Superload Thresholds by State & Province
Rendered from our verified jurisdiction records · Last reviewed September 2026
There is no continental superload standard: Indiana's line begins at 108,000 lb while Missouri's police tier starts at 350,000, and the dimensional triggers wander just as far. This table shows where each verified jurisdiction draws the line, in its own terms.
🇨🇦 Canada
| Jurisdiction | Superload line |
|---|---|
| Ontario | Ontario draws the superload line at any of: over 120,000 kg (264,500 lb) gross, over 5 m (16.4 ft) wide, or over 45.75 m (150 ft) long. Superloads need a Project Justification proving the move cannot shrink or go by rail or water, a Traffic Management Plan, Certified Superload Escorts, and for weights past 120,000 kg a ministry-approved bridge consultant's evaluation; approvals take days to two weeks. |
| Quebec | Classes 6 and 7 are Quebec's superload lane: exceptional weight or size beyond the standard classes, moving only after Ministry review of the configuration and route. Under the Highway Safety Code (s. 463), no non-standard vehicle or indivisible load moves without the special permit issued for it. |
| British Columbia | BC's Extraordinary Load process is its superload lane, triggered by any of: over 85,000 kg gross; over 64,000 kg on routes not pre-approved for overloads; wider than 4.4 m off the pre-approved networks; taller than 4.88 m (5.33 m Peace River); longer than 40 m overall outside the Lower Mainland; or any oversize non-reducible load traveling more than 110 km. Approvals name the exact configuration and route, may carry special bridge-crossing conditions, and once granted are valid 180 days for unlimited single-trip permits under the same configuration. |
| Alberta | Individually reviewed beyond the routine permit envelope; see the guide. |
| Manitoba | Above the self-issue envelope (3.7 m / 4.6 m / 31 m / 60,000 kg), moves take individual review; the biggest weights follow the province's truck weight limit mapping, where the route's own classification binds before anything else. |
| Saskatchewan | The Ministry-issued special permit is Saskatchewan's exceptional lane: loads beyond the standard permit envelope clear individually, and overweight permitting is reserved for non-divisible or impractical-to-divide loads. |
| Nova Scotia | Beyond the standard permit envelope, moves clear individually through the special-move process with route and structure review; weight ceilings follow axle configuration under the province's weights and dimensions regulations. |
| New Brunswick | Beyond the standard permit dimension caps, moves clear individually under the Motor Vehicle Act's special-permit authority; manufactured-home moves have their own permit tiers reaching 5.5 m of width on single trips. |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | The province caps regular single-trip permits at 70,000 kg gross, with a two-vehicle concept reaching 120,000 kg; anything past those limits becomes an EXCESSIVE over-mass or over-dimension permit with additional review and extra restrictions if approved. |
| Prince Edward Island | Beyond standard weights, the province permits by axle-group review under its weights and dimensions regulations; non-complying vehicle configurations need their own special permit from the Registrar. |
| Yukon | Exceptional weights price by the tonne-kilometre: the base overweight permit fee plus a per-tonne, per-kilometre charge for every unit above legal weight, so the biggest loads literally pay by how heavy and how far. |
| Northwest Territories | Winter is the NWT's own physics: the territory issues special winter-configuration permits (including an 8-axle winter permit class) because frozen roads carry what summer roads cannot; exceptional moves are reviewed individually. |
| Nunavut | True project cargo for Nunavut is a marine planning exercise: the oversize question is answered at the sealift port, not on a highway. |
🇺🇸 United States
| Jurisdiction | Superload line |
|---|---|
| Alabama | Alabama superloads travel under police: a minimum of two state trooper or police escorts on every superload, more as conditions demand, and any load past 16 ft 5 in of height adds a bucket truck to walk the wires ahead of it. |
| Alaska | Past the single-trip envelope, moves clear individually under the state's permit manual with route and seasonal review; ice-road and haul-road logistics often decide what is practical before the paperwork does. |
| Arizona | Class C is Arizona's superload lane: moves past 250,000 lb, 120 ft of length, 16 ft of height, or 14 ft of width clear individually, and where law-enforcement escorts are required, the state's own DPS officers run them (billable through the permit account). |
| Arkansas | Arkansas draws its superload lines at over 16 ft 6 in wide, 15 ft 6 in tall, 100 ft long, or 180,000 lb gross; those clear individually under the state's permit rules. |
| California | Past 15 ft wide, 17 ft high, or 135 ft long, or on hauling equipment outside the standard weight classification, California requires a VARIANCE permit: the individually engineered tier where route clearing, structure checks, and special conditions take over. |
