Indiana Oversize Permit Cost: Worked Examples
Five worked Indiana moves through the greater-of test, the per-mile charge, and the second weight ceiling that turns a legal load overweight.
By Evan Reid, Founder of Haul Handbook · Updated Aug 9, 2026
Indiana runs two fee calculations over the same permitted move and bills the larger of the two. That single rule is why an Indiana oversize permit cost cannot be read off a grid the way most states can be read: the same excavator is priced by its width on a short haul and by its miles on a long one, and on the long one the width never reaches the invoice at all. Two agencies share the work. The Department of Revenue's Motor Carrier Services division sells the permit, and the fee schedule that prices it is an Indiana Department of Transportation rule, 105 IAC 10-1.5-3, official heading "Fees". Every published Indiana figure renders with its official source on the Indiana oversize and overweight permits page; this guide walks five moves through the fork so the schedule reads like a quote instead of a table. To check whether your load is oversize anywhere on the route in the first place, run it through the oversize permit cost estimator.
The two calculations, and why only one of them bills
The oversize calculation is a single base fee, picked by whether the vehicle stays inside a published size box. The overweight calculation is its own base fee plus a per-mile charge that steps up through gross weight bands. The Department of Revenue states the tie-break plainly: a permit that is both oversize and overweight is charged whichever of the two calculated fees is greater. Nothing is added. One of the two calculations is discarded on every combined move.
The oversize base is $20.00 for a vehicle that stays inside 148 inches wide, 162 inches high and 95 feet long. Step outside any one of those three and the base becomes $30.00. An oversize and overweight superload carries its own combined base of $40.00.
The overweight base is $20.00 whatever the load weighs, and the miles do the rest of the work. The per-mile charge runs $0.35 up to 108,000 pounds gross, $0.60 from 108,001 to 150,000 pounds, and
$1.00above that. Those bands begin above the legal gross, so a load at legal weight never reaches one, which is the mechanical reason an oversize-only permit is never billed by distance in Indiana.
Administrative fees ride on top of whichever calculation wins. The rule charges
$10.00for a route the department has to review, which its own worked schedule applies from 120,001 pounds upward. It charges $10.00 for each bridge crossed on the route, in addition to the base permit fee. An overweight permit above 108,000 pounds adds $25.00 and a superload above 200,000 pounds adds $25.00.
One caution before you quote any of that. The promulgated rule text and the Department of Revenue's own fee document, last revised July 2026, do not agree on the executive fee: the rule sets it at the amount above, while the fee document and the rule's own worked schedule both print ten dollars instead. The rule text is what the sourced schedule carries. Confirm the executive fee with the permit office before you budget a heavy move.
Permits are ordered through the Indiana Oversize Overweight Permitting System after Form M-203, the transporting company agreement, is on file. The system wants Google Chrome and one browser tab. A single trip permit runs five days, a divisible load permit seven, and a permit that requires a police escort ten.
Worked example 1: twelve feet wide at legal weight
A baler on a step deck running twelve feet wide, thirteen feet six inches high, ninety feet long and grossing seventy-eight thousand pounds is oversize on width alone. Twelve feet is 144 inches, so the vehicle is still inside the 148 inch, 162 inch and 95 foot box. The oversize calculation returns
$20.00and there is no second calculation to compare it against, because the load is inside the legal gross for the road it runs and never reaches a per-mile band. Distance is not an input on this move at all.
What the permit does not price is the day. Form M-204 allows continuous travel seven days a week only up to 110 feet long, 10 feet wide, 13 feet 6 inches high and under 200,000 pounds. At twelve feet wide this load is already past the width line for that allowance, so it moves seven days a week but only between a half hour before sunrise and a half hour after sunset. Escorts start above 12 feet 4 inches wide, so at twelve feet flat it needs none. Add the six holiday closures, when permitted vehicles may not operate from noon on the last weekday before until a half hour before sunrise on the day after, and the calendar, not the fee, is what decides whether the load ships this week.
