Michigan Oversize Permit Cost: Worked Examples

Michigan prices an oversize permit with two numbers, and both are written into statute. There is no distance band to look up and no per-mile multiplier to argue about, so the arithmetic is checkable in a way a fee grid never is. The hard part sits somewhere else. Michigan regulates axle loadings rather than gross weight, cuts those loadings hard for three months a year, and issues permits for state trunklines only. Every published Michigan figure renders with its source on the Michigan oversize and overweight permits page; this guide walks three moves through the parts that decide whether you qualify at all. To see which states call your load oversize in the first place, run it through the oversize permit cost estimator.

The two prices, and what picks between them

MCL 257.725 sets both. A vehicle or combination that exceeds the maximum size but stays inside the maximum weight or load pays

$15.00Oversize/Overweight Permits frequently asked questions (Michigan Department of Transportation)Verified Jul 29, 2026

for a single trip under subsection (5). A movement that exceeds the legal weight pays

$50.00Oversize/Overweight Permits frequently asked questions (Michigan Department of Transportation)Verified Jul 29, 2026

under subsection (4), whether it is also over-dimension or not. MDOT restates the same split in section K of its T-2 bulletin.

Neither line moves with distance or with how far over you run. A load six inches over width and a load four feet over width read the same cell. The whole Michigan pricing question reduces to one thing: are you over weight, or only over size? Michigan answers that per axle.

A single trip permit covers one trip and can be issued for a five-day window on request, with a return move on the same permit for an identical configuration or an empty trailer over the reversed route. Applications go through MiTRIP in the MDOT Permit Gateway, are paid in the gateway shopping cart before they transmit, and electronically submitted single-trip permits are usually issued within twelve business hours.

Michigan counts axles, not gross weight

Legal size is straightforward. A vehicle loaded or unloaded stops at 13 feet 6 inches high under MCL 257.719(1). Width is 96 inches on non-designated highways and 102 inches on designated highways, with a 108-inch allowance for the load only on concrete pipe, ferrous pipe, agricultural products, and unprocessed logs, pulpwood, or wood bolts (MCL 257.717).

Weight is where Michigan leaves the rest of the country. The 80,000-pound loading maximum, the 20,000-pound single axle, the 34,000-pound tandem, and the federal bridge formula apply on interstate highways and on highways the department or a local authority designates for that operation (MCL 257.722(12)). Off those routes Michigan controls what sits on each axle instead of what the truck weighs, across a combination that MCL 257.719(4)(b) caps at eleven axles. For a vehicle over 80,000 pounds gross, MDOT's T-1 publishes the schedule: 18,000 pounds on a single axle spaced nine feet or more, 13,000 pounds on an axle spaced at least three and a half feet but less than nine, 9,000 pounds where the spacing falls under three and a half feet, and no wheel carrying more than 700 pounds per inch of tire width.

The ceiling is the part out-of-state carriers get wrong. MDOT puts the heaviest Michigan-weight-law truck at 164,000 pounds gross, reached only with eleven properly spaced axles most carrying 13,000 pounds each. So a rig that would be flagrantly overweight in a neighboring state can be legal here, and the question your permit turns on is never what the truck weighs but what sits on each axle at what spacing. Get that reading wrong and you have bought the wrong permit. The axle-loading table, spacing by spacing, renders with its source on the Michigan oversize and overweight permits page.

Worked example 1: a 10-foot excavator in July

Put an excavator on a lowboy at 10 feet wide, under 13 feet 6 inches high, inside the legal length for the combination, and loaded so every axle clears its T-1 line. That is over-dimension and legal in weight, which is the

$15.00Oversize/Overweight Permits frequently asked questions (Michigan Department of Transportation)Verified Jul 29, 2026

permit, flat, whatever the route length.

