The Ohio answer
Legal limits
First escort trigger
- Width
- 13' or morerev. · read
- Height
- 14'6" or morerev. · read
- Length
- over 90'rev. · read
- Rear overhang
- No trigger published
- Gross weight
- No trigger published
What the paper costs
- Single-trip base
- $20 · caveat ↓rev. · read
- Transaction / card
- None published · caveat ↓rev. · read
- How overweight is priced
- Graduated weight bandsrev. · read
- Superload above
- 120,000 lb and up · caveat ↓undated document · read
The short version: a Ohio single-trip permit starts at $20 before bands, overweight and the transaction charge; an escort is first required at 13' or more wide; and the load becomes a superload at over 120,000 lb. Everything below carries the Ohio document it came from, that document's own revision date, and the date we read it.
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.
2. Ohio legal limits
Anything over one of these needs a permit. Every value links to the document that sets it.
| Measure | Legal limit |
|---|---|
| Width | 8'6"rev. · read §5577.05(B)(5): "One hundred two inches, including load, for all other vehicles". Stated in inches by the statute, so no conversion is applied. |
| Height | 13'6"rev. · read §5577.05: "No such vehicle shall have a height in excess of thirteen feet six inches, with or without load." |
| Semitrailer length | 53'rev. · read §5577.05(C): "Fifty-three feet for any semitrailer when operated in a commercial tractor-semitrailer combination". This is the SEMITRAILER limit; Ohio states no overall length for the combination, which is why `overallLengthIn` is absent. |
| Overall length | None published |
| Kingpin to rear axle | None published |
| Front overhang | None published |
| Rear overhang | None published |
| Gross weight | 80,000 lbrev. · read §5577.04: "the maximum overall gross weight of vehicle and load imposed upon the road surface shall not exceed eighty thousand pounds." Posted limits and the bridge formula can still produce a lower legal weight. |
| Single axle | 20,000 lbrev. · read §5577.04: "On any one axle, twenty thousand pounds" |
| Tandem axle | 34,000 lbrev. · read §5577.04(B)(2): "On any tandem axle, thirty-four thousand pounds". On NON-interstate roads §5577.04(D) offers an alternative reaching 40,000 lb on axles spaced over 4 ft, and division (I) lets the carrier take whichever division yields the higher gross. Route class is not collected on a quote, so the interstate figure is used and the alternative is recorded here rather than applied. |
3. The Ohio 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.
| When | What is required | Source |
|---|---|---|
| the move runs on a named segment (OH:ohio-turnpike-i80-i90) and width over 13' or overall length over 160' | The count is settled; the source does not say front or rear — at least 1. Published as: “Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission, Special Hauling Permit Information rev. 2018-08-07, Item 7: "a Patrol escort will be required for all vehicles over 13 Feet in width and all vehicles over 160 Feet in length." The Commission's fee schedule rev. 2019-03-26 bills it "for each Patrolman … $60.00/hr", and OAC 5537-3-05 (eff. 2023-09-01) states the same rate as "sixty dollars per hour".” |
Item 7: "a Patrol escort will be required for…rev. · read |
| width over 13' and width from 13' to 14'6" | 1 certified escort |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
| height over 14'6" and height from 14'6" to 14'10" | 1 certified escort1 in frontHeight pole required |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
| at least 2 of: another rule already applies (oh-length-over-90); another rule already applies (oh-width-over-13) or another rule already applies (oh-width-over-14-6); another rule already applies (oh-height-over-14-6) or another rule already applies (oh-height-over-14-10) | 2 certified escorts1 in front1 behind |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
| width over 14'6" | 2 certified escorts1 in front1 behind |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
| height over 14'10" | 2 certified escorts1 in front1 behindHeight pole required |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
| width over 16' | Escorts required; the source states no number. Published as: “a law enforcement escort is required in addition to private escorts”Cannot be reduced to a number: Ohio requires a law-enforcement escort "in addition to private escorts" on any load over 16 ft wide, but publishes no officer count, no position and no hourly or per-mile rate. The police-escort cost cannot be quoted and must be arranged and priced through ODOT. |
single-trip fee tables; superload definition;…undated document · read |
| overall length over 90' | 1 certified escort1 behind |
escort thresholds; height-sensing device; for…rev. · read |
The first trigger in each dimension
| Measurement | First escort trigger | First police escort trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Width | 13' or morerev. · read | None published |
| Height | 14'6" or morerev. · read | None published |
| Length | over 90'rev. · read | None published |
| Rear overhang | None published | None published |
| Gross weight | None published | None published |
The same rules restated in plain sentences9 rules
