Motor carrier classes by state
Montana publishes its weight fee as a grid: weight bands down the side, months across the top. Read across a row and something odd appears. Up to 24,000 pounds every cell in the row is the same number — one month costs what twelve months cost. From 24,001 pounds up, the row prorates properly. That break decides what a first truck actually costs to put on the road here, and it decides it in a direction most operators would not guess.
The general shape of insuring a first-year authority — no loss history to price against, the experience credit that does not exist yet, the freight a startup is offered versus the freight it can actually run — is set out on the type page. See new venture trucking insurance.
Montana’s own contribution to a startup budget is a weight fee charged at the registration counter rather than a credential bought from a regulator. It is set in statute at MCA 61-10-201 and administered by the Department of Transportation, whose Motor Carrier Services division publishes the working schedule.
A hedge belongs at the top of any page built on the Montana Code, because the state attaches one to its own text. Every section on the legislature’s site carries this: “The Internet version of the Montana Code Annotated is provided as a research tool to users of the Code. In case of inconsistencies resulting from omissions or other errors, the printed version will prevail.” The figures below were read on that Internet version.
One thing this page will not do is supply the Secretary of State’s formation fee. That schedule sits on a host that refused a desktop browser request at both the root and the fee path when it was probed on September 3, 2026. The gap is described where it falls rather than filled with a number from somewhere else.
Buying a first truck in Montana partway through the year? Where the unit lands on the weight schedule decides whether registering it late costs you a fraction of the annual fee or the whole of it. The break is not where most people expect.
Send us the declared weight you intend to register at, the axle configuration, and whether any lane leaves the state. We will show you which side of Montana’s structure you are on before anything is filed.
The Montana Department of Transportation publishes a schedule headed “MCS 100% Fees”, marked “Revised 05/2026” in its own header, laid out as a grid. Weight bands run down the left. Across the top are twelve columns — one month, two months, three months marked as a quarter year, and so on up to one year.
For every band up to 24,000 pounds, the twelve columns carry the same figure. A vehicle in the 16,001 to 18,000 pound band is $28.00 in the one-month column and $28.00 in the one-year column. The 18,001 to 20,000 band is $37.50 in all twelve. The 20,001 to 22,000 band is $47.00 in all twelve. The 22,001 to 24,000 band is $70.00 in all twelve. Below that, a truck up to 16,000 pounds is $21.00 across the row, and the manufacturer-rated bands — half ton at $7.00, three-quarter ton at $12.50, one ton at $17.50 — behave the same way.
At 24,001 pounds the structure changes. The 24,001 to 26,000 pound band reads $7.50 for one month, $15.00 for two, $22.50 for a quarter year, and on up to $90.00 for a full year. Every band above it does the same thing: the one-month figure is a twelfth of the annual figure, and the intermediate columns fill in proportionally. The 44,001 to 46,000 pound band runs $25.00 monthly to $300.00 annually. The 70,001 to 72,000 band runs $47.21 to $566.50.
The practical consequence for a startup is the opposite of what the numbers first suggest. A heavier truck registered in October pays roughly a quarter of its annual weight fee for the remaining quarter. A lighter truck registered in October pays the entire annual figure for the same three months. The lighter unit is cheaper in absolute terms and is charged less proportionately favourably, and mid-year timing therefore matters more the lighter the vehicle is.
Two figures make the point in a single comparison. A 22,001 to 24,000 pound truck registered for one month is charged $70.00 — its full annual rate. A 24,001 to 26,000 pound truck registered for the same one month is charged $7.50. Two thousand pounds of declared weight, in that direction, and the one-month cost falls by more than a factor of nine.
This is a feature of the schedule as published rather than a proration rule stated in the statute. MCA 61-10-201 sets the annual amounts and contains no proration provision of its own. The month-by-month grid is the Department’s administration of those amounts, and it is cited here as the Department’s schedule, which is what it is.
The statutory basis is MCA 61-10-201, headed “Weight fees on motortrucks, truck tractors, and buses”, in Part 2 of chapter 10, titled “Gross Vehicle Weight Licensing Requirements”. Read at the source on September 3, 2026 in the Montana Code Annotated 2025.
The operative sentence establishes both the charge and the mechanism by which the amount is fixed: “In addition to other fees for the licensing of vehicles, there must be paid and collected annually for each truck, truck tractor, and bus, based upon the manufacturer’s rated capacity for trucks with a capacity of 1 ton or less and upon the maximum gross loaded weight and the maximum gross weight of any towed unit of each truck and truck tractor as set by the licensee in the licensee’s application, the following fees”.