Worked example 2: heavy, legal size, and where the miles start billing
A press bed grossing 96,000 pounds, inside every published dimension but over the legal gross, is overweight only. The oversize calculation never runs, so the greater-of test has nothing to compare and the overweight number is simply the number. It is $20.00 plus $0.35 for each permitted mile in the first band. Over a hundred and twenty permitted miles that is sixty-two dollars for the permit itself. Over four hundred permitted miles the same truck with the same load pays a hundred and sixty dollars.
Two things move that figure that have nothing to do with the truck. Each bridge crossed on the route adds its own review charge, so a river crossing is a line item. And Indiana holds no jurisdiction over city streets or county roads, so a route that leaves state-maintained roads and rejoins them has to be entered as a split trip, in segments, in the permitting system. The mileage the permit bills is permitted mileage on the roads Indiana controls, not the odometer reading for the trip.
At this weight the route review charge has not started, because the rule's schedule applies it from 120,001 pounds upward, and the executive fee has not started either. A quote built on a heavier load's fee stack overstates this one.
Worked example 3: wide and heavy, where only the larger calculation bills
An excavator thirteen feet wide, fourteen feet high, a hundred feet long, grossing 104,000 pounds, is over on width, over on height and over on weight. In Oklahoma that load pays two base fees, because the permit rules there require a single permit for a combined move and price it as though two permits had issued. In Indiana it pays one, and which one depends on the route.
Run both calculations. Thirteen feet is wider than 148 inches and fourteen feet is higher than 162 inches, so the oversize calculation returns $30.00. The overweight calculation returns $20.00 plus $0.35 a mile, which over a hundred and fifty permitted miles is seventy-two dollars and fifty cents. That is the greater of the two, so that is the permit. The oversize base is discarded, and the three dimensions the load is over on cost nothing.
Price the same load on an Oklahoma assumption and you quote two bases plus a weight charge, which is not the Indiana bill and is not close to it. Price an Oklahoma move on an Indiana assumption and you are short a full base fee. The oversize permit costs by state table is where to check which rule the state you are entering uses.
Where the two calculations cross
The crossover is arithmetic you can do at the curb, and it decides which half of the schedule you are quoting from. In the first weight band, the overweight calculation catches the higher oversize base once the per-mile charge covers the ten dollar gap between the two bases, which happens at about twenty-nine permitted miles.
Under that distance the wide and heavy load pays the oversize base and the miles cost nothing. Over it the miles take over and the width costs nothing. The same excavator on a twenty mile plant to plant move pays the
$30.00base and no mileage at all. A carrier quoting a standing short lane and a carrier quoting a cross-state run are reading two different halves of the same schedule.
Worked example 4: legal at 80,000 pounds, overweight on the last mile
Indiana keeps a second weight ceiling that most of its neighbors do not. IC 9-20-4-1(c), official heading "Maximum weight restrictions; enforcement of limits", preserves the January 4, 1975 limits on any highway not designated a heavy duty highway under IC 9-20-5. Those limits are 73,280 pounds total gross weight, 16,000 pounds for each axle of a tandem assembly, and an 18,000 pound axle limit with the same 800 pounds per inch of tire width wheel limit.
So a load grossing 80,000 pounds, legal on the heavy duty network and legal in most of the country, becomes overweight the moment the route turns onto a highway that is not part of that network. There is no dimensional problem, no escort, nothing visible on the trailer. The permit exists purely because of where the last few miles run, and it is billed as an overweight permit, base plus the per-mile charge over the permitted segment.
Two more layers sit under that. Local authorities may post a lower weight limit still under IC 9-20-1-3 or IC 9-20-7-2, and vehicles on toll road facilities follow the toll road weight rules adopted under IC 8-15-2 instead of either schedule. Read the route class before you read the fee table.
The same logic governs Indianapolis. Form M-204 excludes I-65 and I-70 inside I-465 from every permit, along with any state road or bridge closed for construction, anything posted for gross load limits, and every county road and city street. A permitted load crossing the metro is a split trip by construction, not by preference, and the segments are entered that way in the permitting system. Return routes are allowed inside Indiana but not to or from a border crossing.
