Texas Oversize Load Permits, Regulations & Axle Rules

Texas runs permitted loads on daylight, but defines daylight generously: movement from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset, and night travel needs specific authorization on the permit. The state then carves out several night exceptions worth knowing. An overweight-but-legal-size load may run at night on any state-maintained road. An oversize load no wider than 10 feet and no longer than 100 feet, with legal overhangs, may run at night on the Interstate. Unladen lift equipment up to 9 feet wide moves at night with no escorts (up to 10'6" wide, 14 feet high, and 95 feet long with front and rear escorts), self-propelled well-servicing units and rig-up trucks up to 9 feet wide move at night, and utility poles for emergency power restoration move at night with a rear escort.

Texas has no statewide Saturday or Sunday ban, which sets it apart from most states. Six holidays do close the road, but only for genuinely large loads: a load over 14 feet wide, over 16 feet high, or over 110 feet long may not move on New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. A load that stays at or under all three holiday thresholds can keep running straight through.

Weather stops the clock independently: movement is prohibited whenever visibility drops below two-tenths of a mile, or the road surface turns hazardous from wind, rain, ice, sleet, snow, or active maintenance and construction. The bigger trap in Texas is local. The state publishes roughly 40 location-specific curfews that bite during rush hours on time-based permits: Austin restricts loads over 12 feet wide or over 95 feet long from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM on weekdays, Tarrant County restricts all oversize loads in the same windows, and Bryan/College Station restricts loads over 16'6" high or over 254,300 lbs from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM every day. These vary by city and county and change, so checking the current curfew list against the route is part of planning any Texas move.

Texas runs an unusually deep commodity-permit system, roughly two dozen distinct types, and several commodities get real dimensional or weight relief.

The length and overhang exemptions are where Texas gets generous. Vehicles hauling poles, piling, or unrefined timber straight from the forest to a processing mill may run up to 90 feet including the load, daylight only, within 125 miles, and are fully exempt from the rear-overhang limit. Trucks carrying electric utility poles may run up to 75 feet including the vehicle and are likewise exempt from the overhang cap (daylight only, 50 mph maximum). Loads of poles or pipe on non-tractor combinations get up to 65 feet including the load. Most striking, a truck-tractor combination hauling machinery and materials for natural gas or petroleum facilities, including pipelines, is exempt from legal length limits entirely. Implements of husbandry and water-well drilling machinery move up to 16 feet wide; cotton and chile-pepper rigs run up to 10 feet wide, 48 feet long, and 14'6" high with no permit but stay off the Interstate. The recurring catch is routing: timber, ready-mixed concrete, and several ag exemptions are not valid on the Interstate Highway System, and the forest-to-mill timber size exemption can't be combined with the annual timber permit.

Texas has no general "superload" category for oversize dimensions; its top tier is weight-only and it calls it a Superheavy load (often written "Super Heavy"). A move is Superheavy when any one of three weight conditions is met: gross weight over 254,300 lbs; any axle or axle-group weight over the maximum permit weight table; or a gross weight between 200,001 and 254,300 lbs combined with overall axle spacing under 95 feet. There's no width, height, or length figure that by itself makes a load Superheavy; extreme oversize is handled through route inspection certification, described below.

The Superheavy permit is a single-trip, routed permit issued by TxDMV through the TxPROS system, and it's the slowest product in the catalog to obtain: the application and all supporting documentation must be filed six to eight weeks before the requested start date, unless a pre-approved route is already on file. The base permit fee is $60, but it stacks weight fees on top: a highway maintenance fee scaling from $150 to $375 with gross weight, plus a vehicle supervision fee of $500 that pays for a bridge analysis performed by a TxDOT-approved private engineer. Two documents are mandatory: a signed "Certification Regarding Agreement to Transport Super Heavy Load(s)" (Form MCD-305), and, for any load over 200,000 lbs, a Shipper's Certificate of Weight (Form 2280) that must be hand-signed, not digitally signed, and less than 90 days old. The carrier must also hold Texas Motor Carrier Registration or UCR authority before the permit can issue. TxDMV reviews and approves the move; the engineer's bridge analysis governs whether the proposed route can carry it.

Texas folds its route-survey obligation into a document called a Route Inspection Certification, the oversize counterpart to the Superheavy weight review. Certification must be on file before the permit issues once a load exceeds 20 feet wide, 18'11" high, or 125 feet long. For the widest moves, loads over 20 feet wide trigger a hands-on version: TxDMV supplies a proposed route, a company representative must physically inspect it, and the carrier must then notify TxDMV in writing confirming whether the load can or cannot safely travel that route.

Beyond those certification triggers, Texas places clearance responsibility squarely on the carrier. The permittee, not the state, is responsible for detouring around every overhead structure and for contacting each affected utility (electric, telephone, cable) and signal owner in advance to raise or move lines, signals, signs, and cables. Height escorts reinforce this on the road: a load over 17 feet high requires a front escort carrying a nonconductive-metal height pole to physically measure overhead obstructions before the load reaches them. On the weight side, the Superheavy bridge analysis is effectively the structural survey, and because it must be completed by a TxDOT-approved engineer before the permit issues, a heavy route is cleared structure-by-structure before any wheels turn. Whether by certification, bridge analysis, or carrier-performed clearance checks, the route review is a precondition of the permit, not an afterthought.

Texas publishes no dimensional breakpoint that forces a law-enforcement escort. The requirement is fully discretionary: TxDMV may require law-enforcement escorts depending on the size, route, or nature of the permitted load, and decides case by case during permitting. Carriers should treat a police escort as something the permit office can attach to a large or sensitive move, not a line they cross at a fixed width or weight. Civilian certified escorts (flaggers who direct traffic must complete a TCOLE-approved training program) handle the codified escort thresholds for width, height, length, and overhang.

When law enforcement is involved, the officers come from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). Because there's no fixed trigger, escorts aren't booked off a published table; they're arranged through the permitting process when TxDMV calls for them. One specific allowance is codified: within the limits of an incorporated city, an official law-enforcement motorcycle may serve as the primary escort vehicle, operated by a highway patrol officer, a sheriff or authorized deputy, or a municipal police officer.