By Michael Nielsen, Editor & Publisher | 15+ Years in Diesel Repair & Fleet Operations
Last Updated: August 2026
⏱ Estimated reading time: 15+ minutes
Hours of service rules are the federal regulations under 49 CFR Part 395 that limit how long a commercial driver can drive and work before taking mandatory rest. For property-carrying drivers, the core limits are an 11-hour driving limit within a 14-hour on-duty window, following 10 consecutive hours off duty, with a mandatory 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving, and weekly caps of 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) enforces these limits to reduce fatigue-related crashes, and violations carry civil penalties, CSA points, and immediate out-of-service orders at the roadside.
These core limits haven't changed since FMCSA's 2020 Final Rule. What has changed is the enforcement environment around them — new civil penalty amounts took effect in February 2026, and FMCSA is actively testing two pilot programs that could reshape sleeper berth and driving-window flexibility for a limited group of drivers. This guide breaks down every current rule, the exemptions fleet managers most often misapply, and exactly what's changing versus what's still just a proposal.
Key Takeaways
- The core HOS limits are unchanged since 2020 — the 11-hour, 14-hour, 30-minute break, and 60/70-hour rules that most carriers already follow remain the current federal standard; nothing in 2026 replaces them.
- The 2026 "pilot programs" don't apply to your drivers unless they're individually enrolled and holding an FMCSA waiver letter — using a 6/4 sleeper split or pausing the 14-hour window without enrollment is a violation, not an early adoption of a new rule.
- Civil penalties jumped to $19,246 per carrier violation and $4,812 per driver violation under the February 2026 inflation adjustment — both a meaningful increase over the figures many fleets still have memorized from a few years ago.
- HOS violations are the single most common reason drivers get placed out of service — they accounted for 32.4% of all driver OOS violations in CVSA's most recent International Roadcheck, ahead of licensing and medical card issues combined.
- The short-haul exemption's math is stricter than most dispatchers assume — 150 air miles and 14 hours are hard caps, and missing either by even a few minutes voids the exemption retroactively for the entire day, not just the excess time.
In This Guide
- What Are Hours of Service Rules?
- The Core HOS Limits Every Driver Must Know
- HOS Limits for Passenger-Carrying and Other Driver Types
- Split Sleeper Berth Provisions
- Short-Haul and Other HOS Exemptions
- Personal Conveyance Under HOS Rules
- Electronic Logging Device Requirements
- FMCSA's 2026 Pilot Programs: What's Actually Changing
- Penalties for Hours of Service Violations
- How HOS Violations Affect Your CSA Score
- Best Practices for Staying HOS Compliant
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Are Hours of Service Rules?
Hours of service (HOS) rules are the federal driving-time and rest-period requirements that apply to most commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers operating in interstate commerce. A CMV meets the federal threshold if it weighs 10,001 pounds or more (by GVWR or GCWR), transports placarded hazardous materials, or carries 9 or more passengers for compensation (16 or more without compensation). HOS regulations exist under 49 CFR Part 395 and are enforced by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is the federal agency responsible for regulating and enforcing safety standards for commercial trucks and buses, including HOS, the ELD mandate, CDL standards, and drug and alcohol testing. HOS rules exist specifically to manage driver fatigue, which remains one of the most consistently cited factors in large truck crashes.
13%
Of commercial motor vehicle drivers were considered fatigued at the time of their crash, per FMCSA's Large Truck Crash Causation Study.
According to Heavy Duty Journal's field experience across 15+ years of fleet compliance work, the drivers and dispatchers who run into HOS trouble are rarely the ones ignoring the rules on purpose — they're the ones running the math in their head instead of trusting their ELD, especially during detention delays or when a short-haul day unexpectedly runs long. The rules themselves are simpler than the exceptions layered on top of them, which is where most real-world violations actually happen.
