Louisiana IFTA Filing Walkthrough (Quarterly)

Louisiana spreads a carrier's paperwork across four agencies, and IFTA sits with the one that has nothing to do with plates. Apportioned registration belongs to the Office of Motor Vehicles. Oversize and overweight permits belong to the Department of Transportation and Development. The fuel tax license, the decals and the quarterly return belong to the Department of Revenue's Excise Tax Section, and all of that runs through LaTAP, the Department's taxpayer portal. Louisiana also charges to open the account, and it charges again if you ever let the account sit closed too long. The sourced fees and deadlines render on the Louisiana IFTA page; this walkthrough puts them in filing order.

Step 1: work out which fuel tax credential you need

Louisiana became a member of the International Fuel Tax Agreement on January 1, 1994. It is your base jurisdiction when four things are true at once: your qualified motor vehicles are registered here, you have an established place of business here from which motor carrier operations are performed, the operational control and the operational records live here or can be made available here, and the vehicles actually travel on Louisiana highways.

Qualified motor vehicle is a defined term, and it reads on the equipment rather than on the freight. It covers a vehicle used, designed or maintained to transport persons or property with two axles and a gross or registered gross vehicle weight over 26,000 pounds, or with three or more axles regardless of weight, or used in combination when the combination weight crosses the same line. Recreational vehicles used exclusively for personal pleasure and not in connection with any business are excluded.

A carrier that qualifies for IFTA but does not want to participate must buy trip permits to travel through member jurisdictions under each jurisdiction's own rules. In most states that sentence ends the discussion, because the state sells a temporary fuel permit. Louisiana does not sell one. What stands in its place is an interstate motor fuel user license from the same Department of Revenue, and La. R.S. 47:818.39, official heading License application procedure, gives the applicant a choice: be a registered IFTA participant, or post the bond that La. R.S. 47:818.40, Bond requirements; amounts, sets at a minimum of $20,000 or three months of tax liability, whichever is greater. A carrier that only passes through Louisiana occasionally has a third route, buying enough fuel inside the state to cover the miles run there and keeping the current special fuels invoice in the cab. All three are laid out on the Louisiana trip and fuel permits page.

Do not confuse that with the 48-hour trip permit. That one answers a registration question rather than a fuel one, it is bought from a wire service company before you enter the state, and its sourced price sits on the same page.

Step 2: get a Revenue account number, then file Form R-5678-L

Sequence matters here and it catches first-timers. A Louisiana Department of Revenue account number has to be issued before an IFTA application can be submitted or any decal ordered. So the first thing you do is register the business through the Department's business registration application, and only then open the IFTA application in LaTAP and pay the initial license fee electronically.

Paper still works. Request Form R-5678-L, the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) Application, and mail it with the fee to the Louisiana Department of Revenue, Taxpayer Services Division, Excise Section, P.O. Box 201, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0201. Additional decals later in the year go on Form R-5679, the IFTA Decal Request Form, or through LaTAP.

Have the answers ready before you open the form. It asks for legal and trade name and address, the federal ID or Social Security number, type of ownership, the ICC motor carrier number and the IRP account number, corporate details including the state and date of incorporation and the date you were authorized to do business in Louisiana, the names and Social Security numbers of owners, partners or officers, the fuel types you burn, and every jurisdiction you operate in or store bulk fuel in.

Two questions on that form deserve a straight answer. It asks whether you have ever been licensed for IFTA anywhere, under any other name, and whether that license was ever suspended or revoked. If you use a reporting service, attach a properly executed power of attorney; you stay responsible for the tax and for the service's acts and omissions either way.

Your account number is built rather than assigned: the prefix LA followed by your nine-digit federal employer identification number, or a Social Security number where no FEIN exists. Every account also gets a separate Louisiana Department of Revenue account number, and that is the one to have in front of you when you call the Excise Tax Section.

Step 3: what entry costs, and the two ways you end up paying it twice

Entry is a one-time initial license fee plus decals, and decals are priced per decal with two required for each qualified motor vehicle. Renewal drops the license fee to nothing and leaves only the decals. Both sourced amounts render on the Louisiana IFTA page beside the fields they come from.

Two rules decide whether you pay the initial fee more than once, and they cut in opposite directions. The first is generous. If you were previously registered with the Department for IFTA and want to reactivate a closed account, you may do so without remitting the initial license fee again, but only if the account has been closed for less than one year, you have had no corporate structure change, and the previous license was not revoked. A seasonal operation that closes cleanly in March and comes back in December keeps its money. Wait fourteen months, or reorganize the entity in between, and it does not.

