State profile · Alabama

Alabama oversize and overweight permits

Every figure here carries the Alabama document behind it.

9 source documents on fileoldest revision 2016-01-18last retrieved 2026-09-0228 escort rules in effectNo source conflicts on fileFree · no account needed

The Alabama answer

Legal limits

Width
8'6" · caveat ↓rev. · read
Height
13'6" · caveat ↓rev. · read
Overall length
The state publishes none
Gross weight
80,000 lb · caveat ↓rev. · read

First escort trigger

Width
over 12'rev. · read · lowest across road classes
Height
over 15'6"rev. · read
Length
over 90'rev. · read
Rear overhang
over 5'rev. · read
Gross weight
over 300,000 lbundated document · read

What the paper costs

Single-trip base
$10 · caveat ↓rev. · read
Transaction / card
$4 · caveat ↓rev. · read
How overweight is priced
Graduated weight bandsrev. · read
Superload above
300,000 lb and up · caveat ↓undated document · read

The short version: a Alabama single-trip permit starts at $10 before bands, overweight and the transaction charge; an escort is first required at over 12' wide; and the load becomes a superload at over 300,000 lb. Everything below carries the Alabama document it came from, that document's own revision date, and the date we read it.

Corridor

1. Where the load goes next

The jurisdictions this one borders, each chip carrying the fact that decides whether that crossing is the expensive one — so the row is itself a small comparison. A multi-state lane is the actual job, and from here it is one click per state rather than a return to an alphabetical index.

Compare Alabama with its neighbours →

Escort ladder

3. The Alabama escort ladder

Not one number per dimension — the whole staircase. Each row is a condition the state actually publishes, what it requires when that condition holds, and the clause it comes from. Where a rule requires escorts and the source states no number, the row says that in the source's own words rather than reporting no requirement.

WhenWhat is requiredSource
rear overhang over 5'
1 certified escort1 behind
"Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one …rev. · read
front overhang of 10' or more
1 certified escort1 in front
"Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one …rev. · read
the road is “divided” or “interstate” or “multilane undivided” and width from 12' (exclusive) to 14'
1 certified escort1 behind
">12’ – 14’ = 1 Front Escort on Two-lane Road…rev. · read
the road is “two lane” and width over 12' and width from 12' (exclusive) to 14'
1 certified escort1 in front
">12’ – 14’ = 1 Front Escort on Two-lane Road…rev. · read
width over 14'
2 certified escorts1 in front1 behind
"Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one …rev. · read
height over 15'6"
1 certified escort1 in frontHeight pole requiredAdvisory: The administrative code calls it a "height indicator" and ALDOT's presentation calls it a "Height Pole". Neither publishes a construction, mounting or calibration specification — no material, no required clearance above the load, no mounting method — so nothing has been assumed about the equipment beyond the requirement to carry it.
"Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one …rev. · read
width over 16' or height over 16' or overall length over 150' or gross weight over 300,000 lb
Escorts required; the source states no number — at least 2. Published as: “A minimum of two (2) State Trooper or Police Escorts are required for all Superloads. Additional Trooper escorts may be required under certain conditions.”Cannot be reduced to a number: ALDOT: "A minimum of two (2) State Trooper or Police Escorts are required for all Superloads. Additional Trooper escorts may be required under certain conditions." The memorandum does not say where those two ride for a width-, height- or weight-triggered superload — only the length trigger over 150 ft has published positions — so no position is asserted. A detailed route survey is required for every superload, performed by the applicant or its agent at the applicant's cost, and a weighted superload additionally needs a Special Work Authorization so ALDOT's Bridge Rating Office can analyse every structure on the route. Neither the survey nor the Special Work Authorization has a published cost, and no separate superload permit surcharge appears on ALDOT's fee sheet. Most superloads must travel between 9:00 PM and 6:00 AM Sunday through Thursday unless the permit office approves otherwise.
superload at width 16 ft, height 16 ft, lengt…undated document · read
overall length from 90' (exclusive) to 125'
1 certified escort1 behind
">12’ – 14’ = 1 Front Escort on Two-lane Road…rev. · read
overall length over 125'
2 certified escorts1 in front1 behind
">12’ – 14’ = 1 Front Escort on Two-lane Road…rev. · read
overall length over 150'
1 police escort in front1 police escort behindCannot be reduced to a number: Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.05: "Front and rear law enforcement escorts are required for lengths in excess of 150 feet." These are troopers, not pilot cars. ALEA charges a $200.00 administrative fee for each escort application, $100.00 per hour per arresting officer with a four-hour minimum, mileage at the current IRS rate calculated from each officer's residence or office and back, $12.00 subsistence for an escort over four hours, $12.75 per diem for 6–12 hours and $34.00 for 12 hours or more. Billable time starts 30 minutes before the scheduled start and ends 30 minutes after completion. Cancelling more than 24 hours out costs $200.00; cancelling inside 24 hours costs $200.00 plus four hours' pay per assigned officer. The hours cannot be known in advance and the IRS mileage rate is not a fixed published figure, so no law-enforcement amount is included in the permit total. Note also that r. 450-3-1-.05 assigns private front and rear escorts over 125 ft and law-enforcement front and rear over 150 ft without saying whether the private pair is still required above 150 ft; both readings are on the table and neither has been adopted.
"Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one …rev. · read

