By Evan Reid, Founder of Haul Handbook · Updated Jul 25, 2026
The Pennsylvania requirements table
- Application
- Application for Motor Common Carrier of Property, filed with the Secretary of the PA Public Utility Commission (400 North Street, 2nd Floor, Harrisburg, PA 17120) or through the Commission's eFiling system. Applications may also be requested by mail, email or fax.
- Renewal
- There is no annual renewal fee. The $100 property filing fee is one time. What continues is the obligation to keep insurance on file (a lapse triggers a suspension letter and can lead to cancellation of the authority) and the annual PUC assessment on gross intrastate revenues. Applicants have 60 days after approval to submit insurance, bonds and tariff items or the application is dismissed and must be restarted.
Application fee schedule by authority type
Pennsylvania charges one application filing fee per class of authority, so what a carrier pays depends on the certificate being applied for rather than on a term or a fleet size.
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Who the requirement covers
- GVWR threshold
- NonePennsylvania sets NO vehicle weight threshold for intrastate operating authority. The PUC test is compensation plus an intrastate trip: a PUC number is required when both the origin and the destination of the trip are in Pennsylvania and the carrier is compensated for that trip, at any vehicle weight. A federal USDOT number or FMCSA operating authority does not authorize intrastate business in Pennsylvania.
- For-hire only
- YesThe trigger is compensation. Free transportation with no compensation of any type, and private transportation of property by the owner to himself or to purchasers in vehicles the owner operates, both appear on the PUC exemption list.
- Passenger carriers
- Passenger service is separately certificated. The PUC lists distinct passenger authority types (taxi or call and demand, limousine, scheduled route, airport transfer, paratransit, group and party, experimental, contract carrier of passengers, transportation network company). Taxi and limousine service inside the city of Philadelphia falls under the Philadelphia Parking Authority, not the PUC.
- Household goods
- Household goods in use carriers and movers hold a separate authority type with a $350 filing fee, and household goods brokers are separately certificated. Household goods and most passenger carriers must also file an approved tariff with the Commission.
- Hazmat
- Not confirmedThe PUC pages checked do not create a hazmat-specific intrastate authority trigger, so none is recorded. The published exemption list runs the other way for two waste streams: hazardous waste in the form of flue dust and electric arc furnace dust is listed as exempt from PUC authority.
Pennsylvania insurance minimums
State minimums can differ from the federal filing levels; the federal side is covered in our insurance filings guide.
- Liability minimum
- $750,000 ($750,000 per accident is the PUC minimum for a property carrier vehicle with a manufacturer's gross vehicle weight rating (or gross combination weight rating, for an articulated vehicle) over 10,000 pounds. Vehicles rated at 10,000 pounds or less carry $300,000 per accident.)
- Cargo minimum
- $5,000 (Cargo liability insurance of not less than $5,000 for loss or damage to cargo carried on a motor vehicle must be filed with the Commission. It may be waived if all transportation is in dump trucks, or is limited to farm products, garbage, ashes, rubbish, coal debris, earth, crushed stone, amesite and similar construction materials, or if the value of any one load is not more than $500. A signed cargo waiver must be submitted by the applicant.)
Minimum liability by operation type
General freight is not the floor for every carrier. Hazmat and larger passenger operations carry higher minimums; buy against the row that matches what you haul.
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Other Pennsylvania insurance requirements
Insurance filing forms
Your insurance company makes these filings with the state, not you.
- Note
- Form E is the only binding proof of bodily injury and property damage insurance and Form H is the only binding proof of cargo liability insurance. Both come directly from the insurance underwriter, never from the applicant or the agent, and the insurance company must file them electronically through NIC Insurance Filings. The name and address on the Form E must match the application exactly. Brokers post a surety bond instead. On-hook insurance for towing is not accepted.
More Pennsylvania authority rules
- Penalty: note
- The PUC FAQ states the fine for doing intrastate business without PUC authority is $1,000.00 per violation, with the instruction to stop operating and apply. A certificate must be issued before intrastate service may be provided OR advertised.
