WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is proposing to lower registration fees states collect from motor carriers, motor private carriers of property, brokers, freight forwarders and leasing companies for the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) Plan and Agreement.
The cuts would be applicable for the 2024 registration year. The fees, which have seen reductions every year since 2020, are used to support motor carrier registration and safety programs in 41 states.
A notice for public comments on the issue has been published on the Federal Register.
Fees for the 2024 registration year would be reduced below those of 2023 by approximately 9% overall, with varying reductions between $4 and $3,453 per carrier freight forwarder or lease company, depending on the applicable fee bracket.
For example, a company with up to two power units would see a reduction in fees totaling $4 — down from $41 to $37 — while a company with between 101 and 1,000 units would see a reduction from $4,024 to $3,670 — a savings of $354.
A company with more than 1,001 units would see a reduction of nearly $3,500, — from $39,289 to $35,836.
Fee adjustment recommendations are made when revenue collections result in a shortfall or surplus from the amount authorized by statute, according to the FMCSA.
If there are excess funds after payments to the states and for administrative costs, they are retained in the UCR Plan’s depository, and fees in subsequent fee years must be reduced.
Elizabeth Leaman, who chairs the UCR’s Board of Directors, made the fee reduction recommendation in a November 2022 letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
She wrote that “fee collections for 2021-22 exceeded the combined state revenue entitles of $107,777,059, and the prospective administration costs allowance of $4,250,000 for operating the UCR Plan and Agreement.”
However, Leaman notes, “an upward adjustment to the fee schedule more than likely will be required for the 2025 registration year … because the UCR Plan does not expect that there will be any additional excess funds from over-collection that can be applied to meet the total revenue target. …”
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