| Colorado | Colorado's superloads (its Chapter 6 Specials) take 3 to 5 business days of review, with mountain-corridor clearances and structures examined route by route. |
| Connecticut | The biggest Connecticut moves clear individually with bridge-rating review; weekend travel permits exist for loads up to 12 ft wide, 13 ft 6 in high, 80 ft long, and 160,000 lb, running daylight to noon. |
| Delaware | The biggest moves clear individually under DelDOT's hauling permit policy with route review; the state's compact geography makes bridge and corridor constraints the deciding factors. |
| Georgia | Past the annual-permit envelope, Georgia treats moves as individually reviewed superload-class applications with route and structure checks. |
| Florida | Past the self-issue ceilings (16 ft / 18 ft / 150 ft / 200,000 lb), moves become office-reviewed superloads with routing and structural analysis on the specific corridor. |
| Hawaii | Extraordinarily large or heavy loads escalate from the district to Highways Division headquarters review, which runs a minimum of about three weeks: Hawaii's version of the superload lane, sized to island infrastructure. |
| Idaho | Beyond the interstate ceilings, moves clear individually; every application certifies that the load has already been reduced as far as practical, Idaho's statement of the divisibility principle. |
| Illinois | Structures rule Illinois: no permit load of any kind crosses a ton-limit posted structure, and legal-weight-only structures take exactly that; the biggest moves route around the state's posted bridge lists or do not move. |
| Indiana | Indiana draws its superload lines at over 17 ft wide, 15 ft high, 110 ft long, or 108,000 lb. Superloads coordinate directly with the State Police: under 200,000 lb an escort attaches by road conditions, and from 200,000 lb police escorts are required wherever the route carries bridge slowdowns, arranged through a formal Superload Agreement with the commercial vehicle division. |
| Kansas | The largest Kansas moves clear individually through KDOT review; a practical statewide rule rides every permit: an oversize load may not occupy a bridge for more than five minutes. |
| Kentucky | Past the annual class, moves clear individually with route survey; overweight permits presuppose a declared gross of at least 80,000 lb, i.e. the permit begins where legal weight ends. |
| Iowa | Beyond the annual envelopes, single-trip review takes over with route and structure checks by the permit office. |
| Louisiana | The biggest Louisiana moves layer supervision: past 18 ft of width a DOTD district representative must be present or authorize the move on the permit before police escorts will run it, on top of the specialist review tier. |
| Maine | Police escorts define Maine's top tier: at 125 ft of length or 16 ft of width, State Police escorts are mandatory, arranged by the permittee with the field troop office, with two-way radio coverage of at least half a mile radius during the move. |
| Maryland | Past the routine envelope, moves clear individually through the State Highway Administration, with performance bonds in the toolkit for infrastructure-risk moves. |
| Massachusetts | The biggest moves clear individually through the Truck Permit Office with routing and structure review; Boston-area clearances and parkway exclusions shape many eastern Massachusetts routes. |
| Michigan | Beyond the restricted-route ceilings, moves go to individual review; Michigan also runs its own axle-based weight law, under which added axles legally carry well beyond the federal gross on Michigan-designated routes. |
| Minnesota | Minnesota maintains a designated SUPERLOAD CORRIDOR network and publishes its own guide to moving superloads: the biggest weights route onto the corridor map rather than the general system. |
| Mississippi | Beyond the routine bands, moves clear individually through the permit and motor carrier division under the state's permit manual, daylight only and grounded in bad weather. |
| Missouri | Super heavy moves past 350,000 lb take civilian front and rear escorts and route through the Central Office with roughly two weeks of review; a 2026 pilot raised the law-enforcement escort thresholds on two-lane roads to 18 ft of width and 200 ft of length. |
| Montana | Montana's superload process begins past 18 ft wide, 150 ft long, or 17 ft high, or whenever the Bridge Bureau must approve the weight, configuration, or route; those clear individually through Motor Carrier Services. |
| Nebraska | Beyond the routine bands, moves clear individually with route and structure review by the permits office. |
| Nevada | The largest Nevada moves clear individually through NDOT with approved routes, operating hours, and structure review as permit conditions. |
| New Hampshire | The biggest moves clear individually with the permit office weighing traffic and weather in its conditions. |
| New Jersey | Every permitted move in New Jersey is single-trip by design; the biggest clear individually through the Superload Program, which also issues the state's ocean-borne container permits for port freight. |
| New Mexico | Width drives the police tier here: at 20 ft of width and beyond, police escorts are mandatory on every load, with front-and-rear civilian escorts from 18 ft on two-lane roads and from 110 ft of length. |
