The short version: a West Virginia single-trip permit starts at $20 before bands, overweight and the transaction charge; an escort is first required at 10'6" or more wide; and the load becomes a superload at over 120,000 lb. Everything below carries the West Virginia document it came from, that document's own revision date, and the date we read it.
Corridor
1. Where the load goes next
The jurisdictions this one borders, each chip carrying the fact that decides whether that crossing is the expensive one — so the row is itself a small comparison. A multi-state lane is the actual job, and from here it is one click per state rather than a return to an alphabetical index.
Anything over one of these needs a permit. Every value links to the document that sets it.
Measure
Legal limit
Width
8'6"undated document · read WVDOT: "8 feet 6 inches: Interstate, US, WV, and Local service routes with lanes 10 feet or greater." W. Va. Code § 17C-17-2(a): "any vehicle with a total outside width of one hundred two inches, exclusive of safety equipment authorized by the United States Department of Transportation, may be operated on any highway within the state designated by the United States Department of Transportation or the commissioner of the department of highways or on any highway having a minimum lane width of ten feet." THE 96 IN CASE IS REAL AND NARROW: "8 feet: Local service routes with lanes under 10 feet wide", from the same statute's general rule. It turns on lane width, which a quote does not state.
Height
13'6"undated document · read WVDOT: "13 feet 6 inches: All routes." W. Va. Code § 17C-17-4(a): "A vehicle, including any load thereon, may not exceed a height of thirteen feet six inches". EXCLUSIVE, and uniform across every route class — the one dimension West Virginia does not vary by road. The same subsection puts the liability for low structures on the owner: damage "to any bridge or highway structure and to municipalities for any damage to traffic control devices or other highway structures where such bridges, devices or structures have a vehicle clearance of less than thirteen feet six inches" is the carrier's.
Semitrailer length
53'undated document · read WVDOT: "53 feet: Semitrailer (measurement from tractor rear axle to trailer first axle cannot exceed 37 feet)." AND THE 53 FT IS CONDITIONAL ON THE KINGPIN SETTING: W. Va. Code § 17C-17-4(f) allows 48 ft generally and 53 ft only "where semitrailers have an axle spacing of not more than thirty-seven feet between the rear axle of the truck tractor and the front axle of the semitrailer". A quote states no kingpin dimension, so the 53 ft figure is recorded as the operative one — every modern 53 ft trailer is built to that spacing — and the condition is noted rather than evaluated.
Overall length
None published
Kingpin to rear axle
None published
Front overhang
None published
Rear overhang
None published
Gross weight
80,000 lbundated document · read WVDOT: "80,000 lbs" on interstate highways with "Tolerance: None". THE SAME 80,000 lb ON US AND WV ROUTES CARRIES A 10% TOLERANCE, which the interstate figure does not — so an 87,000 lb load is over the limit on I-79 and inside the tolerance on a US route. The tolerance is recorded here rather than applied, because applying it would depend on the route class of every mile of the lane. W. Va. Code § 17C-17-9 (interstate) was last amended in 2004 and § 17C-17-9a (non-interstate) in 2005; both are old and both are actively in force.
Single axle
20,000 lbundated document · read WVDOT: "20,000 lbs" on interstate highways, "Tolerance: None"; the same figure on US and WV routes carries the 10% tolerance. W. Va. Code § 17C-17-8 was last amended in the 1975 regular session — over fifty years old and still the operative text, which is an old statute in force rather than a stale document.
Not one number per dimension — the whole staircase. Each row is a condition the state actually publishes, what it requires when that condition holds, and the clause it comes from. Where a rule requires escorts and the source states no number, the row says that in the source's own words rather than reporting no requirement.
the move runs on a named segment (WV:turnpike-i64-i77) and width of 12' or more or overall length over 75' or front overhang over 10' or rear overhang over 10'
$20rev. · read 157 CSR 5: "Special Permits for single trips will be issued at a basic fee of $20.00 covering any oversize dimension, overweight, or both types of permits. In addition to the basic fee, an overweight fee of $.04 per ton mile will be assessed." ONE BASE FEE COVERS OVERSIZE, OVERWEIGHT OR BOTH — the ton-mile charge is the only thing that stacks on it. Restated identically on WVDOT's permit-types page ("Cost: $20.00 base fee plus $0.04 per ton-mile for overweight loads"), which corroborates an otherwise undated web source against the promulgated rule. The annual products are not single-trip alternatives and are not applied: $200 oversize-only, $500 oversize and overweight, $200 for mobile homes up to 14 ft wide, and $150 for the first 15 seagoing-container permits plus $15 each thereafter.