- Assessment: detail
- Certificate holders must file an annual assessment report and are billed on all non-exempt intrastate revenue. Public utilities file a statement by March 31 showing gross intrastate operating revenues for the preceding calendar year; the Commission allocates its regulatory expenses across utility groups from those figures and bills each utility, payable within 30 days of notice. Failure to report revenue and pay the assessment can bring civil penalties, suspension or cancellation of the certificate.
- Transferability: note
- Property, Group and Party 16+, and TNC authorities cannot be transferred. A cancellation request must be filed and the new owner must submit a new application. Other authority types file a stock transfer, change of membership, or authority transfer application. When a certificate holder dies, property and GP16+ certificates and any certificate in an individual's name must be cancelled.
- Exemptions: note
- The PUC publishes a list of operations exempt from intrastate authority. Applicants are told not to submit an application if one or more exemptions apply.
- Exemptions: examples
- Interstate transportation (service territory crosses state lines); Free transportation with no compensation of any type; Private transportation of property by the owner to himself or to purchasers, in vehicles owned and operated by the owner of the property; Farm owner or operator hauling agricultural products from the farm or farm supplies to the farm, including an independent contractor hauling exclusively for farm owners; livestock counts as agricultural; Anti-skid materials, ashes, excavated materials and rubbish in dump trucks, except in 5 axle tractor-trailers; Road construction materials to a road construction site, repair site or stockpile, which does not include material for parking lots; Wrecked or disabled motor vehicles that must be towed, plus stolen or repossessed vehicles; salvaged vehicles to and from auctions are not included; Logs, pulpwood, chemical wood and wood chips from wood lots; Buy and sell operations, transporting your own property to purchasers; Transportation incidental to a primary non-transportation business; Cooperative associations hauling for members on a nonprofit basis, and non-profit cooperative enterprises; Federal government moves under contract with a federal department or agency; Property that has been in storage 90 days or more, and warehoused merchandise moved by the warehouseman; Hazardous waste in the form of flue dust and electric arc furnace dust; Voting machines to and from a polling place; Waste with no value, which does not include goods for recycling
- USDOT number display: note
- PennDOT states that intrastate vehicles are also required to display a USDOT number pursuant to 67 Pa. Code Chapter 231, the intrastate motor carrier safety requirements. This is a PennDOT marking and safety rule, separate from the PUC operating authority, and the PUC application pages checked do not make a USDOT number a prerequisite to the PUC filing.
Who needs a PUC certificate
Two facts have to be true together: the carrier is compensated for the trip, and both the origin and the destination sit in Pennsylvania. That is the whole trigger. No gross weight rating, no axle count, no passenger threshold for property work. A pickup hauling for pay between Scranton and Erie is inside the rule.
Passenger service is certificated separately, with its own authority types, and taxi and limousine work inside the city of Philadelphia belongs to the Philadelphia Parking Authority instead of the PUC. Household goods movers and household goods brokers hold their own authority types and file an approved tariff with the Commission. Brokering freight inside Pennsylvania also takes PUC authority, and brokers post a surety bond rather than filing carrier insurance.
Carriers whose service territory crosses state lines are not required to file with the Commission at all, because interstate transportation sits on the exemption list.
The exemption list is where Pennsylvania hides its threshold
Instead of a weight exemption, Pennsylvania publishes a list of operations that need no PUC authority, and tells applicants not to file if one fits. It runs long and it runs specific: free transportation with no compensation, private hauling of your own property to yourself or to purchasers in your own vehicles, farm hauls by the farm owner or an exclusive contractor, dump-truck loads of anti-skid material, ashes, excavated material and rubbish except in five-axle tractor-trailers, road construction materials to a construction or repair site, towing of wrecked or disabled vehicles, logs and pulpwood from wood lots, buy-and-sell operations, transportation incidental to a non-transportation business, and several more.
Read the sourced exemption list below before paying a filing fee. It is the cheapest step in the whole process.
Authority types and filing fees
The Commission prices its authority types in two bands. Property carriers and group and party carriers of sixteen or more passengers sit in the lower band; household goods movers, household goods brokers, passenger brokers, and every other passenger authority type sit in the higher one. The fee is a one-time filing fee, and the Commission's own frequently asked questions confirm there is no annual renewal fee.