The Core HOS Limits Every Driver Must Know
The core hours of service limits for property-carrying drivers are the 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour on-duty window, the 30-minute break requirement, and the 60/70-hour weekly limit — and none of these have changed since FMCSA's 2020 Final Rule took effect. These four limits, plus the 34-hour restart provision, form the framework every property-carrying CMV driver operates under today.
| Rule | Limit | Resets When |
|---|---|---|
| 11-Hour Driving Limit | Max 11 hours driving | 10 consecutive hours off duty |
| 14-Hour Window | All driving within 14 consecutive hours on duty | 10 consecutive hours off duty |
| 30-Minute Break | Required after 8 cumulative hours driving | 30+ min off-duty, sleeper, or non-driving on-duty |
| 60/70-Hour Limit | 60 hrs/7 days or 70 hrs/8 days on duty | 34 consecutive hours off duty (optional restart) |
The 14-hour window is a hard on-duty clock, not a driving-time clock — it starts the moment a driver goes on duty and keeps running whether they're driving, loading, fueling, or waiting at a dock. A driver can be well under their 11-hour driving limit and still be forced off the road because the 14-hour window closed. Any off-duty or sleeper-berth time shorter than 10 consecutive hours does not pause or reset the 14-hour window under the standard rule — only a qualifying split sleeper berth arrangement can do that, which the next section covers.
Adverse driving conditions provide limited flexibility within the standard limits: when a driver encounters unexpected conditions like snow, fog, or an unusual traffic event that couldn't have been anticipated at dispatch, they may extend both the maximum driving time and the 14-hour driving window by up to 2 hours. This exception does not apply to routine congestion or conditions the carrier should have planned around.
HOS Limits for Passenger-Carrying and Other Driver Types
Passenger-carrying commercial drivers operate under different, more restrictive hours of service limits than property-carrying drivers. A passenger-carrying driver may drive a maximum of 10 hours following 8 consecutive hours off duty, within a 15-consecutive-hour on-duty window — tighter on both counts than the property-carrying driver's 11-hour/14-hour framework. The 60/70-hour weekly limits and the 34-hour restart provision apply identically to both driver types, but the mandatory 30-minute break requirement under the 2020 Final Rule applies specifically to property-carrying drivers, not passenger-carrying drivers.
Team drivers — two drivers alternating behind the wheel of the same vehicle — follow the same individual limits as any solo property-carrying driver; HOS rules apply per driver, not per vehicle. Each team driver logs their own 11-hour driving limit, 14-hour window, and off-duty periods independently, and the non-driving team member's time in the sleeper berth can count toward that driver's own required rest even while the vehicle keeps moving, provided the sleeper berth periods meet the qualifying-time thresholds already covered under split sleeper berth provisions.
Split Sleeper Berth Provisions
The split sleeper berth provision lets a driver divide their required 10 hours off duty into two periods instead of one continuous block, as long as neither qualifying period counts against the 14-hour driving window. Under the current rule, two split configurations are permitted: an 8/2 split (8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth plus 2 consecutive hours off-duty or in the berth) or a 7/3 split (7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth plus 3 consecutive hours off-duty or in the berth). Both periods, when combined, must total at least 10 hours, and neither period alone satisfies the requirement independently.
Split sleeper berth is the HOS provision allowing a driver's required 10 hours off duty to be divided into two qualifying periods rather than one continuous rest period, provided the shorter period includes at least 7 hours in the sleeper berth and the combined periods total 10 hours or more. The time spent in either qualifying period does not count against the 14-hour window — which is precisely the flexibility that makes it valuable for team drivers and for schedules built around predictable loading or delivery windows.
Short-Haul and Other HOS Exemptions
The short-haul exemption allows a qualifying property-carrying driver to skip the Record of Duty Status (RODS), ELD, and 30-minute break requirements entirely for any day they stay within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location, return to that same location, and are released from duty within 14 consecutive hours. The driver must still comply with the 11-hour driving limit and the 10-hour off-duty requirement — the exemption removes the paperwork burden, not the underlying driving-time limits.