The first trigger in each dimension

MeasurementFirst escort triggerFirst police escort trigger
Widthover 12'rev. · read · varies by road classNone published
Heightover 15'6"rev. · read None published
Lengthover 90'rev. · read over 150'rev. · read
Rear overhangover 5'rev. · read None published
Gross weightover 300,000 lbundated document · read None published
The same rules restated in plain sentences28 rules

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Permit fees

4. Alabama single-trip permit fees

ChargeAmount
Single-trip base$10rev. · read The common floor of ALDOT's two published columns: "Over Height Only Violation $10", "Boats, M/H, Portable Buildings, Modular Home 12’(3.66) x 75’(22.86) $10", and "Weight Only 80,000 – 100,000 lbs. $10". Corroborated by Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.10's catch-all "Other overweight loads not herein specified..$10.00".
Transaction / card$4rev. · read "A fee of $4 will be added to each credit card transaction" — a fixed amount, not a percentage, and no percentage surcharge appears anywhere on the schedule. It applies to card payments; a permit paid another way would not carry it.
Route analysis reviewNot yet covered
Route with no bridgesNot yet covered

Dimension bands

BandFee
over legal length, height or width — flat dimensional charge$10rev. · read "an additional $10.00 is added to the fee." Added to the $10 base it reproduces ALDOT's "W/H/L: up to 100,000 lbs. $20" row exactly, and added to each Weight Only band it reproduces the rest of the General column.

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Overweight model

5. How Alabama prices overweight

Graduated weight bands. ALDOT prices the overweight component in four flat gross-weight steps with no mileage and no axle multiplier: "Weight Only 80,000 – 100,000 lbs. $10 100,001 – 125,000 lbs. $30 125,001 – 150,000 lbs. $60 Over 150,000 lbs. $100". The bands below hold what remains of each of those totals after the $10 permit base, which is what makes the base, the dimensional add-on and the increment sum back to ALDOT's printed figures.

ALDOT — Permit Fees, March 11 2025 (PDF) — rev. · read

The bands, as published

Gross weightAxlesFeeSource
80,001 lb – 100,000 lb any $0 Weight Only and General W/H/L weight bands; "…rev. · read
100,001 lb – 125,000 lb any $20 Weight Only and General W/H/L weight bands; "…rev. · read
125,001 lb – 150,000 lb any $50 Weight Only and General W/H/L weight bands; "…rev. · read
150,001 lb and up any $90 Weight Only and General W/H/L weight bands; "…rev. · read
Seasonal posting

6. Alabama seasonal posting windows

A permit priced against an unposted-road assumption in March is simply wrong, and wrong in the expensive direction. This is the window we watch, the basis for that window in the state's own orders or statute, and the authority that posts it.

Alabama is not in the seasonal-restriction registry, so we hold no posting window for it and are not inventing one.

Superload

7. Alabama's superload threshold

Above one of these, the state stops issuing over the counter and prices the move after an engineering review.

TriggerThreshold
Gross weightover 300,000 lbundated document · read "a Superload will be defined as any load where one or more of the following dimensions are exceeded: ... Weight 300,000 lbs. gross weight" — "exceeded", so 300,000 lb exactly is not yet a superload. The memorandum carries no date, so this row is effective only from our retrieval date.
Widthover 16'undated document · read
Heightover 16'undated document · read
Lengthover 150'undated document · read
Short axle spacingNot yet covered

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Route survey

8. Route survey and bridge review

The dimensions at which Alabama triggers a physical route inspection or an engineering review, and what the agency charges to review it.

MeasurementInspection / review trigger
WidthNot yet covered
HeightNot yet covered
LengthNot yet covered
Police escorts

9. Police escorts

Alabama Law Enforcement Agency publishes a rate. One officer costs at least $600 before mileage.

Ala. Admin. Code r. 760-X-2-.05 — ALEA superload escort fees — rev. · read

What the schedule does not price4 items
  • Mileage at the current IRS rate, calculated from each officer's residence or office and back. The IRS rate is not a fixed published figure and the officers' origins are not known before ALEA assigns them.
  • $12.00 subsistence for an escort over four hours; $12.75 per diem for 6–12 hours and $34.00 for 12 hours or more. Which applies depends on the hours actually worked.
  • Cancellation: $200.00 more than 24 hours out, or $200.00 plus four hours' pay per assigned officer inside 24 hours.
  • Billable time starts 30 minutes before the scheduled start and ends 30 minutes after completion, so the charged hours always exceed the moving hours.

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Travel restrictions

10. When you can move it

Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not yet encoded for Alabama. The seasonal picture — which is a different question — is in section 6 above.

