AI ELD
Mar 18, 2026
FMCSA denied the last major attempt to win a blanket ELD exemption on September 30, 2026. That leaves the exceptions already written into the rule, plus a short list of narrow FMCSA exemptions, as the only lawful ways to run without an ELD. They are narrower than most operators assume, and each one comes with a record you have to hand an officer at a roadside stop. If you are unsure which side of the line your operation sits on, the team behind AI ELD's ELD services can walk through it with you before an inspector does.
The short answer: under 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1)(ii), a carrier may skip the ELD for a driver who needs a record of duty status on no more than 8 days in any 30, for driveaway-towaway drivers, and for vehicles built before model year 2000. Short-haul and farm drivers need no record on qualifying days. A few narrow FMCSA exemptions also exist. Everything else needs an ELD.
FMCSA's own ELD page keeps three lists apart. Exceptions are the ones written into the ELD rule itself: the 8-in-30 allowance, driveaway-towaway, and pre-2000 vehicles. Exemptions are the ones FMCSA has announced separately: truck rental (TRALA), UPS, and the Motion Picture Association. The page lists no active waivers.
The difference decides what you can show an officer. An exception lives in the regulation, so you can point to a paragraph. An FMCSA exemption lives in a Federal Register notice with conditions, and the driver carries the paperwork the notice names. An operation that depends on something found on neither list, such as "we only run local," is depending on an assumption, and a roadside officer does not accept assumptions. The table below puts every case side by side.
Under 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1)(ii)(A)(1), a carrier may have a driver record duty status manually instead of using an ELD if the driver operates "in a manner requiring completion of a record of duty status on not more than 8 days within any 30-day period." Many guides describe this as an extension of the short-haul exception. It is not. It applies to any driver, local or over the road, and it counts only the days on which a record of duty status is required. FMCSA's FAQ confirms the 30 days are any 30-day period, not a calendar month.
Take a local driver working under the short-haul exception. A customer starts sending that driver to a yard 190 air miles away on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 21st and 24th. Each of those days needs a paper record, and eight is still inside the allowance. If the customer calls for the same run on the 27th, that is the ninth record day inside 30, the allowance stops covering that driver, and a truck without an ELD is out of compliance. The window rolls, so old days age out, and the question each morning is how many record days sit inside the last 30.
Keeping that count by hand for a driver who alternates between local and long runs is where most operations slip. Either someone owns the count every day, or the truck gets a device.
Under 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1), a driver is exempt from the record of duty status and supporting document requirements (395.8 and 395.11) if four things hold. The driver operates within a 150 air-mile radius (172.6 statute miles) of the normal work reporting location. The driver returns to that location and is released from work within 14 consecutive hours. A property-carrying driver has at least 10 consecutive hours off duty separating each 14 hours on duty. And the carrier keeps time records for six months showing when the driver reports each day, total hours on duty, when the driver is released, and the total for the preceding seven days for drivers used for the first time or intermittently.
The 150-mile figure is recent. The hours of service final rule published June 1, 2020 (85 FR 33396) raised the radius from 100 to 150 air miles and the duty period from 12 to 14 hours, effective September 29, 2020. Guides that still give CDL drivers 100 air miles describe the old rule. The 100 air-mile figure that remains in 395.1 sits in other provisions, such as the holiday retail-delivery exception in our last-mile delivery guide.
Drivers of vehicles that do not require a CDL have their own version at 395.1(e)(2). It uses the same radius but different limits: return to the reporting location at the end of each duty tour, no driving after the 14th hour on duty on 5 of any 7 days, and none after the 16th hour on 2 of any 7. A driver using (e)(2) cannot also rely on (e)(1), (g) or (o).
The radius is measured in a straight line from the normal work reporting location to the farthest point of the day's route, not along the road. A winding 190-mile road trip can still end inside it; on a straight interstate, the farthest stop has to sit within about 172.6 statute miles.
A day that breaks a condition, whether a shift past hour 14, a different end location, or a stop outside the radius, is a day the driver is not exempt from 395.8, because the exception applies only if the conditions are met. That day needs a record of duty status and counts toward the eight.
"Local" is not a category in the rule. The short-haul exception is, and it is tested one driver and one day at a time. A driver who stays near the yard on Monday and runs a 200-mile lane on Tuesday has an exempt Monday and a record-required Tuesday.