The clause that matters to a new venture is “as set by the licensee in the licensee’s application”. Montana does not weigh the truck to decide the band. The operator states a maximum gross loaded weight, and the towed weight with it, and that declaration selects the row on the schedule. It is a decision, not a measurement.
That makes the choice a genuine planning question rather than an administrative formality, and it cuts both ways. Declaring low reduces the fee and constrains what the unit can legally carry. Declaring high buys headroom for freight that has not been booked yet and pays for it annually. The schedule’s structural break sits inside the range where that decision is usually made, which is why it is worth knowing about before the application rather than after.
The upper end of the statute shows how the ladder finishes. Vehicles over 80,000 pounds “and within the weight limits specified in 61-10-101 through 61-10-104 and 61-10-106 through 61-10-110” pay $750.00, “plus an additional $46.00 for each ton or fraction of a ton in excess of 80,000 lbs. plus an additional $100.00 to exceed the 80,000 lbs. federal gross weight limit.” Note the words “or fraction of a ton” — a partial ton is charged as a full one.
The statute’s amendment history closes at “amd. Sec. 2, Ch. 327, L. 2001”, and the section carries no repeal marker. The annual figures in the statute match the one-year column of the Department’s schedule where the two were compared, which is what a reader should expect and is worth having checked rather than assumed.
The Department publishes two weight fee schedules side by side, and a new venture hauling agricultural product should know that before it registers against the wrong one. The first is the “MCS 100% Fees” schedule described above. The second is headed “MCS 35% Fees”, also marked “Revised 05/2026”, and it is laid out in exactly the same twelve-column grid.
The rates are what the heading implies. A vehicle up to 16,000 pounds is $7.35 on the 35% schedule against $21.00 on the full one. The 16,001 to 18,000 band is $9.80 against $28.00. The 18,001 to 20,000 band is $13.13 against $37.50. The 20,001 to 22,000 band is $16.45 against $47.00. The 22,001 to 24,000 band is $24.50 against $70.00.
The structural break sits in precisely the same place, which is the strongest available evidence that it is deliberate rather than an artefact of one document. On the 35% schedule too, every band up to 24,000 pounds carries an identical figure across all twelve month columns, and from 24,001 pounds the row begins to prorate. Two independently published schedules, the same discontinuity at the same weight.
The 35% schedule adds a feature the full one does not have: a floor. In the 24,001 to 26,000 pound band the one-month and two-month columns both read $6.00, and the same $6.00 appears in the one-month column of every band above it for some distance. Below a certain point the proration stops mattering and a minimum charge takes over.
The obvious question is who may use the reduced schedule, and this page does not answer it. The Department presents it as the farm rate alongside the full rate, and the eligibility conditions were not read at primary source this run. That is recorded below rather than inferred from the schedule’s title, because an eligibility rule inferred from a document heading is exactly the sort of claim that reads confidently and turns out to be wrong.
What the comparison does establish is that Montana’s weight fee is not a single ladder but a pair of them, that the two differ by roughly two thirds, and that both change shape at 24,000 pounds. For an operation moving agricultural freight in a state where a great deal of freight is agricultural, that is worth a question to the Department before the application rather than after.
Deciding what weight to declare on a Montana registration? That declaration is not paperwork — MCA 61-10-201 fixes the fee on the weight “as set by the licensee in the licensee’s application”, and the schedule changes shape at 24,000 pounds.
Tell us the configuration, the weight you are minded to declare, and whether the work stays inside Montana. We will show you what that choice costs and what it constrains.
Montana’s motor carrier classification chapter is worth a new venture’s attention not for the negative it produces but for the positive one sitting inside it, which is easy to lose in a summary.
MCA 69-12-301, headed “Classification of motor carriers”, provides: “(1) Motor carriers are divided into three classes to be known as: (a) Class A motor carriers; (b) Class D motor carriers; and (c) Class E motor carriers.” Class D covers carriers “transporting garbage” and Class E covers “all transportation network carriers”. Neither reaches general freight.
Class A is where the attention belongs. It “include[s] all motor carriers operating between fixed termini or over a regular route and under regular rates or charges, based upon either station-to-station rates or upon a mileage rate or scale.” Four elements appear in that sentence: fixed termini or a regular route, and regular rates or charges, computed station-to-station or on a mileage scale.
