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Wisconsin Oversize Permit Cost: Worked Examples

Four worked Wisconsin permit moves: the fee set by which dimension you break, the flat weight ladder, and the review fees nobody quotes.

Cover illustration: Wisconsin Oversize Permit Cost: Worked Examples

By Evan Reid, Founder of Haul Handbook · Updated Aug 5, 2026

Most states set a permit fee by asking how far over legal the load runs. Wisconsin asks which limit it broke. Overlength alone is one price, width or height is another, both together is a third, and length stops mattering entirely the moment width or height lands on the application. Overweight is a separate flat ladder that swallows the oversize charge whole. Every current Wisconsin figure renders with its official source on the Wisconsin oversize and overweight permits page; this guide walks four moves through the fee schedule in Wis. Stat. s. 348.25, as WisDOT restates it on Form MV2600, so it reads like a quote rather than a table. To check whether your load is oversize in the first place, run it through the oversize permit cost estimator.

What sets the price on a Wisconsin single trip permit

  • Overlength only: $15.00, the cheapest line on the schedule.
  • Overwidth or overheight: $20.00, and the load may also exceed length at no extra charge.
  • Overwidth and overheight: $25.00, again with length riding along free.
  • Overweight: a flat ladder that opens at $20.00 and steps up by gross weight, with no distance term anywhere in it.
  • One fee, not two: once an overweight fee applies, no extra charge is made for also being oversize.
  • Route review: $10.00 per district, when a regional highway office has to review the route.
  • Structure review: $10.00 per review, when the gross weight forces a check of specific highway structures.
  • Government units: $0.00, for any permit type, to a state department, county, town, municipality, or branch of the United States Government or Armed Services.

Two things follow from that shape. The base fee is a category, not a scale, so a load six inches over width and a load three feet over width read the same line. And gross weight only matters on the other ladder, which makes a Wisconsin quote mostly a question of which of the two ladders you are standing on.

The mechanics are quick. A single trip permit is valid five days for one routed trip, can be requested up to five days ahead, and carries the return trip at no charge when the return is asked for on the original application. Most permits self-issue through the WisDOT portal; a mailed application carries a minimum ten-day turnaround, which is the expensive way to save nothing.

Put a bridge girder on a stretch trailer at 90 feet overall, inside the legal width of 8 feet 6 inches, inside the 13 foot 6 inch height, and inside the class A weight limits. Only length is over, so the permit is

$15.00

and nothing about the route length changes it.

Escorts follow the same reading. WisDOT's Minimum Standards for Escort Vehicles grid runs width bands across the top and length bands down the side, and at 12 feet wide or less a load up to 140 feet takes no escort at all. This girder sits inside that cell. Push past 140 feet and one private escort attaches, past 160 feet a second one, and past 200 feet law enforcement joins the two.

What does bite is the clock. A permitted vehicle longer than 150 feet may not operate during hours of darkness, and it is also barred from noon Saturday until sunrise Sunday. A girder that grows past that line loses its evenings and its weekends before it costs another dollar.

Worked example 2: a 12 foot 6 inch baler that is also overlength

A hay baler at 12 feet 6 inches wide, legal height, and long enough to break the combination length limit is over on two counts and pays for one. The overwidth line is $20.00, and the schedule says a permit for excess width or height may also exceed length at no extra charge. The length violation is free.

Reverse the load and the arithmetic flips. Legal width with only the length over is $15.00, so adding a width violation to an overlength move costs the difference between those two lines and nothing more. Add height on top of width and the base becomes $25.00, which is the top of the oversize base schedule. There is no fourth rung.

Width is where the operating rules start, though. Past 12 feet the load cannot move during hours of darkness, and in Columbia, Dane, Milwaukee, Rock and Waukesha counties permitted loads are shut out from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday, on Friday afternoons from the fourth Friday in May through Labor Day, and around every restricted-travel holiday.

Worked example 3: 14 feet wide, 15 feet high, and still no escort

A grain dryer shell 14 feet wide and 15 feet high, riding 100 feet overall and inside legal weight, breaks the width line and the height line, so the base fee is $25.00.