The second is not generous. Reinstatement carries a fee of its own. The Department may reinstate a suspended license once the licensee files all required reports and remits all outstanding liabilities due to all member jurisdictions, and it may require a bond large enough to cover the potential liabilities of every member jurisdiction first. Separately, the Department may require a bond from any licensee that has filed late, has not remitted tax, or has come out of an audit with problems it judges severe enough to protect the other member jurisdictions. A carrier there posts the bond, remits the initial license fee again, and satisfies every outstanding liability. Louisiana does not generally ask a first-time applicant for a bond; it asks after something has gone wrong.

Step 4: get the credentials in the cab, and watch the March 1 line

The license and the decals both run the calendar year, January 1 through December 31. The Department issues one license card, and a photocopy of it must be maintained in the cab of every qualified motor vehicle. A truck found running without that copy can draw citations or fines from the Department of Public Safety Weights and Standards Division, which is a different agency from the one that issued the license and does not take your word for it.

Decals go on in a specific place. One decal is placed on the lower rear exterior portion of the passenger side and one on the driver side of the power unit. They do not transfer from one company to another, and when a lease ends, the party responsible for reporting and paying the tax is the party responsible for removing them.

Now the part worth setting a calendar reminder for. Renewal credentials may be displayed one month before their effective date, and if you display them before January 1, the current year license card stays in the vehicle until January 1. On top of that there is a 60-day grace period extending to the last day of February each year to allow for the distribution and affixing of decals. The condition attached to it is the one people miss: only decal orders placed by December 31 are eligible for the grace period. Order your decals on January 8 and the grace period was never yours. Effective March 1, fines are assessed on vehicles operating without the current year credentials, and it is the Weights and Standards Division assessing them.

Step 5: file the quarter in LaTAP

Returns are quarterly, and the due date is the last day of the month immediately following the close of the quarter. January through March is due April 30, April through June is due July 31, July through September is due October 31, and October through December is due January 31. The whole table renders on the Louisiana IFTA page.

Louisiana is explicit about what counts as filing on time, and the rule favors the mail. The postal service cancellation mark stamped on the mailing envelope is accepted as the day of filing or receipt of the tax report. A return filed electronically is considered filed the date it is transmitted to the Department. Either way, the penalty and interest provisions attach the moment the report is not timely.

The report itself carries five things: total miles, taxable and nontaxable, in all jurisdictions, IFTA and non-IFTA; total gallons of taxable and nontaxable fuel placed in your qualified vehicles in all jurisdictions; total and taxable miles in each member jurisdiction; taxable gallons consumed in each member jurisdiction; and tax-paid gallons purchased in each member jurisdiction. A report is required from every licensee even in a quarter with no operations in any member jurisdiction and no taxable fuel purchased at all. The Department mails reports before the due date, and not receiving one changes nothing.

Louisiana's own diesel line on the return is $0.2000IFTA Fuel Tax Rate Matrix, 3rd Quarter 2026 (International Fuel Tax Association, Inc. (IFTA, Inc.))Verified Aug 10, 2026 per gallon this quarter. Every other jurisdiction you ran in has its own line at its own current figure, so read them off the IFTA rates by state table and check your arithmetic in the IFTA calculator before you submit. The national how to file IFTA guide walks the mechanics that are the same in every base jurisdiction.

One relief exists for very low mileage operations. After you have filed four quarterly reports, a licensee whose operations total less than 5,000 miles or 8,000 kilometers a year in every member jurisdiction other than Louisiana may ask in writing for annual filing status. A new licensee is not eligible, and any member jurisdiction's objection ends it.

Step 6: know exactly what a late Louisiana return costs

Louisiana prices lateness in percentages of the tax rather than from a flat floor, and it treats filing late and paying short as two separate penalties that can run in the same 30-day window.

Filing late draws a delinquent penalty of 5 percent of the tax due if the delinquency is 30 days or less, with another 5 percent for each additional 30 days or fraction of 30 days the delinquency continues, up to a ceiling of 25 percent of the original tax due. Filing on time and paying short draws a late payment penalty on the same 5 percent per 30 days pattern, applied to the unremitted tax. That second penalty is imposed for any 30-day period in which a delinquent penalty is also due, and it cannot run for more than five 30-day periods in total for each return. So a return that is both late and short accrues both, and the two ceilings are reached on different clocks.