An irregular-route carrier taking spot freight wherever it is tendered does not answer that description. A carrier that has signed a dedicated lane — the same origin and destination, run repeatedly, at an agreed rate — may well answer it, and that is a common first contract for a new operation because it is the kind of work a shipper will give an unseasoned carrier.
So the shape of the business decides the answer, and it can change without the equipment changing. This page therefore does not tell a Montana startup that the state asks nothing of a for-hire freight carrier. It says that the classification chapter is drawn around route regularity and rate regularity, that a carrier whose work has both characteristics is described by Class A, and that an operator moving from spot freight onto a dedicated lane has changed the question rather than merely the customer.
The section’s history line runs from 1931 through “amd. Sec. 4, Ch. 422, L. 2023”, and carries no repeal marker. As with every section on the state’s site, the text is subject to the Code’s own disclaimer that “In case of inconsistencies resulting from omissions or other errors, the printed version will prevail.”
Montana appears on the UCR Plan’s participating-states list, read at the source on September 3, 2026 — one of forty-one. For a Montana-based interstate carrier that settles the question directly, and the Plan’s wording is mandatory rather than permissive.
The FAQ’s base-state hierarchy provides that where a registrant’s principal place of business is in one of the participating states — the list runs through the states alphabetically and Montana is on it — “you must use that state as your base state.” No election, and no comparison shopping to do.
What is less widely known is Montana’s second role. Five states do not participate in the Plan at all, and their carriers have to base somewhere. The FAQ provides that where a principal place of business is in “AZ, HI, NV, OR, or WY, or the Canadian Province of AB, BC, MB, NT, NU, SK or YT or a state of Mexico”, the registrant “may select one of the following states: AK, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NM, SD, UT, or WA.”
Montana is on that list of ten. Carriers headquartered in Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming, along with operators based across most of western Canada and in Mexico, may choose Montana as the state through which they register and pay. That is a meaningful administrative role for a state of Montana’s size and it is invisible from Montana’s own materials.
It should not be read as a competitive advantage or disadvantage in either direction, because the Plan forecloses that reading itself: base state has no bearing on cost, and the fee level “for a fleet of a given size will stay the same.” The ten states named are ten routes to the same number.
The boundary is the usual one and it is worth restating because Montana has no state freight authority to confuse it with. UCR reaches interstate and international operation. A Montana carrier whose trucks never cross a state line is outside the Agreement entirely — and still pays the weight fee at MCA 61-10-201, which does not care where the freight goes.
One gap is recorded rather than glossed. No page read this run names the Montana agency that administers the program on the Plan’s behalf. The state’s Motor Carrier Services materials route new-entrant registration questions to the federal system rather than naming a Montana office for UCR.
Montana requires an annual report and publishes an unusual concession on it, which was read this run on the Secretary of State’s own help site — a host that answers normally while the office’s main domain does not.
The article states the requirement plainly: “Annual reports are required for all limited liability companies (LLCs) and corporations (profit and nonprofit).” It describes the purpose in terms that matter for a carrier keeping credentials current: the report “ensures your registration remains up to date and confirms that you are an active business in Montana. It is a renewal of your registration information, where you can update the business mailing address, registered agent, shares (if applicable), and principals of record.”
It then draws a distinction that saves a first-year operator from an unnecessary worry: “It is not a tax or earnings report.” No revenue figures, no financial disclosure — an information filing about the entity itself.
The concession is the sentence that follows, quoted verbatim: “The Secretary of State’s Office will waive the fee for all annual reports filed between January 1st and April 15th.” A fifteen-week window at the start of the calendar year in which the filing costs nothing.
The office also publishes a shortcut for the common case. Where business information has not changed, the article directs the filer to search for the business on the online portal and file a “no change” annual report — a route that does not require a login account, unlike the version that updates information, which does.
Two limits belong on this. The article was “Updated on: 28/07/2026”, which is the as-of date for the concession above. And the amount that is being waived — the fee payable outside the January to April 15 window — is not stated anywhere on the help site and could not be reached. It is left unverified below rather than approximated.
The Montana LLC formation fee is not on this page, and the reason is worth stating because the alternative — reproducing a number from a commercial formation site — is how wrong figures propagate.
The Secretary of State’s main domain was probed on September 3, 2026 with an ordinary desktop browser User-Agent. The root returned HTTP 403 at 8,085 bytes with no title. The business fees path returned HTTP 403 at exactly the same size. The office’s online filing subdomain returned HTTP 403 at 5,724 bytes. Three requests, three refusals, including one to the root, which distinguishes a host-level block from a broken path.
