How do I get and keep an IFTA license and decals?

Chapter 01

Do I need an IFTA license, and which State gives it to me?

You need an IFTA license if you are based in a member State and run a qualified truck in two or more member States or provinces. The members are the lower 48 States and the 10 Canadian provinces (IFTA’s page for carriers). Only one State issues your license: your base State. The rules call it the base jurisdiction. It is the State where your trucks are based for registration. It is also where you keep or can show your records, and where the trucks run some miles (the IFTA rules).

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you drove for a company for years. In January 2027 your own authority goes active. You have one tractor with three axles, and your first loads run from your home State into the States next door.

First, does your truck count? IFTA covers only what it calls a qualified motor vehicle. That is a truck used to haul people or freight that has two axles and weighs over 26,000 pounds. Or it has three or more axles “regardless of weight”. Or it pulls a trailer, and the two together weigh over 26,000 pounds (the IFTA rules). The weight can be the real gross weight or the registered weight. Only the axles of the truck itself count, not the trailer’s. Your tractor has three axles, so it counts, loaded or empty. A small box truck with two axles, 26,000 pounds or less and no trailer does not count.

Next, do you need the license? The rule says that anyone “based in a member jurisdiction operating a qualified motor vehicle(s) in two or more member jurisdictions is required to license”. In plain words, a truck that counts plus a trip across a State line means you need it. A truck that never leaves your State does not. The alternative is a trip permit. The rules let you pay fuel tax “on a trip-by-trip basis” instead. IFTA’s own page puts it simply. Trip permits are for an owner who usually runs in one State and makes only “occasional trips” outside it (IFTA’s page for carriers). You will cross State lines every week, so you would need a new permit for nearly every load. You need the license.

Skipping it costs more. A State that finds you should have had a license can collect the fuel tax you owe to every member State (the IFTA rules).

Which State is your base? Your truck is registered in your home State. You keep your papers at home, and the truck runs miles there too. So all three tests point to your home State. If your business is outside every member State, for example in Alaska or Hawaii, you may apply to any member State you run in. That State can say yes or no. If it says yes, you must bring your records to it for an audit or pay the auditors’ travel costs. It can also ask for a bond, which is a guarantee that the tax will be paid (the IFTA rules).

If you lease your truck to another carrier, check the lease first. On a lease of 30 days or more, the lease says who reports the fuel tax. If it says nothing, the carrier reports. On a trip lease of 29 days or less, you, the truck’s owner, report and pay (the IFTA rules).

One more thing owners often mix up. IFTA is only fuel tax. Apportioned plates come from a separate program, the International Registration Plan, or IRP, and they pay registration fees. Form 2290 is a third thing: a federal tax on heavy trucks, paid to the IRS. And Kentucky, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Connecticut charge their own mileage taxes on heavy trucks. An IFTA license does not cover any of those.

Chapter 02

How do I apply, and where do the decals go?

You apply to your base State, on its own form or website. IFTA sets what the form must ask. That includes your name and business name, where the business is and a mailing address. It asks how many decals you need, and you sign a promise to follow the rules (the IFTA Procedures Manual). The State then sends one license and two decals for each truck. Keep a copy of the license in each truck. The decals go “on the exterior portion of both sides of the cab” (the IFTA rules).

Back to your first week of January 2027. You find your State’s IFTA office through IFTA’s page for carriers, which lists each base State. You fill in the form and ask for two decals, one pair for your one truck. Then you sign the promise. You agree to the rules on “tax reporting, payment, recordkeeping, and license display”. Breaking them can cost you the license in every member State.

What about the IFTA number? Your account number has 11 characters. The first two are your base State’s letters. The next nine are your company’s federal tax number, the EIN (the IFTA Procedures Manual). If the company has no EIN, the Social Security number of an officer can stand in. The number stays the same from year to year until the license is canceled or revoked (the IFTA rules).

