WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have approved a 25% increase in fees collected by states from motor carriers, brokers and leasing companies that are used to pay for state highway safety programs.
The fee increase in the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) Plan for the 2025 registration year, announced on Friday by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, amounts to approximately $9 to $9,000 more per year that carriers will pay, depending on the size of their fleet (see table). The fee per entity for a broker or leasing company is $46.
“The agency notes the rare occurrence of this upward adjustment, which has only previously occurred once, over a decade ago,” FMCSA stated in a final rule approving the increase.
“This upward adjustment … follows two years of reductions in fees affecting the 2023 and 2024 registration years, averaging a 37.3 percent decrease in fees, as well as steady, unmodified collections from 2010 to 2017. The agency believes this recalibration of fees is reasonable and in accordance with the structure of, and obligations created by, the statute.”
| Power units | 2024 fee | 2025 fee | $ change | % change |
| 0-2 | $37 | $46 | $9 | +24.3 |
| 3-5 | $111 | $138 | $27 | +24.3 |
| 6-20 | $221 | $276 | $55 | +24.9 |
| 21-100 | $769 | $963 | $194 | +25.2 |
| 101-1,000 | $3,670 | $4,592 | $922 | +25.1 |
| 1,001+ | $35,836 | $44,836 | $9,000 | +25.1 |
The UCR, and the 41 states that participate in the agreement, establish and collect fees that can be used at the discretion of the individual states, but are typically used for truck safety programs, enforcement, and administering the UCR.
After FMCSA proposed the fee increase in January – based on a recommendation from UCR Plan administrators – it received 66 comments, many of whom considered the fees to be unwarranted and believed the UCR Plan should be adjusting its own budget and spending instead.
“To FMCSA’s knowledge, the UCR Plan has operated within its approved budget and in recent years has steadily decreased registration fees,” the agency responded.
“In fact, this is the first upward adjustment since 2010. The UCR Plan’s approved allocation for the costs of administration of the Plan and Agreement over the last several years decreased from $5 million per year and is now at $4.25 million. For these reasons, FMCSA declines to modify the final rule in response to the commenters’ suggested changes.”
The total state funding entitlement under the UCR program has been set at approximately $108 million for 2025. The program collects this amount in the form of UCR fees from transportation businesses and then distributes the respective entitlement to each participating state. Those entitlements range from $7.5 million for Michigan to $372,007 for North Carolina, according to UCR Plan documents.
Related articles:
- FMCSA plans to cut carrier highway safety fees by 27%
- FMCSA approves registration fee reduction for 2020-21
- FMCSA calls out sham towing fees charged to truckers
Click for more FreightWaves articles by John Gallagher.
M
When will drivers be able to see some progress as far as amount of load to the owners/ drivers. And the dispatchers stay honest about their cut of the load amount.
Dave D.
This is just another nail in the coffin of the trucking industry. It started with deregulation, and continued with non-asset based Brokers, along with conversion to a per mile freight from 100 per pound rate system, to open authority system, instead of regional operations authority.
After 54 years in the trucking industry I have seen it collapse to the condition it is today!
Lee Burgess
Will the rates for Independent drivers go back up I believe the rates should go up since fuel prices have gone up these Brokers don’t understand drivers out here are serving their Country as well as the Millitary to keep America going and we need to be paid as such the brokers are robing truck drivers out here working long days and nights for cheap rates please go back up on our rates…Thank you Lee Burgess an American Truck Driver 🚚
Jon
Ob look more BS taxes from a government BS entity.
Glitchen Thematrix
Bureaucratic agencies like these are out of control and need to be abolished, companies and drivers always get the short end of the stick.
Too many taxes already, we went to fight over a 3% tax on tea, now look at us. We have no control over a government that’s supposed to be working in our favor, instead it’s working only to support itself and keep their pocket seams almost at the point of busting.
Donato Ruiz Felix
When those of us who drive the trucks will see an increase for us TRUCK DRIVER, apparently everyone benefits in this industry except those of us who make the deliveries possible, today is Saturday and tomorrow is Father’s Day and in this truck stop we are approximately 120 truck drivers. How long will this abuse last with the money that belongs to us, but the brokers and leasing companies are keeping almost everything.
Ttcool
Just what the trucking industry does not need right now. So many companies are failing and the federal government always has its hands out.
Ron Swift
Does the FMCSA consider the fact that freight rates are declining for carriers when they opt to increase fees?