Why those windows are absent rather than estimated

They are not guessed at here. What we do publish is the seasonal weight-restriction picture, with the date we last read each state's own bulletin — a curfew invented from a plausible pattern is worth less than an honest gap, because a reader cannot tell the two apart on the page.

Who issues it

11. Permit office

The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure. We publish no per-state permit-office phone number.

Why there is no phone number here

We are not publishing per-state permit-office phone numbers yet, and the reason is worth stating: the two seed lists available for them are both demonstrably stale — the federal one gives two different states the same phone number — and a wrong number on a page like this costs somebody a morning. The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure, which is the part we can stand behind today.

Scope

12. What this does not include

Named rather than gestured at, because each of these can exceed the permit itself. Every item is listed; open one for why it is excluded.

Line haul, fuel and driver time

This is a permit fee, not a freight rate.

Civilian pilot car rates

We hold no rate data, and the two commercial sites that publish market rates disagree by nearly a factor of two on the same service.

Route-survey engineering

The agency's review fee is shown where the state publishes one; the engineer's own fee is a private cost with no schedule.

Bonds and escrow

Set per move by the agency, and in at least one state the escort is billed at actual cost against it.

Utility coordination and line lifts

Arranged with each utility, priced by each utility.

Second-issuer permits

A toll, bridge or city authority inside the same state issues its own permit, and a state total that omits it is missing a whole permit.

Need a pilot car for this lane? Browse the pilot car & escort directory.

Price a lane through Alabama →

Provenance

13. Every source behind this page (9)

Every document behind Alabama9 sources
  • Ala. Admin. Code ch. 450-3-1 — Escort vehicle operator requirements — Alabama Department of Transportation — "Drivers of escort vehicles must be a minimum of 18 years of age, have a valid driver’s license, and have completed a pilot/escort flagging course which equals or exceeds Alabama’s course within 12 months of Alabama’s course availability."
    rev. · read
  • Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.02 — Definitions (legal dimensions) — Alabama Department of Transportation — "LEGAL WIDTH: Eight (8) feet wide on roads with less than twelve (12) foot lanes; eight (8) feet and six (6) inches on roads with at least twelve (12) foot lanes."; 40/57/28 ft lengths; 65 ft car haulers, 75 ft stinger-steered; "LEGAL OVERHANG (FRONT AND REAR): Five (5) feet."
    rev. · read
  • Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.05 — Escorts — Alabama Department of Transportation — "Loads greater than 14 feet wide require one (1) front and one (1) rear escort on all roads."; height indicator over 15'6"; law-enforcement escorts over 150 ft; rear escort over 5 ft rear overhang; front escort at 10 ft or more front overhang
    rev. · read
  • Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.07 — House moves — Alabama Department of Transportation — "Houses greater than seventeen (17) feet in height require a route survey and utility notification."
    rev. · read
  • Ala. Admin. Code r. 450-3-1-.10 — Permit fees — Alabama Department of Transportation — "From 80,001 pounds up to 100,000 pounds.........$10.00"; "Other oversized vehicles, loads, and equipment not herein specified.......................................$20.00"; "Other overweight loads not herein specified..$10.00"; "When the overweight vehicle or combination of vehicles and loads is over the maximum length, height, or width specified by law, an additional $10.00 is added to the fee."
    rev. · read
  • Alabama Act 2025 (SB110, enrolled) — size and weight limits — Alabama Legislature — 102 in width; 13 1/2 ft height; 28 1/2 ft doubles; 65 ft car hauler; 80 ft stinger-steered; overhang "a total of five feet beyond both the front and rear, inclusive"; Interstate axle and gross limits including the allowable load tolerance
    rev. · read
  • ALDOT — Alabama Superload Requirements (PDF, undated) — Alabama Department of Transportation — superload at width 16 ft, height 16 ft, length 150 ft or weight 300,000 lb; two State Trooper escorts minimum; bucket truck over 16'5"; utility notification over 16'6"; detailed route survey for all superloads
    undated document · read
  • ALDOT — Permit Fees, March 11 2025 (PDF) — Alabama Department of Transportation — Weight Only and General W/H/L weight bands; "A fee of $4 will be added to each credit card transaction"
    rev. · read
  • ALDOT — Rules and Regulations Presentation (PDF, post-harmonisation June 2017) — Alabama Department of Transportation — ">12’ – 14’ = 1 Front Escort on Two-lane Roads, or 1 Rear Escort on Multi-lane Highways."; ">90’ – 125’ = 1 Rear Escort"; ">125’ = 1 Front Escort and 1 Rear Escort"; ">15’6” = 1 Front Escort with Height Pole"
    rev. · read
Common questions

Questions

How much is an oversize permit in Alabama?

The single-trip base is $10, before the dimension bands, the overweight component and the transaction charge. The base alone is rarely what is paid.

When does Alabama require a pilot car?

The first width trigger is over 12', and it varies by road class — the figure shown is the lowest across classes.

What is a superload in Alabama?

Alabama's published gross-weight superload line is over 300,000 lb. It is not 80,000 lb; that is the federal legal gross limit, not a superload threshold.

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