What does it cost? Each State sets its own price. The rules let the base State charge the fees its own laws allow for the license and decals (the IFTA rules). A decal fee is meant “to recover reasonable administrative costs” (the IFTA Procedures Manual). We do not list fees here, because they differ by State and change. Check your State’s IFTA page. A State may also ask for a bond. The rules allow it when a carrier files or pays late, or when its audit found serious problems. A carrier based outside the member States can be asked too. The bond must be at least twice the tax you are expected to owe for one return period, usually a quarter (the IFTA Procedures Manual).

The State checks the form and asks for anything missing. It will refuse a license if a license of yours is still revoked in any member State. It will also refuse if the form has a false or missing answer (the IFTA rules).

Then the envelope comes. The license is a sheet about 3.5 by 8.5 inches. It shows your base State, your name and address, your account number and the date it runs out. Each decal is about 3 inches square, with white letters on a background color set for each year. It carries the letters IFTA and a serial number. Your State’s two letters sit in the lower left corner, and the year in the upper right corner (the IFTA Procedures Manual). Together, the license and decals let the truck run in every member State “without further licensing” for fuel tax (the IFTA rules).

Where do the IFTA decals go? The rule says only “both sides of the cab”, on the outside. So one goes on the driver’s side and one on the passenger side. Your State must send instructions for the display with your license. Follow them. Keep each pair on its own truck. Decals may not move to another truck without your base State’s permission (the IFTA rules).

Then you copy the license, one copy for the cab. Since January 1, 2019, every member State must accept a paper original or a paper copy. It must also accept an electronic image, such as a picture on a phone (the IFTA rules). The rule is strict about it: a truck is not “operating under this Agreement unless there is a copy of the license in the vehicle”. In plain words, a truck with no copy aboard is treated as a truck without IFTA. At a roadside stop, a missing license copy or missing decals can mean a trip permit, a ticket or both. Misusing the license or decals can cost you the license.

Now the license brings a duty: a fuel tax return every quarter. Your first one, for January to March 2027, is due April 30, 2027 (the IFTA rules). How to fill it in is in our guide to the quarterly IFTA return. The return is only as good as your miles and fuel receipts, so set them up now with our guide to IFTA records.

Chapter 03

What do I do when I add a truck or the year ends?

For a new truck, ask your base State for two more decals before the truck crosses a State line. Some States issue a temporary decal permit good for 30 days, so the truck can run while the decals come. For a new year, renew before December 31. The State renews only if your returns are filed and your taxes are paid (the IFTA rules). In January and February you may still run on last year’s decals, but only if the renewal is already filed (IFTA’s memo for 2026).

In May 2027 you buy a second tractor. You write to your base State, ask for two more decals and give the truck’s details. Your State offers a temporary decal permit, so you print it and put it in the new truck. The rules call it a “30-day IFTA temporary decal permit”. It is for one truck only and shows the date it runs out. It does not have to be displayed, only carried, on paper or as an electronic image. A State may charge a fee for it, and not every State offers one (the IFTA rules). It stands in for the decals only, never for the license. The new truck still needs its own copy of the license.

Can you keep spare decals in the office for the next truck? In August 2025, IFTA’s members agreed on this. Nothing in the rules stops a State from issuing decals for trucks you do not have yet (the IFTA rules). Whether your State does it is up to your State. From May on, your returns cover both trucks’ miles and fuel.

In October 2027 it is time to renew. A renewal comes only if “all tax returns have been filed” and all taxes, “penalties and interest due have been paid” (the IFTA rules). The license must also be in good standing, not revoked, suspended or canceled. In plain words: every return in and every dollar paid. Some States renew by themselves and just send a notice. Yours wants a form. So you file your July to September return and send the renewal form the same week. A late return can hurt twice. The State can refuse the renewal until it is filed, and it can ask a carrier that files or pays late for a bond.

The IFTA license is not your only yearly renewal. The UCR registration comes due each year too, and our guide to UCR registration walks through it.

