two-hour licenses expire seventy-two hours from the issued time. Subsection (1) also disposes of a common misreading — the license must be carried in the vehicle, and “The mere presence of a regulatory license … on a vehicle does not authorize any person to operate as a motor carrier.”
Two more provisions of that rule are worth knowing before a truck changes hands. Under (4), if a vehicle is sold during a license year the commission may reissue the annual license without charge for a replacement vehicle upon request by the transferor, and the license is not valid for the transferee of the vehicle. Under (5), failure to purchase an annual license lets the commission immediately suspend the carrier’s intrastate authority, and further operation is unlawful until compliance and a reinstatement. The rule was rescinded and readopted by a filing dated May 2, 2013, effective December 30, 2013.
Missouri is one of the forty-one names on the UCR Plan’s participating-states list, counted on that page on September 3, 2026. What is distinctive about Missouri is not that it participates. It is what participation does to the state’s own charge.
7 CSR 265-10.020(1) ends with an exception, and it is broader than it looks: not-for-profit corporations transporting passengers other than in charter service, “and every motor carrier required to comply with the regulatory requirements of the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) Agreement promulgated by the Unified Registration Board of Directors are not required to comply with this rule.” A carrier inside the federal scheme is outside the ten-dollar vehicle license rule by the rule’s own terms.
The shape of that exception matches something in the federal statute. 49 U.S.C. 14504a(c)(1) makes it an unreasonable burden upon interstate commerce for a state to levy a fee or charge on an interstate motor carrier in connection with, among other things, the annual renewal of the carrier’s intrastate authority or its insurance filings, where the carrier is registered under section 13902 or 13905(b) and is in compliance with the laws authorizing it to operate in the state. That reading is from the prelim edition, which carries a currency stamp of September 2, 2026 and was opened on September 3, 2026. Missouri’s carve-out is written narrowly against its own vehicle rule rather than as a general disclaimer, and the two documents are stated here as they read rather than as one explaining the other.
One small discrepancy is worth flagging rather than smoothing. The Missouri rule names a “Unified Registration Board of Directors”. The federal definition at 49 U.S.C. 14504a(a)(9) uses the terms unified carrier registration plan for the organization of State, Federal and industry representatives responsible for developing, implementing and administering the agreement. Both were read; neither was reconciled against the other, because no document read here does that.
What Missouri does not do is set the number. The fee is a federal table applied nationally, not a Missouri charge, and no Missouri agency was identified in the documents read as administering a state-run UCR program. An intrastate-only Missouri carrier is outside the federal scheme altogether and stays inside the ten-dollar vehicle license rule.
7 CSR 265-10.025 handles markings, and it does something a new venture should notice: it adopts a frozen version of the federal rule. Every motor vehicle operated in intrastate commerce under a property carrier registration, certificate or permit issued by the commission must be marked in conformity with 49 CFR 390.21, and the rule incorporates that federal part “as published by the United States Government Publishing Office … on August 14, 2019. This rule does not incorporate any subsequent amendments or additions to 49 CFR Part 390.21.”
That is a live trap for anyone checking compliance against the current federal text. The document Missouri adopted is the August 14, 2019 publication. Reading today’s eCFR tells you what the federal rule says now; it does not tell you what the Missouri rule requires.
Subsection (2) adds the state-specific mark. If the carrier is engaged in intrastate operations only as authorized by the commission, the vehicle markings must include the letters MO immediately following the carrier’s USDOT number. A carrier that runs both intrastate and interstate is not described by that subsection, and the rule does not tell it to add the suffix.
Subsection (3) closes a loop that catches sellers rather than buyers: if an intrastate motor carrier sells, assigns or otherwise transfers a vehicle subject to the rule, the seller shall first remove its required markings. The rule was amended by a filing dated June 3, 2022, effective January 30, 2023, and was read on September 3, 2026.
A new Missouri carrier that goes looking for the state’s motor carrier fuel and registration programmes at the Department of Revenue will not find them. That path was probed on September 3, 2026 and returned a 404, and the statute explains why rather than the website.