This exemption operates on an all-or-nothing basis for the entire workday. If a driver exceeds the 150 air-mile radius, fails to return to the reporting location, or is released after the 14-hour mark — even by a few minutes — the exemption is voided retroactively for that entire day, and the driver must complete a full Record of Duty Status. A separate 16-hour short-haul exception exists for drivers who qualify for the standard short-haul provision but occasionally need extra time: it allows one extension to a 16-hour on-duty period, limited to once per 7 consecutive days (or once following a 34-hour restart).
Several industry-specific exemptions modify standard HOS requirements for particular operations. Agricultural drivers transporting farm commodities or supplies within 150 air miles of the source are exempt from HOS rules during planting and harvest seasons, as determined by each state. Drivers waiting at oil and gas well sites may log that waiting time as off-duty rather than on-duty, which keeps it from counting against the 14-hour window — a provision that acknowledges how unpredictable scheduling can be in oilfield operations.
Personal Conveyance Under HOS Rules
Personal conveyance is the use of a commercial motor vehicle for personal, non-business purposes while a driver is off duty, and qualifying personal conveyance time does not count against either the 11-hour driving limit or the 14-hour window. FMCSA's guidance gives specific qualifying examples: commuting between a driver's terminal and their residence, traveling to a nearby restaurant or entertainment venue during a required rest period, or moving the vehicle a short distance for the driver's safety or comfort — relocating from an unsafe or noisy parking area to a legitimate rest stop, for instance.
The regulation itself sets no fixed mileage or time cap on personal conveyance, but FMCSA's enforcement guidance treats extended claims with real skepticism. The test that actually matters is whether the driver has been fully relieved of all work responsibilities and the movement serves the driver's own interest rather than the carrier's business purpose. A driver logging personal conveyance to reposition toward tomorrow's pickup location is serving the carrier's dispatch needs, not their own — that time should be logged on-duty, not personal conveyance, and inspectors are specifically trained to look for exactly this pattern during roadside reviews and log audits.
Electronic Logging Device Requirements
Electronic logging devices (ELDs) are mandatory under 49 CFR 395.8 for most drivers required to keep a Record of Duty Status, replacing paper logbooks with devices that connect directly to the vehicle's engine and automatically record driving time, location, and duty status. Drivers operating entirely under a qualifying short-haul exemption, or who use paper RODS for 8 or fewer days in any rolling 30-day period, are not required to use an ELD.
ELD compliance has an enforcement dimension beyond simply owning a registered device. FMCSA periodically revokes specific ELD models from its list of registered devices when they fail to meet technical requirements, and continuing to use a revoked device is treated the same as operating with no ELD at all — which generates an automatic violation, not a warning. Fleet managers running mixed device fleets should check FMCSA's registered ELD list periodically rather than assuming a device that passed inspection last year remains compliant today.
At a roadside inspection, an officer will request an ELD data transfer using one of the device's supported methods — typically a web services transfer, email, Bluetooth, or a USB connection, depending on what the specific device supports. A driver unfamiliar with their own device's transfer method during an inspection can turn a routine stop into a prolonged one; reviewing the transfer process with every driver during onboarding, not just during initial ELD training, closes a gap that shows up disproportionately among newer hires.
FMCSA's 2026 Pilot Programs: What's Actually Changing
FMCSA's 2026 hours of service pilot programs test additional sleeper berth split options and a pause in the 14-hour driving window, but neither applies to drivers generally — both are limited-enrollment studies restricted to individually approved participants. As of August 2026, these remain research programs collecting safety data, not new rules any driver can start using on their own.
The two pilots, developed under DOT Secretary Sean Duffy's "Pro-Trucker Package," are the Flexible Sleeper Berth (FSB) pilot and the Split Duty Period (SDP) pilot. Per the Federal Register notice announcing the pilots, the FSB pilot would test two additional sleeper berth splits — 6/4 and 5/5 — beyond the 8/2 and 7/3 splits already permitted under the standard rule. The Split Duty Period pilot would let an enrolled driver pause the 14-hour driving window once per day, for between 30 minutes and 3 hours, using off-duty time, sleeper berth time, or on-duty-not-driving time at a shipping location — excluding that paused period from the 14-hour count entirely.
