Alberta Oversize Load Permits, Regulations & Axle Rules

Alberta's clock tightens as a load gets wider or taller. Under 3.85 m wide there's no province-wide time limit. Cross 3.85 m and the pre-weekend rule kicks in: no movement 3:00 PM to midnight the day before a weekend or stat holiday, and none on a Sunday or stat holiday.

Past 4.45 m wide or 5.3 m high you're daytime only (one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset). The same limit catches the long stuff: over 42 m on a two-lane, rear overhang over 9.0 m, or an empty load over 52 m.

Ten statutory holidays close the calendar: New Year's Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Christmas, and December 26 (the 27th when the 26th is a Sunday or Monday). Over 5.3 m high or 5.5 m wide you may stop only at designated truck turnouts. No fixed rush-hour curfew, but your permit isn't valid inside a city, or a hamlet over 10,000, without local road-authority approval.

Alberta writes generous carve-outs for ag and resource hauls. Farm equipment is width-exempt with warning flags by day and lights at night, up to 5 m high and 30.5 m long; gear under 3.8 m wide towed between fields by a farm tractor is exempt outright.

Hay and straw within a 50 km radius run 3.2 m wide and 5 m high loose, or 4 m wide and 5 m high in stacks or round bales, with a dimensional sign, amber lamp, and warning lights over 3.2 m wide. A grain bin moved under 60 km in daylight needs a utility-approved route above 5.3 m high and a hazard-light escort at 5.0 m or wider.

Logging gets its own rules: a jeep logger runs to 25 m overall, and on a licence-of-occupation resource road the general limits give way to bunk-width caps set by the road width. Stinger-steered auto carriers run to 25 m loaded, front overhang capped at 1.0 m and rear load overhang at 1.2 m. House moves run pilots with a "SLOW DOWN, HOUSE MOVING" sign.

Alberta has no single "superload" label; the heavy work splits across tiers. The closest thing to an extreme-height move is the High Load Corridor, designated highways engineered to pass loads up to 9.0 m high, with signals and signs that rotate or lift clear. It carries a per-kilometre fee that scales with height: $1.25 plus $0.25 per 10 cm over 6 m up to 8.9 m, then $8.50/km at 8.9 m and above.

Off the corridor, height over 5.3 m triggers a true elevated tier: daytime only, turnout-only stopping, and mandatory clearance from the power, telephone, rail, and traffic-light authorities first. Width over 5.5 m adds turnout-only stopping on top of the over-4.45 m rules. Long combinations route through the separate LCV permit ($375) on a designated corridor.

For the heaviest or most complex loads, the Central Permit Office may require a Transportation Safety Plan. Once accepted it's a permit condition, and the review can add escorts case by case.

Alberta sets no fixed dimension that forces a route survey; the review is discretionary, driven by permit conditions. When one is required, the carrier (often with its escort operator) builds it against 511 Alberta advisories, posted bridge weight and height limits, railway crossings, utility approvals, and construction zones.

Overheight routing mostly runs through the High Load Corridor and utility coordination: the carrier contacts the affected utility, and only qualified crews lift or move lines. The structural review lives on the overweight side, where many permits carry bridge-crossing conditions: scaled weights beforehand, 10 km/h max, and crossing at centre as the only vehicle on the bridge. A posted bridge capacity sign overrides any permit.

Alberta has no mandatory police-escort tier. Escorting is all civilian, handled by Escort Vehicle Operators: a pilot ahead at 300 to 1,000 m, a trail behind at 100 to 300 m. Operator certification isn't even mandatory here.

Count keys off one dimension crossed with road type. Two-lane: width over 3.85 m needs a pilot, over 4.45 m a pilot plus trail. Multi-lane: width over 3.85 m needs a trail, with a pilot added only past 5.5 m. Length and overhang add their own, and two-way radio between vehicles is required throughout.

Law enforcement enters only in optional roles. The RCMP appears as one permit-specified "special supervision" option a carrier may be told to arrange and fund, alongside a department engineer or authorized official; it's never a fixed trigger. None of it is a booked sworn-officer escort, so plan around certified civilian pilot and trail vehicles.