The short version: a District of Columbia single-trip permit starts at $30 before bands, overweight and the transaction charge; an escort is first required at no width the state publishes; and the load becomes a superload at a gross weight the state does not publish. Everything below carries the District of Columbia document it came from, that document's own revision date, and the date we read it.
1. District of Columbia 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. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Height | 13'6"rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Semitrailer length | Not yet covered |
| Overall length | 55'rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Kingpin to rear axle | None published |
| Front overhang | None published |
| Rear overhang | None published |
| Gross weight | 80,000 lbrev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Single axle | 21,000 lbrev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Tandem axle | 34,000 lbrev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
2. When District of Columbia requires an escort
| Measurement | First escort trigger | First police escort trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Width | None published | None published |
| Height | None published | None published |
| Length | None published | None published |
| Rear overhang | None published | None published |
| Gross weight | None published | None published |
Every escort rule on file, in full4 rules
- At or over 12 ft wide — police escort required under overweight_vehicles.pdf, not until 15 ft under the DDOT FAQ, and no rate is published under either. — Same publisher and same stated year as the FAQ, and it CONTRADICTS the FAQ on every police-escort threshold. See the module header. rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06
- Over 13 ft 6 in high — police escort required under overweight_vehicles.pdf, not until 14 ft 6 in under the DDOT FAQ, and no rate is published under either. — Same publisher and same stated year as the FAQ, and it CONTRADICTS the FAQ on every police-escort threshold. See the module header. rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06
- At or over 75 ft long — police escort required under overweight_vehicles.pdf; the DDOT FAQ publishes no length trigger at all, so this one is unopposed rather than contradicted, and it is still unpriced. — Same publisher and same stated year as the FAQ, and it CONTRADICTS the FAQ on every police-escort threshold. See the module header. rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06
- At or over 120,000 lb — police escort required under overweight_vehicles.pdf, not until 150,000 lb under the DDOT FAQ, and no rate is published under either. — Same publisher and same stated year as the FAQ, and it CONTRADICTS the FAQ on every police-escort threshold. See the module header. rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06
3. District of Columbia single-trip permit fees
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| Single-trip base | $30rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Transaction / card | None publishedrev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 |
| Route analysis review | Not yet covered |
| Route with no bridges | Not yet covered |
4. How District of Columbia prices overweight
The overweight pricing model is not resolved for District of Columbia on 2026-09-18; the permit must be priced by the agency.
5. District of Columbia'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 | None published |
| Width | None published |
| Height | None published |
| Length | None published |
| Short axle spacing | Not yet covered |
6. Route survey and bridge review
The dimensions at which District of Columbia 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 |
7. Police escorts
Charges exist and no schedule is published. The District is the only jurisdiction here where the TRIGGER is contradicted and the RATE is absent at the same time. DDOT publishes two police-escort tables in the same year that disagree on every threshold — OSOWFAQ_2023.pdf at 15 ft wide / 14 ft 6 in high / 150,000 lb and "may be required", overweight_vehicles.pdf at 12 ft wide / 75 ft long / 13 ft 6 in high / 120,000 lb and "Yes for" — and neither document, the DDOT site, nor the Metropolitan Police Department publishes an hourly rate, minimum hours, mileage, per diem or cancellation charge. The DDOT instruction is to email MPD at motorcarrier@dc.gov to find out whether an escort is needed at all. Both DDOT PDFs and DCMR Title 18 chapter 25 were read in full.
This is a positive finding: we searched and there is nothing to quote. It is not the same as "no police escort is ever required here".
8. When you can move it
Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not yet encoded for District of Columbia.
District of Columbia spring thaw restrictions →
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.
9. 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.
11. 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.
12. Every source behind this page (3)
Every document behind District of Columbia3 sources
- DCMR Title 18 § 2501 — Width, Height and Length of Vehicles — District of Columbia Municipal Regulations — "Final Rulemaking published at 33 DCR 3716 (June 20, 1986)". An enactment date for a rule still in force and restated verbatim in DDOT's 2023 FAQ — not a stale document.
rev. 1986-06-20 · read 2026-09-06 - DDOT — Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Permit FAQ — District Department of Transportation — The document states no revision date in its body; "2023" is taken from the published filename and is recorded as a bare year for that reason.
rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06 - DDOT — Overweight Vehicles — District Department of Transportation — Same publisher and same stated year as the FAQ, and it CONTRADICTS the FAQ on every police-escort threshold. See the module header.
rev. 2023 · read 2026-09-06
Questions
How much is an oversize permit in District of Columbia?
The single-trip base is $30, before the dimension bands, the overweight component and the transaction charge. The base alone is rarely what is paid.
When does District of Columbia require a pilot car?
District of Columbia publishes no numeric width trigger for an escort in the documents on file. That does not mean none is ever required — see the escort section above.
What is a superload in District of Columbia?
District of Columbia publishes no gross-weight superload threshold in the documents on file — see the superload section, which shows the dimensional triggers it does publish.