What the fee does not buy is the schedule. Permits are issued for daylight hours only, Monday through Friday, with daylight running from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset. Weekend travel is a separate request, and it has its own dimension test: a load no wider than 10 feet, no higher than 14 feet, and no longer than 90 feet may move all day Saturday and until 3 p.m. Sunday when the applicant checks the Select Weekend Travel box on the MiTRIP single-trip application. This excavator fits that box. One inch wider and it does not.

Then there are the peak-hour curfews. MDOT special provision 15, when it is printed on the permit, voids the permit from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in eleven counties: Genesee, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Macomb, Muskegon, Oakland, Saginaw, Washtenaw, and Wayne. A run between Detroit and Grand Rapids starts in Wayne County and ends in Kent County, both on that list, so the morning and afternoon windows are shut at both ends of the trip.

Wind closes the day too. Special provision 18 voids the permit once wind velocity passes 25 mph, and the Mackinac Bridge Authority applies the same threshold to its own crossing.

Worked example 2: the same excavator in April

Move that machine in March, April, or May and the arithmetic changes before the fee ever comes up. MCL 257.722(8) cuts the normal maximum axle weights by 25 percent on rigid pavement, meaning concrete or a concrete base, and by 35 percent on flexible pavement. T-1 converts the whole column for you: 18,000 pounds becomes 13,500 on rigid and 11,700 on flexible, 13,000 becomes 9,750 and 8,450, a 16,000-pound tandem axle becomes 12,000 and 10,400, and 9,000 becomes 6,750 and 5,850. The wheel load falls from 700 pounds per inch of tire width to 525 on rigid and 450 on flexible, and the posted speed limit under seasonal load limitations is 35 mph.

Here is what that does to the permit. An excavator that was legal in weight in July can sit over the line in April with nobody touching the load. And Michigan does not sell you out of it. While the restriction is in force MDOT issues no overweight permits on its own routes except in a public emergency, issues nothing over 14 feet wide, and allows no more than eleven axles. The overweight permit is off the table, not merely more expensive.

So the April version of this move is a scheduling problem rather than a pricing one. Either the load comes down until every axle clears the reduced figure and you buy the same over-dimension permit, or the move waits. MDOT sets the dates from frost-depth measurements, road conditions, and weather forecasts rather than from the calendar, holds them until roadbeds stabilize, and runs a restriction hotline at 800-787-8960. Local agencies set their own restrictions on their own roads.

A short list of loads keeps moving: agricultural commodities, public utility vehicles on local roads, school buses, and propane deliveries to a residence with the tank filled to not more than 50 percent and travel at not more than 35 mph. Milk haulers can ask MDOT or a county road commission in writing for a route exemption and get an answer within 30 days.

Worked example 3: the second permit that is not on the invoice

A 12-foot-wide building module leaves the plant on a state trunkline, runs most of the trip on M and US routes, then turns onto a county road for the last few miles to the site. The MDOT permit covers the trunkline portion and stops there. MCL 257.725(13) defines the jurisdictional authority as the state transportation department, a county road commission, or a local authority with jurisdiction over the highway being used, and MDOT states directly that it does not permit movement on county roads or city streets. The county road commission issues the second permit, and MDOT points carriers to the County Road Association of Michigan at 517-482-1189 to find the right one.

Quote that move as one permit and you are short both a permit and a lead time. For the module itself, T-3 does publish escort thresholds by dimension: one rear escort over 12 feet wide up to 14 feet, front and rear with radio contact between the escorts and the towing vehicle past 14 feet, front and rear with a fixed measuring device on the front escort once the load is over 12 feet wide and over 14 feet 6 inches high, and front and rear over 100 feet overall with a 105-foot ceiling.

For anything that is not a mobile home or a building module, Michigan publishes no dimension-to-escort table at all. The escort requirement arrives as a numbered special provision printed on your individual permit, and signing the permit accepts the conditions on it. MDOT also states that the state does not regulate or certify escort services, so its published list of escort companies is a convenience rather than an endorsement. Pricing escorts off a published width grid before you quote the job, the way you would in Illinois or Pennsylvania, does not work here.