RSMo 226.008.1 gives the highways and transportation commission responsibility and authority for, among other things, subdivision (5) “Collecting and regulating amounts payable to the state from interstate motor carriers in accordance with the provisions of the International Fuel Tax Agreement in accordance with section 142.617, and any successor or similar agreements, including the authority to impose and collect motor fuel taxes due pursuant to chapter 142, and such agreement”, and subdivision (6) registering and regulating interstate commercial motor vehicles under the International Registration Plan in accordance with sections 301.271 through 301.277, including the authority to issue license plates. That section is stamped effective August 28, 2014. The same transfer is printed as a cross reference under RSMo 142.617 and again under RSMo 301.271, both read September 3, 2026.
The threshold for fuel-tax licensing is not Missouri’s to write, and reading it at the agreement rather than at a summary is the point of the exercise. R245 of the IFTA Articles of Agreement builds its Qualified Motor Vehicle out of a preamble, three numbered limbs and one closing exclusion, and separating them shows why a summary usually gets it wrong. The preamble asks whether the vehicle is used, designed, or maintained for the transportation of persons or property. Limb .100 then reaches a two-axle unit above 26,000 pounds gross or registered gross weight, a figure the Articles also print in metric. Limb .300 reaches a unit run in combination once the combination passes the same weight.
Limb .200 is the short one and the one that reaches small operations: “Having three or more axles regardless of weight”. No floor sits under it. A light three-axle power unit satisfies R245 where a two-axle unit at the identical weight does not, and the difference is a count rather than a scale reading.
Then comes the sentence that restatements drop, and it is part of the definition rather than a note attached to it: “Qualified Motor Vehicle does not include recreational vehicles.”
Qualifying does not by itself create a license duty. R305 supplies that: any person based in a member jurisdiction operating a qualified motor vehicle in two or more member jurisdictions is required to license under the Agreement, except as indicated in R310 and R500. R310 is the alternative worth knowing in a first year — “In lieu of motor fuel tax licensing under this Agreement, persons may elect to satisfy motor fuels use tax obligations on a trip-by-trip basis.” The Articles were read in the revision dated 03-11-2026 on September 3, 2026. The parallel apportionable-vehicle threshold under the International Registration Plan was not read at its own source this run and no figure for it is stated here.
Many carriers start under a personal name and incorporate later. In Missouri that later step is not a name change, and the rule says which of the two it is.
7 CSR 265-10.052(1) requires a carrier holding intrastate operating authority to file with the division, not later than five days after a change of name or of the address of its principal place of business becomes effective, a written request that the change be recorded, stating the numbers of every certificate and permit currently in force including both active and suspended authority. The division will not recognize or approve the change until three conditions are met: new certificates of insurance or surety bonds setting forth the new name and address are filed with and approved by the division; where a corporation or limited liability partnership changes its name, or any holder changes a fictitious name, notice is filed with the Missouri secretary of state as otherwise required by law; and where the carrier becomes a nonresident and keeps no office or agent in the state, it files a writing designating an authorized agent for service of legal process in Missouri.
Subsection (2) is the sentence that costs money if it is discovered late. Where a change of name involves any change in the form of business entity owning the operating authority — “such as changing from an individual to a partnership or corporation, or changing from a corporation or partnership to an individual” — those changes are transfers within the meaning of section 390.111, and both the transferor and the transferee must apply to the division for approval under 7 CSR 265-10.015.
The practical consequence for a new venture is a decision made cheaply at the start or expensively later. Forming the entity before the registration application is a filing fee. Forming it afterwards is a transfer application, a fresh insurance filing in the new name, and a second pass through the same rule that governed the original grant.
One kindness in the rule is worth naming, because it is the only place in this chapter where staff may edit an application. 7 CSR 265-10.015(7) lets commission staff, in issuing a transfer request, correct spelling, typographical, grammatical or format errors without altering the substance of the authority. That is a proofreading power, not a power to fix the wrong applicant.
Unified Carrier Registration is federal in structure and collected by the participating states, so the fee is the same wherever a carrier registers and no state sets it. It is changing, and both figures are current for their own period.
For the 2026 registration year, bracket B1 — an exempt or non-exempt motor carrier, motor private carrier or freight forwarder operating zero to two commercial motor vehicles — is $46.00 per entity. From October 1, 2026, for the 2027 registration year and each subsequent year, that bracket is $55.00 per entity, under FMCSA final rule 91 FR 56063, published September 1, 2026. The larger fleet brackets rise on the same date; the full schedule is in the rule rather than restated here.