The help subdomain used for the annual-report material above answers normally, which is what makes the block identifiable as a block rather than an outage. A wrong path on that subdomain returns a branded not-found page rather than a refusal, so the two behaviors are clearly distinguishable and were distinguished before this was written down.
So the position is that Montana charges something to file articles of organization, that the amount is published by an office whose fee schedule could not be retrieved, and that this page declines to state it. The registered agent requirement and the processing times are unverified for the same reason.
Several other parts of the Montana picture were likewise not established at primary source this run and are listed below rather than written around. Chief among them is the intrastate insurance layer — which instrument Montana wants for a property carrier, at what amount, and filed by whom. That is a substantial gap for a new venture and it is more useful named than papered over.
What is established, and is the reason this page leads where it does, is the part that a startup pays first: the weight fee, its structure, and the declaration that selects it. Those were read in the statute and on the Department’s current schedule, and they are the figures a first Montana budget is actually built from.
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 Montana 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 Montana 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.
Because the Department’s schedule is flat below 24,000 pounds. Read across the “MCS 100% Fees” grid, revised 05/2026, every band up to 24,000 lb carries the same figure in all twelve month columns — $70.00 in the 22,001 to 24,000 band whether the registration is for one month or twelve. From 24,001 lb the schedule prorates.
For a partial year, in that narrow sense, yes. A one-month registration is $70.00 in the 22,001 to 24,000 pound band and $7.50 in the 24,001 to 26,000 band. Over a full year the heavier band is more expensive — $90.00 against $70.00 — so the effect is about timing rather than about the annual cost.
You do. MCA 61-10-201 sets the fee on the maximum gross loaded weight and towed weight “as set by the licensee in the licensee’s application”. Montana does not weigh the vehicle to place it. Declaring low reduces the fee and limits what the unit may legally carry; declaring high buys capacity you pay for annually.
MCA 61-10-201 sets $750.00 for a vehicle over 80,000 lb within the statutory weight limits, “plus an additional $46.00 for each ton or fraction of a ton in excess of 80,000 lbs. plus an additional $100.00 to exceed the 80,000 lbs. federal gross weight limit.” A part ton is charged as a whole one.
Yes. The Department publishes an “MCS 100% Fees” schedule and an “MCS 35% Fees” schedule, both revised 05/2026 and both in the same twelve-column format. The reduced schedule charges $7.35 up to 16,000 pounds against $21.00 on the full one, and $24.50 in the 22,001 to 24,000 band against $70.00. Which operations qualify for the reduced schedule was not established at primary source here.
No — it appears in both. Each schedule is flat across all twelve month columns for every band up to 24,000 pounds, and each begins to prorate from 24,001 pounds. Two separately published documents showing the same discontinuity at the same weight is the best available indication that it is deliberate.
MCA 69-12-301 divides motor carriers into three classes: Class A, Class D for garbage transportation, and Class E for transportation network carriers. Class A reaches carriers “operating between fixed termini or over a regular route and under regular rates or charges”. An irregular-route carrier taking spot freight does not answer that description — but a carrier running a dedicated lane at an agreed rate has both of the characteristics the definition names, so the answer follows the shape of the work.
Montana. It is one of the forty-one participating states, and the Plan’s FAQ makes the base state mandatory rather than optional for a registrant whose principal place of business is in a participating state. Montana is separately one of ten states selectable by carriers based in Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Wyoming, western Canada or Mexico.
No. The Plan states that base state does not matter to cost and that the fee level “for a fleet of a given size will stay the same.” Where a choice exists, it is one of convenience.
No. UCR reaches interstate and international operation. An intrastate-only Montana carrier is outside the Agreement — and still owes the weight fee under MCA 61-10-201, which does not depend on where the freight goes.
Yes. The Secretary of State states that annual reports “are required for all limited liability companies (LLCs) and corporations (profit and nonprofit)”, and that the filing is an update of registration information rather than a financial one — “It is not a tax or earnings report.”
Yes, by timing. The office states that it “will waive the fee for all annual reports filed between January 1st and April 15th.” The amount payable outside that window is not published on the help site and is not stated here.
This page does not say, because the fee schedule could not be retrieved. The Secretary of State’s main domain returned HTTP 403 to an ordinary browser request at both its root and its business fees path on September 3, 2026, and its filing subdomain did the same. Rather than reproduce a figure from a secondary site, the gap is recorded.
Not established at primary source this run. The instrument, the amount and the filer are all unverified here, and are listed as such rather than approximated. What was established is the weight fee structure, which is the charge a Montana startup meets first.
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.