Two other points trip up local operators. A route that never leaves the state can still be interstate commerce, as the last-mile guide explains, and some states run their own ELD mandates for intrastate drivers, which our state-by-state guide lists.
FMCSA's FAQ confirms that exempt drivers can use an ELD-equipped vehicle and still claim their exception. The ELD specification goes further: every ELD must let a motor carrier configure a driver account as exempt. New accounts default to "no exemption," the device prompts for an annotation explaining the exemption, and it keeps recording driving time. A mixed fleet does not have to choose between paper and electronic for every truck.
The question is money against risk. If every driver meets every short-haul condition every day, an ELD adds cost without removing a risk, and the honest answer is to stay on timecards. If any driver crosses the line more than a few times a month, the ninth record day arrives without warning and the penalty lands on the carrier. For those trucks the comparison is a month-to-month device against a person tracking the count by hand.
AI ELD plans are month-to-month with no minimum truck count, and hardware is priced separately, so you can start with only the vehicles that cross the line. See the AI ELD plans and the AI ELD logbook to decide which trucks need a device.
The rule at 395.8(a)(1)(ii)(A)(2) covers driveaway-towaway operations in which the vehicle being driven is part of the shipment being delivered, such as a driver delivering a new truck to a dealer. Paragraph (A)(3) covers operations in which the vehicle being transported is a motor home or recreational vehicle trailer. Neither covers an ordinary tow or a haul with a separate load.
FMCSA's FAQ draws the line the same way. A mobile or modular home transporter is not covered because the vehicle driven is not part of the shipment. Tow operators often assume the label applies to them, which is the subject of our towing companies guide.
The regulation, at 395.8(a)(1)(ii)(A)(4), covers a vehicle "manufactured before model year 2000, as reflected in the vehicle identification number as shown on the vehicle's registration." FMCSA's FAQ says the model year is generally determined from the VIN on the registration, and adds that vehicles with engines built before 2000 are also accepted, even when the VIN shows a later year. Carriers must keep engine-change documentation at their principal place of business under 49 CFR Part 379, Appendix A, and the driver does not have to carry it.
The opposite case, an older chassis with a newer engine, is not addressed in FMCSA's published FAQ answer. Overdrive reported in 2017 that FMCSA's guidance treats the newer engine as controlling, which means that truck needs an ELD. Until FMCSA says otherwise in writing, plan on one.
The exception does not require the truck to stay on paper. FMCSA's FAQ says a carrier can use an ELD on a pre-2000 vehicle if the device meets the technical specifications. A fleet with a few older trucks can put them on the same system as the rest, and our guide to the ELD system for trucks explains how a device reads engine data.
Under 49 CFR 395.1(k), the hours rules do not apply during planting and harvesting periods, which each state sets, to drivers moving agricultural commodities from the source to a point within 150 air miles of it. The same paragraph covers farm supplies within 150 air miles of the distribution point, wholesale-to-retail supply moves within 150 air miles of the wholesale point, and livestock within 150 air miles of their final destination.
FMCSA says the hours rules apply from the point the driver crosses the radius, and time worked inside it does not count toward daily or weekly limits. Drivers should not log into the ELD while inside the radius. The step-by-step is in our agricultural exemption workflow.
Covered farm vehicles, as defined in 49 CFR 390.5, are exempt from the hours rules under 395.1(s), and their carriers need no ELD. The definition covers private transportation by the farm. CVSA's active exemption list also carries a statutory exemption for livestock and insect haulers, which it describes as effective until further notice.
The Truck Renting and Leasing Association exemption covers drivers of property-carrying commercial motor vehicles rented for eight days or fewer. The driver carries the exemption notice, a rental agreement identifying the parties, the vehicle and the rental dates, and records of duty status for the current day and prior seven days where required. Swapping a rental vehicle on an eight-day cycle to stay under the limit is a violation. The renewal runs through October 12, 2027.
UPS's exemption covers drivers using portable ELDs, which record engine data only while the driver is in the truck with the engine powered. It was renewed through October 21, 2027. The Motion Picture Association exemption covers drivers to or from a theatrical or television production site, who keep paper records, and runs through January 19, 2028.
As of October 2026, FMCSA's exemptions page still shows the original expiration dates (October 2022 for TRALA and UPS, January 2023 for the Motion Picture Association), while the renewal notices and CVSA's active exemption list show 2027 and 2028. Treat the Federal Register notice as controlling and carry it, because an officer will ask for the document, not the date.