Worked example 5: past the superload line, the fork closes
INDOT's permit rule defines the top of the schedule. 105 IAC 10-1.5-2(11) makes a superload a vehicle more than 15 feet high, more than 16 feet wide, or more than 110 feet long. There is no weight prong in the rule at all.
Take a transformer move at seventeen feet wide and 210,000 pounds gross, sixty permitted miles, crossing four reviewed bridges. At this size Indiana stops forking. The schedule names a single combined base for an oversize and overweight superload, $40.00, rather than two competing ones. The rule's own description of a superload review then stacks the rest on top:
$25.00for a vehicle over 200,000 pounds,
$10.00for the review,
$1.00for each permitted mile, and
$10.00for each bridge reviewed. Those five components come to a hundred and seventy-five dollars, before the contested executive fee.
The permit is the cheap part of that day. A load over seventeen feet wide takes at least front and rear Indiana State Police escorts, and the state police may require more where slowdowns are involved. A vehicle over 200,000 pounds gross needs a state police escort unless the route is interstate only, no slowdowns are required, and the vehicle stays under 250,000 pounds. Arranging it is its own process: order the permit, then request a Superload Agreement Number from the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, complete the contract, attach the permit and the slowdowns, and the division sets an escort date within 72 hours. Over sixteen feet wide the travel window collapses to Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. local time.
Indiana's superload definition is also genuinely contested inside Indiana's own publications, which is worth knowing before you assume a classification. The administrative rule has no weight prong. The Department of Revenue's fee document, its Motor Carrier Services FAQ, and the Indiana State Police superload escort page each print a different set of thresholds, all three carrying a weight prong the rule does not have, and no two of them agreeing. The rule is the binding text and is what the sourced data records; the disagreement is recorded alongside it rather than resolved by preference. If your load sits near any of those lines, call the permit office.
What the schedule does not price
Escorts phase in by dimension and never appear on the permit invoice. One civilian escort starts above 12 feet 4 inches wide, front on an undivided highway and rear on a divided one. Above 14 feet 4 inches it is one or two depending on the road. Height above 14 feet 6 inches takes a front escort carrying a height stick, and length above 110 feet takes one escort. A move above fifteen feet high routed off the interstate system also needs a pre-qualified signal contractor with a bucket truck, one per permitted load, and a move above seventeen feet high needs a route survey plus either a signed affidavit that no utility lines interfere or letters from the utility companies confirming the lines will be moved and replaced.
Weather is written into the permit as a hard stop rather than a judgment call. A permitted vehicle may not operate when wind velocity exceeds 25 miles per hour, during hazardous weather, road or traffic conditions, or when visibility is under 500 feet. Speed is capped at 55 miles per hour for a permitted vehicle over 85 feet long, over 10 feet 6 inches wide, or above legal height, and at 45 miles per hour across any bridge structure.
Getting it wrong is priced separately from getting it right. Violating a permit's terms carries a civil penalty of up to a thousand dollars for a first violation and up to fifteen hundred for each one after that under IC 9-20-18-14.5, official heading "Civil penalties". Moving without a required permit runs to five thousand dollars for each Indiana State Police vehicle examination report. The penalty falls on the company whose USDOT number is on the vehicle, and a proposed assessment letter gives sixty days to pay or protest.
When a longer permit beats the trip permit
Indiana's annual oversize permit is $405.00, covering a vehicle up to 95 feet long, 13 feet 6 inches high and 12 feet 4 inches wide. The same envelope for ninety days is $100.00. Against the low oversize base, the ninety day permit pays for itself on the fifth permitted trip in its window and the annual on roughly the twenty-first trip in a year, which makes the break-even a question of lane frequency rather than load size.