Payment has to be a certified check, money order, or attorney check payable to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The sourced fee table below lists each authority type with its amount.
Insurance minimums and who files them
Pennsylvania sets liability minimums by vehicle weight rating for property carriers, with a lower tier for light vehicles and a higher one above it, and separate tiers by passenger capacity for passenger carriers. On top of liability, motor carriers of property and household goods have to file cargo liability coverage, which the federal general-freight rule does not require. The cargo requirement can be waived by affidavit for dump-truck-only work, for a listed set of bulk and farm commodities, and for low-value loads.
The filing mechanics matter as much as the amounts. Form E is the only binding proof of bodily injury and property damage coverage and Form H is the only binding proof of cargo coverage, both filed electronically by the insurance company's home office through NIC Insurance Filings. Not by you, not by your agent, and no longer by mail. The name and address on the Form E have to match the application exactly, and on-hook towing coverage is not accepted.
The annual assessment and keeping the certificate alive
The filing fee ends; the assessment does not. Certificate holders file an annual assessment report and get billed on non-exempt gross Pennsylvania intrastate revenue, which is how the Commission recovers the cost of regulating utilities. Public utilities file a statement of the previous calendar year's intrastate revenue by the end of March, the Commission allocates its expenses across utility groups, and each utility pays within thirty days of the notice.
There is no published flat rate or percentage, because the bill is a share of allocated expenses rather than a tax on revenue. What the statute does set is a ceiling on the total the Commission may assess. Failing to report revenue and pay can bring civil penalties, suspension, or cancellation of the certificate, and so can letting insurance lapse.
The statute behind the certificate
Pennsylvania's requirement comes from the Public Utility Code rather than the Vehicle Code. The Code provides that a certificate of public convenience has to be obtained from the Commission before a proposed public utility may begin to offer, render, furnish or supply service in the Commonwealth, and the certificate describes the nature of the service and the territory it covers. Motor carriers of property are public utilities for this purpose.
That framing explains the rest of the regime: the annual assessment, the tariff filings for household goods and passenger work, and the rule that a certificate has to exist before service is even advertised.
Where this fits in the Pennsylvania launch
A cell reading "Not confirmed" means the agency did not publish a figure we could verify, so we left it open rather than guessed. For the full launch order, work through start a trucking company in Pennsylvania, then line up IRP registration and IFTA if you run beyond state lines. To compare every state at once, see the national intrastate authority table.
Frequently asked questions
What weight triggers Pennsylvania intrastate authority?
- None. Pennsylvania sets no vehicle weight threshold for intrastate operating authority. The Public Utility Commission's test is compensation plus a trip whose origin and destination are both in Pennsylvania, at any vehicle weight, which is unusual among states.
How do I apply for a Pennsylvania PUC number?
- File the Application for Motor Common Carrier of Property with the Secretary of the Public Utility Commission in Harrisburg, or eFile it through the Commission's system. Original signatures are required unless you eFile. Business entities have to be registered with the Pennsylvania Department of State first and supply a Corporation Bureau entity identification number.
What insurance does the Pennsylvania PUC require?
- Liability coverage set by vehicle weight rating for property carriers, plus cargo liability coverage that the federal general-freight rule does not require. Your insurance company files Form E for liability and Form H for cargo electronically through NIC Insurance Filings; the applicant and the agent cannot file them. The sourced minimums table below lists each operation type with its amount.
Is there an annual renewal fee for Pennsylvania trucking authority?
- No renewal fee for the certificate. The property filing fee is one time. What recurs is the annual PUC assessment on non-exempt gross Pennsylvania intrastate revenue, plus the obligation to keep insurance on file without a lapse.
Does the PUC certificate cover interstate hauling?
- No, and it is not needed for it. Carriers whose service territory crosses state lines are not required to file an application with the Commission; interstate transportation appears on the published exemption list. Interstate work runs on federal operating authority instead.
Haul Handbook publishes educational information about trucking registration and compliance requirements. This is not legal, financial, or tax advice. Rules, fees, and deadlines change; confirm with the agency before you file or pay.