| New York | The largest moves clear through NYSDOT individually, and New York layers authorities: the Thruway and the state Bridge Authority issue their own permits on their own structures, all handled through one credentialing system. |
| North Carolina | North Carolina's superload lines: over 132,000 lb gross on seven or more axles, 68,000 lb on a four-axle grouping, any weight beyond a posted bridge's limit, or width past 15 ft (mobile homes excepted). Superload fees scale per thousand pounds above the threshold, and processing includes structural review. |
| North Dakota | Above the designated-route exemptions and the over-height thresholds, moves clear individually through the Highway Patrol with route review against the state's posted restrictions and bridge clearance data. |
| Ohio | Ohio's superload program handles genuinely enormous moves: recent permitted convoys have crossed the state at hundreds of thousands of pounds and well past 20 ft tall, with routes engineered structure by structure and rolling coordination across counties. |
| Oklahoma | Oklahoma defines superloads against its standard permit-load drawings: anything past the standard envelope clears individually. Widths past 20 ft contract Oklahoma Highway Patrol escorts directly, with superload escort contracts usually in place within a few working days but budgeted up to two to four weeks. |
| Oregon | Oregon runs a dedicated superload program for the largest moves, cleared individually by the Commerce and Compliance Division with route and structure review. |
| Pennsylvania | Pennsylvania's superload class covers the extreme envelope in width, height, length, and weight; those moves clear only after engineering analysis, route survey, and bridge evaluation, with police escorts joining the convoy at the largest bands. |
| Rhode Island | Nondivisible loads beyond the ordinary envelope clear individually, with the Chief Engineer's office setting the practical ceilings; the state's small geography makes bridge restrictions the deciding factor on most big moves. |
| South Carolina | Beyond the routine bands, moves clear individually under SCDOT's movement guidelines with route and structure checks. |
| South Dakota | The largest moves clear individually with route review against the state's bridge load-rating data. |
| Tennessee | Past the packaged tiers, moves clear individually through the permit office with bridge and route review from the state's posted-structure data. |
| Texas | Texas calls the biggest moves Super Heavy: gross weight over 254,300 lb, or over 200,000 lb carried on less than 95 ft of axle spacing, or any load needing more than routine permit weights on an axle group. Super Heavy permits involve engineering review and can take longer to issue. |
| Utah | Utah's superload team individually clears the top tier (over 15'6" H / 17' W / 300,000 lb); dual-lane trailer loads over 10 ft wide that fail automated bridge validation need clearance from UDOT's Structures Division before a route exists. |
| Vermont | State-highway permits generally top out at 108,000 lb, the practical ceiling before a move needs exceptional handling; heavier concepts route through special review. |
| Virginia | Virginia enforces the reduction principle plainly: a configuration must already be at its smallest practical dimensions to qualify, and stacking multiple items to create an oversize situation is refused; the biggest moves clear individually with routed engineering review. |
| Washington | Washington's superload line: a non-divisible load over 16 ft wide, 16 ft high, 125 ft of load length, or 200,000 lb. Superload requests go in at least 30 days ahead, structures and clearances are judged individually, and the permit comes back with negotiated escort counts and movement hours. |
| West Virginia | Width sets the travel calendar at the top end: loads from just over 14 ft to 18 ft run sunrise-to-sunset Monday through Thursday, and the widest class (past 18 ft, up to 24 ft 6 in) moves only on Sunday mornings, a scheduling reality unique to mountain-state corridors. |
| Wisconsin | Group B is Wisconsin's bigger-move lane: dimensions or weights past the Group A envelope clear with individual review and route conditions per the permit condition sheets. |
| Wyoming | The 18 ft width / 17 ft height line is Wyoming's pre-clearance tier: beyond it, office permission precedes the permit, with wind and winter closures on I-80 shaping real-world windows as much as the paperwork. |
Your route probably crosses several of these rows.
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Get an instant quote →This guide is provided free, for general information, so shippers can see how oversize and overweight moves work. It is not legal advice and not a permit determination. Limits, escort bands, fees, and seasonal restrictions change regularly; before relying on any figure, verify it with the jurisdiction's transportation department or permit office, or a licensed permit service. When you book with LoadLoom, our dispatch desk and your assigned carrier confirm the current rules for your exact load and route; that confirmation, not this page, governs your shipment. Spot an error? Email customercare@loadloom.com with the jurisdiction and the official source, and our desk will verify and update.