A negligence penalty of 5 percent of the tax or deficiency, or $10.00, whichever is greater, may be imposed where a licensee fails to file or files an incorrect return in circumstances showing negligence or disregard of the rules but no intent to defraud. If the check bounces, the penalty is 1 percent of the amount of the check or $20.00, whichever is greater.

Interest is separate from all of it. It runs from the due date until the tax is paid, at the rate established in IFTA Articles of Agreement R1230, published under Manuals at iftach.org, and it cannot be waived.

The steepest penalty in the manual is attached to records rather than to the return. Failing to keep the required records may cost the license outright, and the Department may impose a penalty of 100 percent of the tax due on an assessment it calculates from the best information available to it. A carrier with no records does not get to argue about that assessment.

Step 7: keep the records where the auditor is

The retention period is four years from the due date of the return or the date it was filed, whichever is later, and any member jurisdiction can ask to see them.

Distance records are kept per trip and cover the date of the trip, the highway used, the jurisdiction name, the beginning and ending odometer readings, jurisdiction miles, gallons received, the vendor name, and origin and destination. Fuel records are kept separately by fuel type and cover the date of purchase, the seller's name and address, the gallons placed in the vehicle, the fuel type, the price per gallon or liter, the vehicle unit number, and the purchaser's signature. Invoices, credit card receipts and verifiable microfilm or microfiche of an invoice are acceptable; anything with an alteration or an erasure on it is not.

Where no fuel receipt exists for taxable fuel used in a reporting period, the usage is estimated at 4 miles per gallon. That is not a neutral outcome. A lost receipt hands the Department the arithmetic. Bulk fuel gets its own file: the withdrawal date, gallons withdrawn, fuel type, the receiving unit number, and the purchase and inventory records proving the tax was already paid.

Keep all of it in Louisiana. If the records are not kept or made available in the state, the auditor's expenses are billed to the licensee, which turns a filing cabinet decision into a travel budget.

Audits are routine rather than punitive. The Department audits an average of at least 3 percent of its IFTA licensees a year on behalf of every member jurisdiction, and any Louisiana licensee can be picked at random. An auditor calls at least 30 days before the audit to set a date, then follows up in writing with the periods and the record requirements. You have 30 days after the audit report to pay or to protest, and 30 days from a final notice to request a hearing on any member jurisdiction's finding, after which it stands. Another member jurisdiction may re-audit you at its own expense after showing reasonable cause.

Step 8: renew in the window, or close the account properly

Each year the Department issues pre-printed IFTA license renewal applications to every licensee, and the same renewal can be done in LaTAP instead. The renewal license costs nothing; decals are ordered and paid for on the renewal application. Renewal may be denied where the Department determines that the licensee failed to file a report or failed to remit money due to a member jurisdiction, so an unresolved quarter in October becomes a truck without credentials in January.

Closing is a deliberate act, not a lapse. Check the cancellation box on your final quarterly return or write to the Department, once every reporting requirement and every tax liability to every member jurisdiction is satisfied. Send the original license and all unused decals back. Any member jurisdiction may still run a final audit, and the four-year retention clock starts at the due date of that final return rather than the day you stopped driving. The Department notifies the Louisiana State Police and every member jurisdiction when a license is suspended, revoked or released.

Two other Louisiana credentials run on their own clocks and their own agencies while all of this is happening: apportioned plates on the Louisiana IRP registration page and, for the classes the Public Service Commission actually certificates, state operating authority on the Louisiana intrastate authority page.

FAQ

Which agency runs IFTA in Louisiana, and where do you file?

The Department of Revenue's Excise Tax Section, through LaTAP. That is a different agency from the Office of Motor Vehicles, which handles apportioned plates and trip permits, and from the Department of Transportation and Development, which handles oversize and overweight permits. Three credentials, three agencies, three logins.

Does Louisiana charge for an IFTA license?

Yes. Louisiana charges a one-time initial license fee with the application and a per-decal charge, with two decals required for each qualified motor vehicle. The renewal license itself is free, so a renewing carrier pays only for decals. Both sourced amounts render on the Louisiana IFTA page.

How long is the Louisiana IFTA decal grace period?

Sixty days, running to the last day of February each year, for distributing and affixing decals. Only decal orders placed by December 31 are eligible for it. Effective March 1, fines are assessed on vehicles operating without the current year credentials.