Transaction / card
None publishedundated document · read AN AFFIRMATIVE ABSENCE. No statutory or administrative percentage surcharge is promulgated by WVDOH. The FAQ describes payment "using a major credit card or via a pre-established escrow account managed through Bentley Systems" and names no surcharge on either. A SEPARATE $20 CHARGE EXISTS AND IS NOT A TRANSACTION FEE: WVDOT "may, at our discretion, charge $20 for all superload applications that are not activated (resulting in permits) within 30 days of the analysis" — that is a penalty for abandoning a superload application, is discretionary, and never attaches to an issued permit.
Priced by the mile. 157 CSR 5: "an overweight fee of $.04 per ton mile will be assessed." Per mile, on the excess tonnage, with no bands and no flat alternative.
Rounding is not a detail here: the same rate over the same miles can differ by a whole increment depending on which pounds are rounded and in which direction, so the rule is printed with the source's own words rather than applied silently.
Gross weight
Axles
Rate and rounding
Source
80,001 lb and up
any
$0.04 per mile for each 2,000 lb above 80,000 lba part increment is not charged
A permit priced against an unposted-road assumption in March is simply wrong, and wrong in the expensive direction. This is the window we watch, the basis for that window in the state's own orders or statute, and the authority that posts it.
West Virginia is not in the seasonal-restriction registry, so we hold no posting window for it and are not inventing one.
Superload
7. West Virginia's superload threshold
Above one of these, the state stops issuing over the counter and prices the move after an engineering review.
Trigger
Threshold
Gross weight
over 120,000 lbrev. · read Sec. 4.2.A.1, Single Trip maximum: "120,000 Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW)."; sec. 4.2.B: "Superload - Issued for size and/or weight exceeding single trip limits."
Width
By condition (2)
over 16'“interstate” or “interstate” or “divided” or “multilane undivided”
over 15'“two lane” or “county routes” or “local service narrow” or “us and wv routes”
The dimensions at which West Virginia triggers a physical route inspection or an engineering review, and what the agency charges to review it.
Measurement
Inspection / review trigger
Width
Not yet covered
Height
Not yet covered
Length
Not yet covered
Police escorts
9. Police escorts
Charges exist and no schedule is published. West Virginia publishes neither half of the question. The TRIGGER is a commodity test plus agency discretion rather than a dimension: 157 CSR 5 § 6.4.k requires police escort of "houses or other similar oversized structures that could cause significant disruptions to the normal flow of traffic", with "The Division of Highways shall determine the need for a police escort based on the information provided in the permit application and knowledge of the roads or highways being traveled." The RATE does not exist in published form — the West Virginia State Police posts no hourly, mileage, minimum-hours or per diem schedule on its site or anywhere in the Code of State Rules, and carriers coordinate directly with the local detachment or the municipal agency with jurisdiction. 157 CSR 5 was read in full.
This is a positive finding: we searched and there is nothing to quote. It is not the same as "no police escort is ever required here".
Holiday, curfew and night-travel windows are not yet encoded for West Virginia. The seasonal picture — which is a different question — is in section 6 above.
Why those windows are absent rather than estimated
They are not guessed at here. What we do publish is the seasonal weight-restriction picture, with the date we last read each state's own bulletin — a curfew invented from a plausible pattern is worth less than an honest gap, because a reader cannot tell the two apart on the page.
Who issues it
11. Permit office
The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure. We publish no per-state permit-office phone number.
Why there is no phone number here
We are not publishing per-state permit-office phone numbers yet, and the reason is worth stating: the two seed lists available for them are both demonstrably stale — the federal one gives two different states the same phone number — and a wrong number on a page like this costs somebody a morning. The agency behind each figure above is linked from that figure, which is the part we can stand behind today.