No item on FMCSA's lists turns on fleet size or owner-operator status. A one-truck authority and a 500-truck carrier face the same test, and owner-operators comparing devices can start with our guide to the best ELD for owner operators.
Foreign registration is not an exemption either: FMCSA's FAQ says Canada- and Mexico-domiciled drivers must use ELDs in the U.S. unless a regulatory exception applies. Vehicles below 10,001 pounds are outside the rule because they are not commercial motor vehicles, which is the line hotshot operators most often misjudge. Preferring paper is not an exemption, as the denial below shows.
The Federation of Professional Truckers asked FMCSA to let drivers record duty status on paper instead of using an ELD. FMCSA denied the application in a notice published September 30, 2026 (91 FR 61914, docket FMCSA-2025-1282). It found the proposal would not achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the rule, said it is bound by the Congressional mandate in MAP-21 and "cannot grant a blanket exemption for any driver or carrier that wishes to be exempt." No exemption takes effect.
The next change will come through rulemaking. FMCSA's 2022 advance notice asked about the pre-2000 exception, glider kits, ELD malfunction procedures, removing providers from the registered list, and the yard-move exception. Land Line reported on July 13, 2026 that the agency's regulatory agenda targets a proposed rule on ELD revisions for November, with no comment period or final rule yet. Some guides say the pre-2000 exception is about to end, but Land Line also reported that FMCSA confirmed in the 2025 Pro-Trucker Package it has no plans to remove the exemption for older trucks.
A claimed exception that does not hold up leaves the driver without a required record. The officer checks that the conditions are met and that the records are where they should be: timecards for short-haul, paper logs on 8-in-30 days, the rental agreement and notice for TRALA. Our roadside inspection guide covers how that plays out, out-of-service orders what follows a failed inspection, and ELD violations and fines what it costs.
If your drivers run near the edge of the short-haul rules, you operate pre-2000 trucks, or your fleet mixes exempt and non-exempt work, send us your routes and vehicle list. Our team will tell you which trucks need a device and which can stay on timecards or paper. Contact the AI ELD team and get the answer before an officer asks the question.
eCFR (Cornell LII). "49 CFR 395.1: Applicability, short-haul exceptions, agricultural operations." Primary source for the 150 air-mile short-haul conditions at (e)(1) and (e)(2), the time-record duties, the agricultural provisions at (k), and covered farm vehicles at (s). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/395.1
eCFR (Cornell LII). "49 CFR 395.8: Driver's record of duty status." Primary source for the ELD requirement and the four manual-recording exceptions at (a)(1)(ii)(A)(1) through (4). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/395.8
eCFR (Cornell LII). "Appendix A to Subpart B of Part 395: ELD functional specifications." Source for the exempt driver configuration requirements in sections 3.1.3 and 4.3.3.1.2. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/49/appendix-A_to_subpart_B_of_part_395
FMCSA. "Electronic Logging Device (ELD) Exemptions, Waivers and Vendor Malfunction Extensions." Source for the split between exceptions specified in the ELD rule and exemptions announced by FMCSA, and for the dates the page currently shows. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/hours-service/elds/electronic-logging-device-eld-exemptions-and-waivers
FMCSA. "ELD FAQ: Exceptions and Exemptions." Source for the any-30-day reading of the 8-in-30 allowance, driveaway-towaway examples, rental truck documents, exempt drivers using ELD-equipped vehicles, and the pre-2000 answer. https://eld.fmcsa.dot.gov/FAQ/Topics?name=ELD_Exceptions_and_Exemptions
FMCSA. "When does the pre-2000 model year exception apply?" Source for the VIN-generally rule, the pre-2000 engine allowance, and the engine-change documentation duty. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/hours-service/elds/when-does-pre-2000-model-year-exception-apply
FMCSA. "Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), Hours of Service (HOS), and Agricultural Exemptions." Source for the radius, planting and harvesting periods, Exempt Driver accounts, behavior beyond the radius, and covered farm vehicles. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/hours-service/elds/electronic-logging-devices-elds-hours-service-hos-and-agricultural-exemptions
Federal Register. "Hours of Service of Drivers," 85 FR 33396. June 1, 2020, effective September 29, 2020. Source for the change in the short-haul exception from 100 to 150 air miles and from 12 to 14 hours. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/06/01/2020-11469/hours-of-service-of-drivers