- Over 90 ft long — one rear escort — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over 13 ft up to 14 ft 6 in wide — one escort (lead on a two-lane highway, rear on a multiple-lane highway) — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over 14 ft 6 in wide — one lead and one rear escort — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over 14 ft 6 in up to 14 ft 10 in high — one lead escort carrying a height-sensing device — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over 14 ft 10 in high — one lead escort with a height-sensing device and one rear escort — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over the escort threshold in two or more of length, width and height — one lead and one rear escort — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st) rev. · read
- Over 16 ft wide — a law-enforcement escort is required in addition to the private escorts — single-trip fee tables; superload definition; Section 9 axle limits; law-enforcement escort undated document · read
- On the Ohio Turnpike (I-80/I-90): over 13 ft wide or over 160 ft long — an Ohio State Highway Patrol escort, billed at $60.00 per hour per patrolman — Item 7: "a Patrol escort will be required for all vehicles over 13 Feet in width and all vehicles over 160 Feet in length." Item 5 requires a PRIVATE rear escort over 11 ft wide or over 112 ft long. Applications needing an OSHP escort must be made one week in advance. No permits over 14 ft high; none for mobile or modular homes over 12 ft wide rev. · read
- Ohio may impose escorts, a route survey or special work at the department’s discretion, and publishes no price for any of them — discretionary escorts; flag placement; private escort driver qualification rev. · read
4. Ohio single-trip permit fees
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| Single-trip base | $20rev. · read "All permit application processing fees consist of the basic processing charge of twenty dollars plus each unit of surcharge that is applicable to that movement." |
| Transaction / card | None publishedrev. · read Ohio publishes no percentage surcharge: the fee "consist[s] of the basic processing charge of twenty dollars plus each unit of surcharge". UNKNOWN, recorded and not filled in: the rule also says "At the discretion of the director, a third party processor service may be utilized for credit card transactions" and publishes no processor fee amount or percentage. Any card fee is that processor's, not Ohio's. |
| Route analysis review | Not yet covered |
| Route with no bridges | Not yet covered |
Dimension bands
| Band | Fee |
|---|---|
| over legal width, up to 14 ft wide and 14 ft 6 in high — $55 outbound surcharge | $55rev. · read OAC 5501:2-1-05(A)(1)(a): "Overall width up to fourteen feet and/or overall height up to fourteen feet six inches: (i) Outbound trip: fifty-five dollars". With the $20 basic charge this reproduces ODOT's published "OS Only $75". Return trip is $35 and is not modelled — this engine prices one-way single trips. |
| over legal height, up to 14 ft 6 in high, at or under legal width — $55 outbound surcharge | $55rev. · read The same $55 band reached on height alone. Bounded at legal width so it cannot also match a load already covered by the width row above — two matching rows with different bounds would be read by the resolver as two sources disagreeing, which they are not. |
| over 14 ft wide — $125 outbound surcharge | $125rev. · read OAC 5501:2-1-05(A)(1)(b): "Overall width in excess of fourteen feet and/or overall height in excess of fourteen feet, six inches: (i) Outbound trip: one hundred twenty-five dollars". Note that a load in this band is ALSO a superload under ODOT's definition, so in practice the engine refuses to price it and this row exists for completeness. |
| over 14 ft 6 in high, at or under 14 ft wide — $125 outbound surcharge | $125rev. · read The same $125 band reached on height alone, bounded at 14 ft wide for the same mutual-exclusivity reason as the $55 pair. |
5. How Ohio prices overweight
Graduated weight bands. OAC 5501:2-1-05 sets a flat $125 outbound overweight surcharge up to 120,000 lb gross. Above 120,000 lb the rule charges "one hundred twenty-five dollars plus four cents per ton over sixty tons, per mile traveled" — a distance term carried on the heavy band itself, so the band prices when in-state mileage is supplied and is reported unpriced when it is not. The MODEL is still `bands` and not `perMile`: the schedule below 120,000 lb is flat in both weight and distance, and declaring the whole state per-mile would misprice every ordinary Ohio permit.
The bands, as published
| Gross weight | Axles | Fee | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80,001 lb – 120,000 lb | any | $125 | (A) basic charge and surcharge units; (A)(1) …rev. · read |
| 120,001 lb and up | any | $125 | (A) basic charge and surcharge units; (A)(1) …rev. · read |
6. Ohio 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.
Seasonal posting
- Programme
- Local roads only — the state system is not postedODOT does not impose spring weight restrictions on the state highway system. Ohio frost laws are posted by county engineers and township trustees on local roads, road by road, with no statewide list. Check the county engineer for the specific local roads on your route.