What Indiana does not sell is an annual permit covering overweight general freight. The weight products are written for named commodities and named uses instead. A divisible load, also called an overweight commodity permit, covers a tractor-semitrailer between the legal gross and 120,000 pounds under the definition at IC 9-13-2-120.7, runs seven days as a single trip at
$20.00plus a charge for each ESAL mile, and is also sold annually per truck per route where the route meets 2.4 ESAL. Bulk milk has its own permit on the same shape. A sealed ocean container gets an annual product of its own, and a heavy move onto extra heavy duty highways uses the Special Weight permit at
$42.50per calendar day, which first requires an annual company registration listing each vehicle by VIN.
One of those products carries a schedule advantage worth more than its price. Overweight commodity and bulk milk permits are exempt from the travel restrictions and may run through the holiday periods that close the road to every other permitted vehicle.
Reading an Indiana quote
Ask four questions, in this order. Is the vehicle outside 148 inches wide, 162 inches high or 95 feet long, which sets the oversize base? Is it over the legal gross for the class of road it will actually run, remembering the lower ceiling off the heavy duty network? How many permitted miles are on state-maintained roads, which is what the per-mile charge bills? And how many reviewed bridges does the route cross?
Then run the two calculations and take the larger. That last step is the one an out-of-state quote almost always skips, because almost no other state asks for it. See every other credential Indiana expects from a carrier at Indiana trucking permits.
FAQ
How much does an Indiana oversize permit cost?
Indiana runs two calculations. The oversize one is a base fee picked by whether the vehicle stays inside a published size box. The overweight one is its own base fee plus a per-mile charge that steps up through gross weight bands, with administrative fees for route review, each bridge crossed, and the heaviest loads. The current figures render with their sources on the state permits page.
Why does an Indiana load that is both oversize and overweight pay only one fee?
Because Indiana charges whichever of the two calculated fees is greater rather than adding them. That is the opposite of Oklahoma, where the permit rules price a combined move as though two permits had issued. In Indiana the smaller calculation is discarded, so on a short haul the width sets the price and on a long haul the miles do.
What is Indiana's superload threshold?
The binding definition is in INDOT's permit rule at 105 IAC 10-1.5-2(11), which makes a superload a vehicle more than 15 feet high, more than 16 feet wide, or more than 110 feet long, with no weight prong. Three other Indiana publications print different figures, so the data records the disagreement rather than resolving it. Confirm the classification with the permit office before ordering.
Does an Indiana permit cover I-65 and I-70 through Indianapolis?
No. Form M-204 excludes I-65 and I-70 inside I-465 from every permit, along with county roads, city streets, and any road or bridge posted or closed. A route through Indianapolis has to be entered as a split trip, in segments, in the permitting system.
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Sources
Primary statutes and official agency pages this guide relies on. Laws and fees change, so confirm against the current source before you act.
- 105 IAC 10-1.5-3, Fees, in Article 10, Oversize and/or Overweight Vehicular Permits for Highways · Indiana Administrative Rules, Indiana General Assembly, for the Indiana Department of Transportation
- 105 IAC 10-1.5-2, Definitions (superload, filed May 16, 2025) · Indiana Administrative Rules, Indiana General Assembly, for the Indiana Department of Transportation
- IC 9-20-4-1, Maximum weight restrictions; enforcement of limits (2026 edition) · Indiana General Assembly
- IC 9-20-6-2, Transportation of heavy vehicles or loads not conforming to this article; special permit; conditions; limitations (2026 edition) · Indiana General Assembly
- IC 9-20-18-14.5, Civil penalties (2026 edition) · Indiana General Assembly
- Form M-204 (4-22), General Provisions of an Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Permit · Indiana Department of Revenue, Motor Carrier Services
- Form M-204S, Special Provisions for Vehicle Permitting · Indiana Department of Revenue, Motor Carrier Services
- Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Permit Fees (last revised July 2026) · Indiana Department of Revenue, Motor Carrier Services
- Oversize/Overweight (OSOW) · Indiana Department of Revenue, Motor Carrier Services
- Superload Escorts · Indiana State Police, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division
Haul Handbook publishes educational information about trucking registration and compliance requirements. This is not legal, financial, or tax advice. Rules, fees, and deadlines change; confirm with the agency before you file or pay.