Carrier registration fees will be reduced by 31% after the program collected more than the maximum amount of revenue allowed, according to a final rule posted last Thursday in the Federal Register.
Fees will be reduced by anywhere from $18 to $17,688 for 2023 and beyond, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said. The registration charges apply to interstate carriers, brokers, freight forwarders and leasing companies.
Fees are required for motor carries engaged in interstate commerce, and the Unified Carrier Registration Board is responsible for recommending the amount. The FMCSA said the board is lowering fees because the program had been collecting more than $107.78 million in previous years, the maximum revenue allowed.
While the public can still object to this final rule, states can begin collecting the fee Oct. 1 for the 2023 calendar year.
Entities with two or less commercial vehicles currently pay $59 in fees annually, while those with 1,001 or more pay $56,977. Those costs would be reduced to $41 and $39,289, respectively, following the rule change
The 31% fee reduction is larger than initial rates that FMCSA released in January, which the administration said would have lowered costs by 27%. That idea drove swift backlash from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which called for using excess funds to further lower fees.
The UCR later updated its plan based on “updated actual collections and estimated fee,” according to the FMCSA. Still, many truckers have pushed back against the fees, with several saying that smaller carriers are disproportionately impacted by the charges.
The Western States Trucking Association wrote in June that the fee should be “weighted more favorably to small-business motor carriers who disproportionately contributed to excess collections.”