- Issuing authority
- OAC 5501:2-1-05 — ODOT special hauling permitsOhio Department of Transportation
The live Ohio restriction picture, with the date we last read the bulletin →
7. Ohio's superload threshold
Above one of these, the state stops issuing over the counter and prices the move after an engineering review.
| Trigger | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Gross weight | over 120,000 lbundated document · read "Superload - any vehicle or combination or load having a gross weight in excess of 120,000 lbs." — exclusive, so a load at exactly 120,000 lb is still an ordinary permit and is priced by the $125 band. |
| Width | over 14'undated document · read "overall width in excess of 14'-0\"" |
| Height | over 14'6"undated document · read "overall height in excess of 14'-6\"" |
| Length | None published |
| Short axle spacing | Not yet covered |
8. Route survey and bridge review
The dimensions at which Ohio triggers a physical route inspection or an engineering review, and what the agency charges to review it.
| Measurement | Inspection / review trigger |
|---|---|
| Width | Not yet covered |
| Height | Not yet covered |
| Length | Not yet covered |
9. Police escorts
Ohio State Highway Patrol (for the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission) publishes a rate. One officer costs at least an amount the schedule does not let us compute before mileage.
What the schedule does not price4 items
- NO MINIMUM CALLOUT AND NO TIME BASIS ARE PUBLISHED. Neither OAC 5537-3-05 nor the Commission's fee schedule rev. 2019-03-26 states a minimum number of billable hours, and neither says whether the hour runs portal-to-portal from the post or only while the officer is on the move. The Commission's instruction is to contact permitting directly. The figure on the quote is this product's own four-hour minimum over the Commission's rate, never a published floor.
- ODOT PUBLISHES NO RATE FOR ITS OWN ESCORT, AND THE $60.00/HR MUST NOT BE APPLIED TO ONE. Ohio requires a law-enforcement escort in addition to private escorts over 16 ft wide on the STATE HIGHWAY system (escort rule `oh-police-over-16-wide`, OAC chapter 5501 and ODOT's Operational Guide) and publishes no officer count, no position and no hourly or per-mile rate for it. The sixty dollars an hour here is the Turnpike Commission's fee under OAC chapter 5537 and the authority of ORC 5537.04 and 5537.16; it is cited to the Turnpike and `triggeringEscortRuleIds` names only the Turnpike rule. The ODOT trigger is in any case unreachable inside this product's 16 ft width envelope.
- THE PERMIT SHEET'S OTHER CHARGES ARE NOT ESCORT COSTS AND ARE NOT HERE. The Commission's rev. 2019-03-26 schedule also carries a $25 over-dimensional permit, a $135 overweight permit to 120,000 lb, $0.04 per ton-mile above 120,000 lb, and $50 for toll-plaza drive-up processing. Those are permit and processing fees for the Turnpike, not officer time, and they belong to the permit side of the engine rather than to this rate.
- THE ESCORT MUST BE ARRANGED A WEEK AHEAD. "Applications for loads requiring an OSHP escort must be made 1 week in advance" (Special Hauling Permit Information, rev. 2018-08-07). That is a lead time rather than a charge, but it constrains when a Turnpike move can be booked and no late-request surcharge is published.
10. When you can move it
Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not yet encoded for Ohio. 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.
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.
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.
13. Every source behind this page (7)
Every document behind Ohio7 sources
- ODOT — Operational Guide for Vehicles Operating with a Special Hauling Permit — Ohio Department of Transportation — single-trip fee tables; superload definition; Section 9 axle limits; law-enforcement escort
undated document · read - ODOT Form OS-1A — Limitations and Provisions for Special Hauling Permits (PDF) — Ohio Department of Transportation — escort thresholds; height-sensing device; form stamp "Rev. 01/18" (month only — recorded as the 1st)
rev. · read - Ohio Adm. Code 5501:2-1-04 — Flags, lighting and escort vehicles — Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules — discretionary escorts; flag placement; private escort driver qualification
rev. · read - Ohio Adm. Code 5501:2-1-05 — Permit application processing fees — Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules — (A) basic charge and surcharge units; (A)(1) oversize bands; (A)(2) overweight bands; combination rule
rev. · read - Ohio Rev. Code §5577.04 — Maximum axle and gross weights — Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules (Legislative Service Commission) — (B)(1) single axle; (B)(2) tandem axle; (E) 80,000 lb overall cap; (B)(3) bridge formula
rev. · read - Ohio Rev. Code §5577.05 — Maximum width, height and length — Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules (Legislative Service Commission) — (B)(5) width; height; (C) length bands
rev. · read - Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission — Special Hauling Permit Information (PDF) — Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission — Item 7: "a Patrol escort will be required for all vehicles over 13 Feet in width and all vehicles over 160 Feet in length." Item 5 requires a PRIVATE rear escort over 11 ft wide or over 112 ft long. Applications needing an OSHP escort must be made one week in advance. No permits over 14 ft high; none for mobile or modular homes over 12 ft wide
rev. · read
Questions
How much is an oversize permit in Ohio?
The single-trip base is $20, before the dimension bands, the overweight component and the transaction charge. The base alone is rarely what is paid.
When does Ohio require a pilot car?
The first width trigger is 13' or more.
What is a superload in Ohio?
Ohio's published gross-weight superload line is over 120,000 lb. It is not 80,000 lb; that is the federal legal gross limit, not a superload threshold.