What Is HOS Compliance? Limits, Exceptions, and Penalties

Hours of Service (HOS) compliance means operating a commercial motor vehicle within the federal limits on driving time, on-duty time, and required rest set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration under 49 CFR Part 395. The rules cap how long you can drive before resting, cap how long a workday can run once it starts, and require specific off-duty periods to reset the clock. Carriers that violate them face civil penalties up to $19,246 per offense, and drivers can be placed out of service on the spot at a roadside inspection.¹

Who Has to Follow HOS Rules

HOS regulations apply to drivers operating commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce. A CMV, under federal definitions, is any vehicle used on a highway in interstate commerce with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight of 10,001 pounds or more.² That covers most tractor-trailers, box trucks, and heavy straight trucks.

Weight is not the only trigger. Vehicles designed to carry more than 8 passengers for compensation, or more than 15 without compensation, qualify. So does any vehicle hauling hazardous materials in quantities requiring placards, regardless of size.²

Purely intrastate operations may fall under state rules instead. Most states adopt the federal framework, though some have variations. Anything crossing a state line answers to FMCSA directly.

Driving and On-Duty Limits for Freight Drivers

Four interlocking clocks govern the workday for property-carrying drivers. The tightest one at any moment controls whether you can keep driving.

11-hour driving limit. You cannot drive more than 11 hours after taking 10 consecutive hours off duty.³
14-hour on-duty window. Once you start any work activity, a fixed 14-hour clock begins. You cannot drive after 14 consecutive hours have passed, even if part of that time was spent on breaks or waiting at a dock. The window does not pause.³
30-minute driving break. After 8 cumulative hours of driving without at least a 30-minute interruption, you must stop driving. The break can be off-duty, sleeper berth, or on-duty not-driving time.⁴
60/70-hour weekly limit. If your carrier does not operate every day, you cannot drive after 60 on-duty hours in 7 consecutive days. If it operates every day, the cap is 70 in 8 consecutive days.³

The 14-hour window catches new drivers most often. Sitting at a shipper’s dock for three hours does not give those hours back. They are gone even though you were not driving.

Driving and On-Duty Limits for Passenger Drivers

Bus and motorcoach drivers work under a slightly different set of clocks. Driving time is capped tighter, but the required off-duty reset is shorter.

10-hour driving limit. You cannot drive more than 10 hours after 8 consecutive hours off duty.⁵
15-hour on-duty window. You cannot drive after being on duty 15 hours following 8 consecutive hours off. Off-duty time during the shift does not count toward the 15 hours.⁵
60/70-hour weekly limit. Same 60-hour/7-day and 70-hour/8-day caps as freight drivers.⁶

Passenger drivers do not have to take the 30-minute driving break that applies to freight haulers.

Required Rest and How the Clock Resets

Daily Reset

Freight drivers need 10 consecutive hours off duty to reset the 11-hour driving limit and 14-hour window.³ Passenger drivers need 8 consecutive hours off duty for the same reset.⁵ Coming up short of the full consecutive rest is a violation that can produce an out-of-service order at roadside.

34-Hour Restart

To reset the 60/70-hour weekly clock, a driver takes 34 consecutive hours off duty. Once completed, the weekly accumulation starts fresh at zero.⁴ The restart is optional; drivers who manage weekly hours carefully may never need one.

Sleeper Berth Split

Freight drivers with a sleeper berth can split the required 10 hours into two periods. The split has three conditions: at least one period of 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, a second period of at least 2 hours (in or out of the berth), and a combined total of at least 10 hours.⁴ When paired correctly, neither rest period counts against the 14-hour window.⁵

Personal Conveyance

A driver relieved of all work responsibilities can log time moving the CMV for personal reasons as off-duty, even with cargo aboard, because the load is not advancing the carrier’s business at that point.⁷ Typical uses: driving from a truck stop to a restaurant, commuting between a terminal and home, or moving to a safe rest location after unloading.

Personal conveyance does not cover driving that advances the carrier’s business. Bobtailing to pick up the next load, repositioning an empty trailer at the carrier’s direction, or passing rest spots to get closer to a shipper all count as on-duty driving. Carriers can set tighter rules than FMCSA’s guidance, including banning personal conveyance outright or capping distance.⁷

Exceptions That Change the Limits

Short-Haul Exception

Drivers who operate within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location and return to that location within 14 consecutive hours are exempt from keeping records of duty status and from the ELD requirement.⁵ The underlying driving and duty caps still apply. Local delivery, construction, and service-call drivers make up much of this category.

16-Hour Short-Haul Extension

A freight driver who normally returns to the work reporting location each day can extend the 14-hour window to 16 hours, once every 7 days. To qualify, the carrier must have released the driver at that location for the previous five duty tours, and the driver must return and be released within 16 hours.⁸ The 11-hour driving limit does not change.

Adverse Driving Conditions

When a driver encounters snow, ice, fog, or unusual road and traffic conditions that were not known or reasonably foreseeable before starting the trip, the driving limit and on-duty window each extend by 2 hours. This applies to both freight and passenger drivers.⁹ The conditions have to genuinely catch you off guard. If the forecast predicted a blizzard before you left, the extension does not apply.

Emergency Declarations

When a president, governor, or local official declares an emergency, drivers providing direct assistance to the relief effort receive temporary HOS relief. Scope and duration depend on who declared it.