One trap is worth naming, because no ordinary check catches it. The same rule renumbers the sections: it redesignates the current 49 CFR §367.50 as §367.40 and adds a new §367.50 carrying the 2027 table. Until October 1, 2026 the citation “49 CFR 367.50” names the $46 schedule; from that date the identical citation names the $55 schedule, and the section carries no repeal marker to signal the change. A document citing §367.50 for $46 becomes wrong without being edited.
UCR figures read at the Federal Register on September 2, 2026.
The state minimum is a licensing threshold. The program an operator actually needs is built from these lines:
We write new ventures as a named class rather than as an unpriced version of an established fleet, and we read each account against the state layer the operator actually meets rather than against the federal floor alone. For a Missouri operator that means starting from what the state does and does not require of a carrier with no operating history, separating the credentials the state issues from the ones it merely asks you to hold, and treating the absence of a filing regime as a fact about the submission rather than a gap in it.
If the operation also runs freight under separate authority, the Missouri trucking insurance page covers the state’s broader motor carrier picture, and the new venture trucking insurance page covers the class mechanics that apply wherever the operator runs.
The Corporations Division fee schedule read on September 3, 2026 shows Annual Registration Report rows only under the general business corporation chapter (45.00 paper, 20.00 online) and the not-for-profit chapter (15.00 and 10.00). The chapter 347 block has seven rows and none of them is periodic. Because a fee schedule would omit a zero-fee duty, the chapter 347 section index at revisor.mo.gov was also read that day and contains no occurrence of the word annual. Standing still matters, though: 7 CSR 265-10.015(3)(D) makes good standing with the Secretary of State one of the records the commission requires.
The insurance company. 7 CSR 265-10.030(2) reads that “The insurance company or its authorized underwriter shall electronically file proof of insurance on behalf of a motor carrier using the MoDOT Carrier Express business application.” The applicant’s own duty under subsection (1) is different — keep a true copy of the policy with the endorsement attached at the principal place of business and produce it on request.
Neither. RSMo 390.051 and 390.061 are limited by their terms to household goods and passengers, and general property runs on the Chapter 622 property carrier registration track. 7 CSR 265-10.015(1) lists all four instruments side by side, which is the clearest place to see that the registration is its own thing rather than a variety of certificate.
RSMo 390.136.1 sets ten dollars per year for each regulatory license, and 390.136.3 sets five dollars for each seventy-two consecutive hours or any portion thereof for additional vehicles in a peak. Under 7 CSR 265-10.020(3) an annual license runs January 1 through December 31 and expires at 12:01 A.M. on the first day of the next January. Both were read on September 3, 2026.
The route exists and the exhibits close it for a first-year operation. 7 CSR 265-10.035(1) requires, where applicable, an income statement covering the twelve month period immediately prior to filing and a record of all accidents, losses and claims filed in the five year period immediately prior. A carrier that has not operated has neither. The alternative under subsection (3) runs through a self-insurance plan already approved by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
7 CSR 265-10.020(1) excepts from the rule every motor carrier required to comply with the regulatory requirements of the Unified Carrier Registration Agreement, alongside not-for-profit passenger carriers outside charter service. A purely intrastate Missouri carrier is not in the federal scheme and stays inside the state rule.
Because the function moved. RSMo 226.008.1(5) and (6) place International Fuel Tax Agreement collection and International Registration Plan registration with the highways and transportation commission, and the same transfer is printed as a cross reference under RSMo 142.617 and RSMo 301.271. The Revenue motor-carrier path was probed on September 3, 2026 and returned a 404.
No. 7 CSR 265-10.052(2) treats a change in the form of the business entity owning the operating authority — an individual becoming a partnership or corporation, or the reverse — as a transfer within the meaning of RSMo 390.111, and both parties must apply to the division for approval under 7 CSR 265-10.015. Doing it before the first application is a filing fee; doing it after is a second proceeding.
It can. Limb .200 of R245 in the IFTA Articles of Agreement counts axles rather than pounds, and nothing under it sets a minimum weight. Whether a license is then owed turns on R305, which reaches a person based in a member jurisdiction running such a vehicle across two or more member jurisdictions; R310 offers trip-by-trip settlement in its place. Read in the revision dated 03-11-2026 on September 3, 2026.
Every figure on this page was read at the source below on September 3, 2026, with the effective date of the version read. Treat each as current as of that date rather than as permanent.
Send the equipment list, the operating radius and the commodity, and tell us the date authority was granted. We will size the program against the first year the operation will actually have rather than against a statutory floor.