Key Recommendation
Each pilot is capped at roughly 256 participating drivers, who must apply, be approved, and hold an FMCSA waiver letter naming them specifically before using either split. A driver using a 6/4 sleeper split or pausing their 14-hour window without that enrollment isn't testing a pilot program — they're committing a standard HOS violation. Fleet managers should confirm enrollment status directly with any driver who mentions using a new split, rather than assuming the pilot programs are now generally available.
FMCSA's own Hours of Service regulations page describes the current phase as limited, six-week testing of study design and data-collection tools with a small group of drivers, ahead of the larger enrollment period. Regulatory currency note (as of August 2026): pilot program status changes quickly and enrollment phases are expected to expand through 2026 and into 2027 as FMCSA collects safety data — verify current enrollment status against FMCSA's own page before advising drivers or making scheduling decisions based on either pilot.
Penalties for Hours of Service Violations
Hours of service violations carry civil penalties of up to $19,246 per violation for a motor carrier and up to $4,812 per violation for an individual driver, as of the February 2026 inflation adjustment to Appendix B to 49 CFR Part 386. These figures are not fixed — the Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act requires FMCSA to adjust the entire penalty schedule annually, so a fine amount a fleet manager remembers from even two years ago is very likely already outdated.
| Violation Type | Maximum Penalty | Applies To |
|---|---|---|
| Non-recordkeeping violation (e.g., driving-time limits) | $19,246 | Motor carrier / entity |
| Non-recordkeeping violation by a driver | $4,812 | Individual driver |
| Recordkeeping violation (incomplete, inaccurate, or false records) | Up to $15,846 total | Motor carrier / entity |
Beyond civil penalties, a driver found in violation of the 11-hour or 14-hour limits at a roadside inspection can be placed out of service immediately — the vehicle stops moving until the driver completes a qualifying off-duty period, regardless of freight commitments or delivery windows. Egregious violations, defined as exceeding a driving-time or off-duty limit by more than 3 hours, receive elevated enforcement treatment under FMCSA's penalty framework.
How HOS Violations Affect Your CSA Score
Hours of service violations are the single most common reason drivers are placed out of service during roadside inspections, and they feed directly into a carrier's CSA Hours-of-Service Compliance BASIC score. The Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program ranks carriers by percentile against peers with a similar inspection volume — it isn't a simple 0-100 score, but a comparative standing that insurers, brokers, and enforcement agencies all reference.
During the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance's 2025 International Roadcheck, a 72-hour, three-country inspection blitz, hours-of-service violations accounted for 32.4% of all driver out-of-service violations — more than any other single category, including missing CDLs and expired medical cards combined with several smaller categories. Falsified logs and records of duty status made up a further 10% of driver OOS violations that same year, underscoring that HOS enforcement increasingly targets log accuracy, not just raw hours.
A single HOS violation rarely sinks a carrier's CSA score on its own, but violations accumulate and age out slowly — they remain part of a carrier's safety measurement data for 24 months. A carrier with a pattern of HOS violations across multiple drivers can trigger an FMCSA intervention, a compliance review, or a conditional safety rating well before any individual violation would seem severe in isolation.
Best Practices for Staying HOS Compliant
Staying HOS compliant starts with dispatching to the clock a driver actually has left, not the clock a load requires — a driver 90 minutes from their 14-hour limit should never be dispatched on a load that realistically needs 2 hours to complete, even if the paperwork says otherwise. Build routing decisions around remaining ELD hours in real time rather than around a static schedule built the night before.
The HDJ Perspective
In HDJ's experience across 15+ years of fleet compliance work, the fleets that stay clean on HOS aren't the ones with the strictest dispatchers — they're the ones where drivers trust that reporting a real detention delay honestly won't cost them the load. Every falsified log we've seen traced back started with a driver who felt more afraid of missing a delivery window than of an FMCSA audit. Fix the incentive and the falsification problem mostly fixes itself.