Where the single-trip permit stops

MDOT will not issue a single-trip permit for a load over 16 feet wide, over 15 feet high, or over 150 feet in overall combination length. Past any one of those the move is a superload, and Michigan's first answer is no: T-2 asks the shipper to exhaust rail, water, or a route around the state, or to dismantle the object down to standard permit limits, before MDOT will consider limited movement. The request needs a written explanation on company letterhead, a completed MiTRIP application, and a Route Survey Certification (Form 2465), delivered to the Lansing Transport Permit Office at least ten working days before the tentative move date.

There is no superload surcharge. The statutory single-trip fees are the only permit fees MDOT publishes for these movements, which is worth knowing before someone quotes you a Michigan superload fee that does not exist.

The annual permit most carriers cannot buy

Michigan calls its annual permit an extended permit, and section J of T-2 closes it to for-hire carriers. It covers loads and vehicles the applicant owns or holds under a bona fide lease or rental agreement, described by make, model, and serial or VIN number, in categories including construction equipment, agricultural, pipe and pole, and modular or mobile home. Annual renewal for each truck, trailer, or piece of equipment that is over-dimension and legal in weight is $30.00MDOT T-2 (10/2023), Information on the Movement of Oversize or Overweight Vehicles and Loads (Michigan Department of Transportation)Verified Jul 29, 2026. The overweight renewal and the construction-equipment power-unit renewal are higher, and both render with their source on the Michigan oversize and overweight permits page.

A new extended permit is prorated rather than charged flat, because extended permits expire alphabetically by company name across the year, so a first-year fee depends on the month the existing permit expires crossed with the first letter of the company name. Farm-to-farm-only permits pay a tenth of the prorated overweight figure. Extended permits take 15 to 21 business days to issue, can be filed up to 60 days before expiration, and MDOT asks for renewals at least 30 days out.

The construction-equipment version carries its own statutory shape. MCL 257.725(11) and (12) require MDOT to offer an annual permit covering a power unit without a separate permit for each piece of equipment it carries, storable on a mobile device, with no daily operating-hour restriction and only Memorial Day weekend, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day weekend blocked.

What actually moves a Michigan number

Four things, in this order. Whether the load is over weight or only over size, because that is the entire fee decision and Michigan measures it per axle rather than per truck. Whether the move falls in March, April, or May, which can turn a legal-weight load into an overweight one and then refuse the overweight permit outright. Whether the route leaves the state trunkline network, which adds a permit MDOT cannot sell you. And whether you are a for-hire carrier, which takes the annual permit off the menu and leaves you buying one trip at a time.

Compare how other states price the same load on the oversize permit costs by state table, and see the rest of the Michigan credential stack at Michigan trucking permits.

FAQ

What does a Michigan oversize permit cost?

Michigan writes two single-trip amounts into statute instead of pricing by distance or by how far over the load runs. MCL 257.725(5) covers a vehicle that exceeds the maximum size but stays inside the maximum weight, and MCL 257.725(4) covers a movement over the legal weight. Both amounts render with their source on the Michigan oversize and overweight permits page.

Can I buy an overweight permit during Michigan spring weight restrictions?

No, other than in a public emergency. While the restriction runs, MDOT issues no overweight permits on its own routes, issues nothing wider than 14 feet, and allows no more than eleven axles. Axle loads drop 25 percent on concrete and concrete-base pavement and 35 percent on everything else, and the speed limit is 35 mph.

Does an MDOT permit cover county roads and city streets?

No. MDOT permits oversize and overweight movement on state trunklines only, the I, M, and US routes. MCL 257.725(13) makes a county road commission or a local authority the jurisdictional authority for its own roads, so a move that leaves the trunkline network needs a second permit from that agency.

Can a for-hire carrier get a Michigan annual permit?

No. Michigan calls its annual permit an extended permit, and MDOT's T-2 closes it to for-hire carriers. It covers loads and vehicles the applicant owns or holds under a bona fide lease, described by make, model, and serial or VIN number, so a for-hire fleet buys single-trip permits one move at a time.