Your 2028 license and decals arrive in November. You may put them on right away. The rules let you run with the new ones for up to two months before the date they take effect (the IFTA rules). Until February 2017 it was one month, so older guides may say one. The new decals do not end your 2027 duty. You still file the return for October to December 2027, due January 31, 2028.

Now say the new decals came late, or sat in the office drawer. The rule gives renewing carriers “a two-month grace period (January and February) to display the renewal IFTA license and decals” (the IFTA rules). During those two months the truck must show the old or the new license and decals, or a trip permit for the State it is in. But the grace period is not extra time to renew. In its memo for 2026, IFTA, Inc. wrote that renewals “MUST BE FILED WITH YOUR BASE JURISDICTION BEFORE THE END OF 2025”. It added that the grace period “is for display of renewal credentials, not to file your renewal application” (IFTA’s memo for 2026). Old decals counted in early 2026 only “if a renewal application has been filed for 2026”. As of September 22, 2026, IFTA had not yet put out the memo for 2027. The rule behind it has not changed, so plan to file by December 31.

Chapter 04

What if I move, park my trucks or close the business?

If you move the business to another State, your base State moves with it. You apply for a new license there and close the old one. If you park the trucks but keep the license, you still file a return every quarter, even with no miles. To close the license, file and pay every return up to the end. Then destroy the license, its copies and the decals. Keep your records for four years after each return was due or filed, whichever is later (the IFTA Procedures Manual).

Say that in the summer of 2028 you move your home and your business to another State. You register the trucks there and keep your records there. Now all three tests point to the new State, so it is your base. You apply there, just as you did in 2027. Your account number starts with the base State’s two letters, so a new State means a new number and new decals (the IFTA Procedures Manual). Then you close the old license. The old State cancels a license only after you have met every duty. That includes “the satisfaction of all motor fuel use tax obligations for the license period” (the IFTA rules). So you file your last return with the old State and pay it. The IFTA rules do not say how the quarter of the move is split between the two States. IFTA’s board has said nothing in the rules stops you from holding licenses in two States. Ask both States before you move, so that each quarter goes to the right State once.

Now take the other road. Say freight dries up in the winter of 2028, and you park both trucks. Parking the trucks does not suspend your filing duties. The rule says: “Tax returns are required even if no operations were conducted or no taxable fuel was used during the tax reporting period.” So every quarter you file a return with zero miles. Miss one, and your State can charge a penalty of $50 or 10 percent of the tax due, whichever is more (the IFTA rules). With no tax due, that is $50.

A long stop can end the license anyway. A State may cancel or refuse to renew the license of a carrier that stays inside its home State. That means reporting zero miles, or home State miles only, for three quarters in a row or more. Before it licenses you again, it can ask for proof that you run outside the State (the IFTA rules).

If the break will be long, close the license instead. Ask your base State to cancel it. Once every return is filed and every tax is paid, it can do so. The rules say that “upon cancellation, the original IFTA license, all license copies, and all decals shall be destroyed”. If your State asks you to mail them back instead, do what it says. Then keep the records. The rule is four years after the date each return was due or filed, whichever is later (the IFTA Procedures Manual). Until then, a State can still ask for them in an audit, and our guide to the IFTA audit shows what that looks like.

Closing is your choice. Revocation is the State’s. The State can suspend or revoke a license when the IFTA rules are broken. Unpaid tax is a common reason. You get 30 days from the notice of the unpaid tax. If you neither pay nor file a written appeal by then, the State sends a notice of revocation (the IFTA rules). While a revocation stands, no member State will issue you a new license. To get the license back, the State may charge a fee to reinstate it and ask for a bond.

What has changed? IFTA’s manuals page now lists new editions of all three rule books, in effect since August 26, 2026. We read them on September 22, 2026. The rules on licenses and decals did not change in them. What we could not check is each State’s side: its fees, forms, bonds and how long it takes. Your base State sets those, so read its IFTA page before you apply, and each autumn before you renew.

If you would rather have us handle the license, decals for each new truck, renewals and quarterly returns, here is what we offer.