Audit short-haul exemption usage monthly rather than assuming it's set-and-forget. A driver who occasionally runs a longer route that breaks the 150 air-mile radius needs that day flagged and logged under standard HOS rules — treating an exemption as a permanent status rather than a daily qualification is one of the most common compliance gaps fleet managers miss until an audit surfaces it.
Cross-train dispatchers on adverse driving conditions documentation specifically, since it's one of the few exceptions that requires contemporaneous justification rather than after-the-fact explanation. A driver who invokes the adverse conditions exception should have that condition — the specific weather event, road closure, or traffic incident — noted in dispatch records at the time it occurred, not reconstructed from memory during a compliance review months later. Carriers that treat this as a routine annotation step, rather than something only assembled if an audit demands it, hold up far better under FMCSA scrutiny.
Retain time records for short-haul exempt drivers with the same discipline as full RODS, even though the exemption removes the logbook requirement itself. FMCSA compliance reviews can request time records going back 6 months for exempt drivers, and a carrier that only kept casual, informal notes rather than proper time records has no way to prove exemption qualification retroactively — which means every day in question gets treated as if the exemption never applied.
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Finally, treat ELD device status as a recurring maintenance item, not a one-time purchase decision. FMCSA has revoked specific ELD models with little advance warning in recent years, and a driver operating on a revoked device generates a violation identical to having no ELD at all — a check that takes minutes to run against FMCSA's registered device list, but one most fleets only run after a roadside inspection forces the issue.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many hours can a truck driver drive in a day?
A property-carrying truck driver can drive a maximum of 11 hours following 10 consecutive hours off duty, and all driving must occur within a 14-consecutive-hour on-duty window. A 30-minute break is required after 8 cumulative hours of driving. These limits apply regardless of how the 11 hours are split across the workday, as long as they fall within the 14-hour window.
What are the new HOS rules for 2026?
The core HOS rules have not changed for 2026 — the 11-hour, 14-hour, 30-minute break, and 60/70-hour limits from the 2020 Final Rule remain current. What's new is enforcement-side: civil penalties increased to $19,246 per carrier violation and $4,812 per driver violation under the February 2026 inflation adjustment, and FMCSA is running two limited-enrollment pilot programs (Flexible Sleeper Berth and Split Duty Period) that test additional flexibility for a small, individually-approved group of drivers only.
What is the 34-hour restart rule?
The 34-hour restart is an optional provision that resets a driver's 60/70-hour weekly on-duty clock after taking 34 consecutive hours off duty. It's optional, not mandatory — a driver can also simply track their rolling 7- or 8-day totals without ever using a restart, as long as they never exceed the applicable weekly limit.
Can I use the FMCSA sleeper berth pilot program splits right now?
Only if you are individually enrolled in FMCSA's Flexible Sleeper Berth pilot and hold a waiver letter confirming your participation. The 6/4 and 5/5 sleeper splits being tested are not available to the general driver population — using them without enrollment is a standard HOS violation, not a preview of an upcoming rule change.
What happens if I violate the short-haul exemption?
Violating any short-haul exemption condition — exceeding the 150 air-mile radius, missing the 14-hour release time, or failing to return to the reporting location — voids the exemption retroactively for the entire day. The driver must then produce a full Record of Duty Status for that day, and if they exceeded standard HOS limits while believing they were exempt, that becomes a genuine violation rather than a paperwork technicality.
Staying Ahead of HOS Compliance
Hours of service rules haven't fundamentally changed since 2020, but the environment around them has — higher penalties, tighter ELD enforcement, and two active pilot programs that create real confusion if fleet managers assume they apply more broadly than they do. The fleets that stay clean treat HOS compliance as a daily operational habit tied to real-time ELD data, not a once-a-quarter policy review. Whatever changes eventually come out of FMCSA's current pilots, the core math covered in this guide — the 11-hour, 14-hour, 30-minute break, and 60/70-hour limits — remains the rule every driver operates under today.
Know a Dispatcher Still Working Off Memory?
If your dispatch team is scheduling around HOS limits they memorized a few years ago, this breaks down exactly what's changed — and what hasn't — so they can plan routes with the current numbers instead of outdated ones.