Now read the escort grid, because this is the cell carriers misprice. Width over 12 feet up to 15 feet with a load 110 feet long or less needs no escort, and the height rule only adds a pole vehicle once the load passes 16 feet. This move needs neither. Escorts arrive past 15 feet of width, where one private escort attaches, and law enforcement joins past 18 feet.

The cost sits in the calendar instead. Over 12 feet wide and over 13 feet 6 inches high, the load is barred from hours of darkness, barred from noon Saturday until sunrise Sunday, and barred from noon the day before until sunrise the day after every restricted-travel holiday WisDOT publishes. Where no annual list is published, Wis. Adm. Code s. Trans 254.02(2)(c) fixes the days instead. On the Milwaukee County Expressway and the Madison Beltline the load also loses the weekday rush hours.

Worked example 4: a crawler crane that is heavy and wide

Legal gross weight on class A highways is 80,000 pounds under Wis. Stat. s. 348.15(3)(c). Anything past that is a weight permit rather than a size permit, and the two are priced from different ladders.

A crawler crane grossing 118,000 pounds on a lowboy 13 feet wide is over on both counts, and the band it lands in is $55.00. Once an overweight fee applies, no extra charge is made for also being oversize, so the

$20.00

width line never reaches the invoice.

Two charges can still land on top. A route that a regional highway office has to review costs

$10.00

per district, and a gross weight that forces a check of specific highway structures costs

$10.00

per review. Neither is large, and both are easy to leave off a quote that only copied the base schedule.

Insurance is the line that actually moves at this size. Wisconsin sorts permitted moves into two coverage groups, with the break at 12 feet wide, 13 and a half feet high, 100 feet long, or 25 percent over the statutory gross weight limits. This crane is past the group A ceiling on width and on weight, so it carries the higher group B limits for the duration of the move. Both sets of limits render with their source on the Wisconsin oversize and overweight permits page.

Past 150,000 pounds the table becomes a formula

Wisconsin's published bands stop at

$85.00

for a load from 140,001 to 150,000 pounds. Past that the schedule turns into a rule:

$85.00

plus another ten dollars for each 10,000 pounds, or fraction of it, above 150,000 pounds.

So a 190,000 pound move sits four increments past the line, and the add-on is four times ten dollars on top of that base. There is no mileage term, no ton mile term, and no separate class of permit waiting above it.

That last point is the one out-of-state carriers get wrong. Wisconsin publishes no superload permit. The word appears in none of the administrative code chapters that govern these moves, ch. Trans 230, 250, 252 and 254, and WisDOT sells nothing above the standard single trip and multiple trip types. The ceiling is written per axle instead: a single trip permit may be granted up to 20,000 pounds on the steering axle and 35,000 pounds on any other axle, with further weight limits imposed by route, and up to 50 feet of length for a single vehicle or 60 feet for a mobile crane.

Anything past the standard chart is handled through route and structure review rather than a new permit class, at the two review charges above. The issuing officer may also require a bond, a certificate of insurance, or a certified check against damage to pavement, bridges, culverts or other improvements. A load over 350,000 pounds picks up one law enforcement escort, which is the only escort requirement Wisconsin keys to weight at all.

The annual permit, and the cheap rung underneath it

Repeat overweight work goes on a multiple trip permit, which runs three to twelve months, allows unlimited trips, and leaves the routing to the carrier. A twelve-month permit up to 90,000 pounds is $200.00, and the published ladder ends at $1,050.00 for a twelve-month permit up to 170,000 pounds, which is also where the largest nondivisible multiple trip permit tops out on weight.

Divide the twelve-month fee by the single trip fee for the same weight band and you have the number of moves a year that makes the annual permit worth buying. Wisconsin makes that sum unusually easy, because both ladders are flat and neither one counts miles.

Underneath the annual permit sits a rung most fee tables never show. A single trip permit for size or weight the annual permit already authorises is $5.00, and gross weight above what the annual permit covers adds fifteen dollars for each 10,000 pound increment or fraction of one.

Two seasonal rules decide whether the annual permit is usable at all. From roughly early March until late April or early May, most divisible load multiple trip permits are suspended statewide, and overweight nondivisible permits have to stay off the highway sections WisDOT designates class II, about 1,400 miles across 94 segments. Pointing the other way, the winter frozen road declaration lifts weight limits with no permit required, but only for vehicles hauling abrasives or salt for highway winter maintenance and peeled or unpeeled forest products cut crosswise.

