DOT fines and penalties: what FMCSA can charge in 2026

The DOT fines and penalties trucking companies face at the federal level are civil penalties from FMCSA, the DOT agency that enforces the motor carrier safety rules. FMCSA says its enforcement cases start after compliance reviews, complaint investigations, terminal audits, roadside inspections, or other investigations.

That is how a DOT audit ends in a fine. An investigation can close with a Notice of Violation, an informal request to fix the problems, or with a Notice of Claim, which starts a civil penalty case. Under 49 CFR 386.11, the Notice of Claim lists the facts, the rules violated, the proposed penalty, and the maximum the law allows.

The maximums sit in two appendices to 49 CFR Part 386: Appendix A for violations of notices and orders, and Appendix B for violations of the regulations. Both are adjusted for inflation and replace the older amounts written in the statute.

What happens at the roadside, from the inspection report to your CSA scores, is covered in our guide to recovering from a DOT violation. This guide covers the money.

Hours of service

Driving past the hours-of-service limits is a safety violation: up to $19,246 per violation for the carrier and up to $4,812 for the driver. Log problems are priced as records, up to $1,584 a day and $15,846 in total, or up to $15,846 when a log is knowingly falsified.

Exceeding the driving limit in 49 CFR 395.3(a) or 395.5(a) by more than 3 hours is an egregious violation, for the driver and for a carrier that required or permitted it. FMCSA treats its gravity as enough to justify penalties up to the maximum the law allows. Clean logs start with the device and the process around it, covered in our ELD compliance guide.

Drug and alcohol testing

Violations of the testing rules in Part 382, subparts A to F, such as having no random testing program or letting a driver work after a violation, fall under the same $19,246 per-violation ceiling for carriers. Clearinghouse violations under subpart G carry up to $7,155.

For the driver, a failed test means removal from safety-sensitive work under 49 CFR 382.501. The driver cannot return until completing the return-to-duty process in Part 40, subpart O, under 49 CFR 382.503, which runs through a substance abuse professional.

Driving during the 24-hour out-of-service period that follows an alcohol violation under 49 CFR 392.5 carries up to $3,961 for a first conviction and at least $7,924 after that.

FMCSA sets each penalty within the legal range using factors in 49 U.S.C. 521(b)(2)(D): the nature, circumstances, extent, and gravity of the violation, and the violator's culpability, history of prior offenses, and ability to continue in business. The law adds that each assessment must be calculated to induce further compliance.

To apply those factors the same way every time, FMCSA and its state partners use Uniform Fine Assessment (UFA) software. FMCSA's published UFA methodology works like this:

• History: 0 points with no enforcement history, up to 50 for two or more prior closed cases or a prior violation of an order. Only closed cases with an admitted violation in the previous six years count.
• Culpability: 0 points if you should have known, 10 if you knew, 25 if the violation was intentional.
• Corrective action: minus 20 points for fixing violations before the investigation began, minus 10 for fixing them before the Notice of Claim.
• Small business: a 20% reduction per violation for companies covered by SBREFA, the federal small business enforcement fairness law.
• Revenue cap: the total is generally limited to 2% of gross revenue, 20% less for small businesses, with a floor of $2,000 for a company. It only applies if you provide your gross revenue.

The points become a percentage that raises or lowers the fine for each violation. The revenue cap does not reduce statutory minimum penalties, egregious hours-of-service violations, or Section 222 penalties.

When is the maximum penalty required?

Section 222 of the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 directs FMCSA to assess the maximum penalty for each violation when a carrier has a pattern of violations of critical or acute regulations, or repeats the same or a related one. A lower amount requires documented extraordinary circumstances. The same acute and critical categories drive DOT safety ratings.