Presidential declaration. Exempts drivers from all FMCSA regulations (parts 390 through 399) for the emergency period or 30 days, whichever is shorter.¹⁰
Governor or regional declaration. HOS relief only, for the emergency period or 14 days, whichever is shorter.
Local declaration. HOS relief only, capped at 5 days.

FMCSA can extend any of these periods. Carriers seeking an extension email FMCSAdeclaration@dot.gov before the existing relief expires.¹⁰ The exemption covers only direct assistance to the emergency. Once a driver finishes delivering relief supplies and picks up a regular commercial load, normal HOS rules resume.

Agricultural Hauling

Drivers transporting agricultural commodities such as livestock, bees, or crops within a 150 air-mile radius of the source are exempt from HOS rules during state-designated planting and harvesting seasons. Within that radius, driving hours are unlimited and neither ELD use nor paper logs are required. Since November 2021, livestock haulers can also use the exemption at the end of a trip, covering the segment between 150 air miles from the origin and 150 air miles from the delivery point. Covered farm vehicles used privately to move commodities, equipment, and supplies to and from a farm are exempt from HOS entirely.¹¹

Electronic Logging Devices and Records

Most CMV drivers must use an Electronic Logging Device that connects to the vehicle’s engine and automatically records driving time. The device captures engine power, motion, miles, and engine hours, with location logged at intervals. It has to appear on FMCSA’s registered ELD list at fmcsa.dot.gov/devices; an unregistered device is treated as no ELD at all during an inspection.¹²

Not every driver subject to HOS needs an ELD. Short-haul drivers using the 150 air-mile exception who are not required to keep records of duty status are exempt from the device. So are drivers required to keep records of duty status for no more than 8 days in any 30-day period, driveaway-towaway operators delivering vehicles as the commodity, and drivers operating pre-2000 model year vehicles.¹³ Exempt drivers still keep paper logs when their operation requires records of duty status.

When an ELD malfunctions, the driver notifies the carrier in writing within 24 hours, reconstructs duty status for the current day and previous 7 consecutive days on paper graph-grid logs, and continues on paper until the device is repaired.¹⁴ Drivers keep their own records for the previous 7 consecutive days and produce them at inspections.¹⁵ Carriers retain both the duty status records and their supporting documents (bills of lading, dispatch and trip records, expense receipts, fleet management communications, payroll or settlement records) for at least 6 months.¹⁶

What Non-Compliance Costs

Out-of-Service Orders

During a roadside inspection, the officer reviews ELD data or paper logs to confirm no driving happened during required off-duty periods. A driver who has exceeded the 11-hour limit or is past the 14-hour window is placed out of service and cannot drive until enough off-duty time passes to bring them back into compliance. That can mean 10 hours parked on the shoulder or in a nearby lot.

Civil Penalties

FMCSA adjusts penalty amounts annually for inflation. As of the most recent 2026 adjustment:

Carriers, non-recordkeeping HOS violations. Up to $19,246 per violation for infractions like requiring a driver to exceed driving-time limits.¹
Carriers, recordkeeping violations. Up to $15,846 per day for failing to maintain, or falsifying, required records.¹
Drivers, non-recordkeeping violations. Up to $4,812 per violation for individually exceeding HOS limits.
Egregious violations. When a carrier requires or permits a driver to exceed driving-time limits by more than 3 hours, FMCSA treats the violation as egregious and may impose the maximum penalty allowed by law.¹

CSA Safety Scores

Every HOS violation logged at a roadside inspection feeds into the carrier’s Safety Measurement System score. FMCSA tracks an HOS Compliance BASIC percentile from 0 to 100, where higher means worse. When a carrier’s percentile hits the intervention threshold (50 for passenger carriers, 60 for hazmat carriers, 65 for general freight), FMCSA flags it for warning letters, investigations, or compliance reviews.¹⁷ Violations stay in the system for 24 months, so a rough stretch of compliance draws elevated scrutiny for two full years. Carriers with acute or critical HOS violations found during an investigation in the past 12 months get an alert symbol that prioritizes them for further enforcement.

The HOS Compliance BASIC has one of the strongest statistical associations with crash risk among the SMS categories, which is why its intervention thresholds are set lower than most other safety categories.

1
eCFR. Appendix B to Part 386 – Penalty Schedule: Violations and Monetary Penalties
2
eCFR. 49 CFR 390.5 – Definitions
3
eCFR. 49 CFR 395.3 – Maximum Driving Time for Property-Carrying Vehicles
4
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers
5
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Summary of Hours of Service Regulations
6
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Hours of Service for Motor Carriers of Passengers
7
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Personal Conveyance
8
eCFR. 49 CFR 395.1 – Scope of Rules in This Part
9
eCFR. 49 CFR 395.2 – Definitions
10
Federal Register. Clarification to the Applicability of Emergency Exemptions
11
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). ELD Hours of Service (HOS) and Agriculture Exemptions
12
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 Subpart B – Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs)
13
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Who Is Exempt From the ELD Rule?
14
eCFR. 49 CFR 395.34 – ELD Malfunctions and Data Diagnostic Events
15
eCFR. 49 CFR 395.8 – Driver’s Record of Duty Status
16
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Supporting Documents
17
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Safety Measurement System (SMS) Methodology