The last mile is where Wisconsin gets expensive

A WisDOT permit covers the state trunk system. Permits for local roads are issued by the officer in charge of maintenance for that highway, which means a second application, a second lead time, and a second set of conditions on the shortest part of the route.

The weight limits change there too. Class B highways, which local authorities designate out of county trunk highways, town highways and municipal streets, carry 60 percent of the class A figures under Wis. Stat. s. 348.16(2). A truck that is legal on a state trunk highway can be badly overweight three blocks from the customer. The relief is narrow and worth knowing: a vehicle whose operation is pickup or delivery to a place of business or a residence with an entrance on a class B highway is exempt from the class B gross weight reduction.

Reading the Wisconsin schedule like a quote

Start with the question the schedule actually asks, which is not how big the load is but which limits it breaks. Length only, width or height, both, or over on weight. Take the single base fee that answers it. Add a review charge if a regional office has to look at the route or an engineer has to look at a structure. Then stop, because there is no mileage term and no superload tier to go find. Everything left that costs money is time: the escort grid, the darkness ban, the county curfews, spring thaw, and the second permit for the last mile.

Compare the same load against other states on the oversize permit costs by state table, and see every other credential Wisconsin expects at Wisconsin trucking permits.

FAQ

How does Wisconsin price an oversize permit?

By which limit the load breaks, not by how far over it runs. Overlength alone is the cheapest base fee, width or height costs more, and both together costs more again. Length adds nothing once a width or height fee applies. The current amounts render with their sources on the Wisconsin oversize and overweight permits page.

Does a Wisconsin overweight permit cost extra if the load is also oversize?

No. Overweight is priced from its own flat ladder that climbs with gross weight, and once an overweight fee applies no extra charge is made for also being oversize. A load that is both heavy and wide pays the weight price only.

Does Wisconsin have a superload permit?

No. Wisconsin publishes no superload class, and the word appears in none of the administrative code chapters that govern these moves. The ceiling is written per axle instead, at 20,000 pounds on the steering axle and 35,000 pounds on any other axle, with route-specific limits on top.

How many escorts does a 14-foot-wide load need in Wisconsin?

None, in most cases. WisDOT reads escorts off a two-axis grid, width across the top and length down the side. Width over 12 feet up to 15 feet needs no escort while the load stays 110 feet long or less, and height adds a pole vehicle only once the load passes 16 feet.

Related guides

Wisconsin IFTA Filing Walkthrough (Quarterly)

How a Wisconsin carrier licenses for IFTA on Form MV2667, gets WisCRS access, files quarterly, and beats the December 31 renewal fee.

Wisconsin Intrastate ELD Rules and Hours of Service

Wisconsin set its own intrastate ELD start date of April 1, 2025, and runs a 12 and 16 hour driving clock that no federal ruleset matches.

California Oversize Permit Cost: Worked Examples

Three worked California oversize moves: which Caltrans permit each needs, which fee lines apply, and where escort rules change the total.

Sources

Primary statutes and official agency pages this guide relies on. Laws and fees change, so confirm against the current source before you act.

  1. Wis. Stat. s. 348.25, General provisions relating to permits for vehicles and loads of excessive size and weight · Wisconsin State Legislature
  2. Wis. Stat. s. 348.15, the wheel, axle and gross weight limits on class A highways · Wisconsin State Legislature
  3. Wis. Stat. s. 348.16, the weight limits on locally designated class B highways · Wisconsin State Legislature
  4. Oversize/Overweight Single Trip Permit Information, Form MV2600 (6/2021) · Wisconsin Department of Transportation
  5. Multiple Trip Permit Information for Nondivisible Oversize/Overweight Vehicles/Loads, Form MV2614 (7/2026) · Wisconsin Department of Transportation
  6. Minimum Standards for Escort Vehicles, the WisDOT escort grid · Wisconsin Department of Transportation
  7. Hours of operation for oversize/overwidth permitted vehicles · Wisconsin Department of Transportation
  8. Wis. Adm. Code ch. Trans 254, single trip permits for oversize or overweight vehicles or loads · Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau
  9. Class II roads, the spring thaw permit suspension · Wisconsin Department of Transportation

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.