Federal Register. "Electronic Logging Device Requirements: Application for Exemption; Federation of Professional Truckers," 91 FR 61914. September 30, 2026, docket FMCSA-2025-1282. Source for the denial and FMCSA's reasons. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/30/2026-20043/electronic-logging-device-requirements-application-for-exemption-federation-of-professional-truckers
Federal Register. Notice renewing the Truck Renting and Leasing Association (TRALA) exemption from the ELD requirement. September 12, 2022. Source for the eight-day rental scope, the documents the driver carries, and the October 12, 2027 expiration. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-09-12/pdf/2022-19636.pdf
CVSA. "Relevant Active Exemptions." Source for the current TRALA, UPS and Motion Picture Association expiration dates and the statutory livestock and insect hauler exemption. https://cvsa.org/inspections/exemptions
Commercial Carrier Journal. "ELD waiver for drivers using portable ELDs renewed." October 27, 2022. Secondary source for the UPS portable ELD terms and the October 21, 2027 expiration. https://www.ccjdigital.com/regulations/article/15302222/eld-waiver-for-drivers-using-portable-elds-renewed
Commercial Carrier Journal. "Movie production haulers' ELD exemption renewed." November 4, 2022. Secondary source for the Motion Picture Association renewal through January 19, 2028. https://www.ccjdigital.com/regulations/article/15302742/movie-production-haulers-eld-exemption-renewed
Land Line Media. "An ELD reset? FMCSA to propose rule revisions." July 13, 2026. Source for the November 2026 target for the proposed rule and the report that FMCSA has no plans to remove the older-truck exemption. https://landline.media/an-eld-reset-fmcsa-to-propose-rule-revisions/
Overdrive. "FMCSA considering changing ELD regs around glider kits, pre-2000 engines, more." September 15, 2022. Source for the topics in FMCSA's 2022 advance notice. https://www.overdriveonline.com/electronic-logging-devices/article/15296807/fmcsa-considering-changing-eld-regs-around-glider-kits-pre2000-engines-more
Overdrive. "FMCSA: Pre-2000 ELD exemption applies to engine model year, not chassis." July 28, 2017. Secondary source for how FMCSA guidance treats a newer engine in an older chassis. https://www.overdriveonline.com/electronic-logging-devices/article/14892791/fmcsa-pre-2000-eld-exemption-applies-to-engine-model-year-not-chassis
Three exceptions are written into the ELD rule at 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1)(ii)(A): drivers who need a record of duty status on no more than 8 days in any 30-day period, driveaway-towaway drivers, and drivers of vehicles built before model year 2000. Short-haul drivers who meet every condition of 49 CFR 395.1(e) need no record of duty status on those days, and qualifying agricultural trips and covered farm vehicles fall outside the hours rules. FMCSA has also granted narrow exemptions for short-term rental trucks, portable ELDs used by UPS, and motion picture production drivers, and a statutory exemption covers livestock and insect haulers.
It is 150 air miles (172.6 statute miles) from the normal work reporting location under 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1)(i). The driver must also return to the reporting location and be released from work within 14 consecutive hours, with at least 10 consecutive hours off duty between 14-hour duty periods. The hours of service final rule that took effect on September 29, 2020 raised the radius from 100 air miles. Sources that still give 100 air miles for CDL drivers describe the rule as it stood before then.
A motor carrier may have a driver record duty status manually instead of using an ELD if the driver operates in a manner requiring a record of duty status on no more than 8 days within any 30-day period. FMCSA says the period is any 30 days, not a calendar month. A driver who needs a record on more than 8 days in that period must use an ELD unless another exception applies.
The regulation refers to the model year shown in the VIN on the vehicle registration. FMCSA's FAQ adds that vehicles with engines built before 2000 are also accepted even when the VIN shows a later year, and that carriers must keep engine-change documentation at their principal place of business. FMCSA's published FAQ answer does not address an older chassis with a newer engine. Overdrive reported in 2017 that FMCSA guidance treats the newer engine as controlling, so plan on an ELD for that truck unless FMCSA confirms otherwise in writing.
FMCSA can grant an exemption only if it finds the alternative would achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the rule. On September 30, 2026 it denied the Federation of Professional Truckers' request to allow paper logs in place of ELDs (91 FR 61914), stating that it is bound by the Congressional ELD mandate and cannot grant a blanket exemption for any driver or carrier that wishes to be exempt.