UCR fees rise about 20% for 2027; registration opens October 1

The short version.

• FMCSA's final rule raises 2027 Unified Carrier Registration fees about 20%, which is $29 to $200 more a year at small-fleet sizes. Registration opens October 1 at the new rates, and participating states begin enforcement January 1.

FMCSA made it official on September 1: fees for the 2027 Unified Carrier Registration year are going up (91 FR 56063). If you cross state lines, this is your bill. The rule is final and takes effect October 1, 2026, the same day 2027 registration opens.

You pay one flat fee for the whole fleet, and the amount depends on how many trucks you run. These are the rule's numbers at small-fleet sizes:

The full range runs from +$9 at the smallest bracket (0–2 trucks: $46 to $55) up to +$9,329 at the largest (1,001+ trucks: $44,836 to $54,165), about 20% on average. The rule itself notes the new fees are still lower than what carriers paid for the 2019 through 2022 registration years.

Dates: 2027 registration opens October 1, 2026 at the new rates. Under the UCR Plan's schedule, participating states begin enforcement January 1, 2027; registration needs to be done before the new year (plan.ucr.gov fee brackets).

Based in a state that doesn't participate? Ten jurisdictions sit outside the UCR Agreement: Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C. An interstate fleet based in one of them still owes UCR and registers through a participating state. The fee and the deadline are the same.

The bottom line: The increase is real but modest: $29 to $200 a year at small-fleet sizes. Nobody re-plans a fleet around that, so the only judgment is when to file. Registration opens October 1 and participating states begin enforcement January 1, which makes October and November the no-stakes months; December still works, with no slack left if a filing kicks back. We'd file it with the Q4 tax paperwork.

Also this week

The announced 2026 CVSA inspection campaigns are done: Brake Safety Week wrapped August 29 (cvsa.org/news).

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