Source conflicts
12. Where the sources disagree
Two official documents, both in effect, giving different answers. Neither has been adopted.
superload width threshold
over 16'WVDOH Administrative Procedure, Policy DOH 2.14 — Oversize/overweight permits — Sec. 4.2.A (Single Trip) "Maximum weight and size limits": "2. Width - 15' on a two-lane road, 16' on a four-lane road." Sec. 4.2.B: "Superload - Issued for size and/or weight exceeding single trip limits." Sec. 4.3.B: "Oversize vehicles exceeding these dimensions up to and including 16' wide can travel from sunrise to sunset, Monday through Friday. Travel for vehicles exceeding 16' wide is allowed only on Sunday mornings." rev. · read
over 15'WVDOH Administrative Procedure, Policy DOH 2.14 — Oversize/overweight permits — Sec. 4.2.A (Single Trip) "Maximum weight and size limits": "2. Width - 15' on a two-lane road, 16' on a four-lane road." Sec. 4.2.B: "Superload - Issued for size and/or weight exceeding single trip limits." Sec. 4.3.B: "Oversize vehicles exceeding these dimensions up to and including 16' wide can travel from sunrise to sunset, Monday through Friday. Travel for vehicles exceeding 16' wide is allowed only on Sunday mornings." rev. · read
157 CSR 5 — WVDOH rules governing hauling permits — West Virginia Secretary of State, Code of State Rules — The promulgated rule, filed with the Secretary of State. Source of the $20 base fee, the $0.04 ton-mile charge, the mobile-home escort ladder, the police-escort commodity trigger and the superload provisions. rev. · read
WEST VIRGINIA — Permit Information (Central Permit Office) — West Virginia Division of Highways, Central Permit Office — DATED ON ITS FACE "Revised 3-17-2023", and linked from the WVDOT hauling-permits page as "Updated 3/17/2023". Pages 5-6 carry the ESCORT REQUIREMENTS ladders for overwidth, overlength, overhang and overheight — the GENERAL-FREIGHT thresholds that 157 CSR 5 does not contain. It is DOH POLICY rather than a promulgated rule, and it binds downward only: "Districts and Parkway Authority may require additional escort or movement requirements, but never less than those listed above." rev. · read
West Virginia State Police — West Virginia State Police — Checked for an escort tariff and found none. The patrol publishes no statewide hourly, mileage or per diem schedule for commercial oversize escorts on its site or in the Code of State Rules. undated document · read
West Virginia Turnpike — Safety and assistance — West Virginia Parkways Authority — A DIFFERENT AGENCY from WVDOH. The Parkways Authority operates I-64/I-77 as the West Virginia Turnpike and publishes its own pilot-car rule, which 157 CSR 5 does not contain. UNDATED. undated document · read
WVDOH Administrative Procedure, Policy DOH 2.14 — Oversize/overweight permits — West Virginia Division of Highways — Sec. 4.2.A.1 (Single Trip): "Weight - 28,000 lb. per single axle; 45,000 lb. per tandem axle; 50,000 lb. per tridem truck; 55,000 lb. per quadrum truck. 120,000 Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW)." Sec. 4.2.B: "Superload - Issued for size and/or weight exceeding single trip limits. Vehicle and route specific. No limit on weight, but all loads must pass a bridge analysis. No limit on dimensions but overall size must be suitable for the route. Cost: $20 plus 4¢ per ton-mile." rev. · read
WVDOH Administrative Procedure, Policy DOH 2.14 — Oversize/overweight permits — West Virginia Division of Highways — Sec. 4.2.A (Single Trip) "Maximum weight and size limits": "2. Width - 15' on a two-lane road, 16' on a four-lane road." Sec. 4.2.B: "Superload - Issued for size and/or weight exceeding single trip limits." Sec. 4.3.B: "Oversize vehicles exceeding these dimensions up to and including 16' wide can travel from sunrise to sunset, Monday through Friday. Travel for vehicles exceeding 16' wide is allowed only on Sunday mornings." rev. · read
WVDOT — Frequently asked questions, hauling permits — West Virginia Department of Transportation — UNDATED. Carries the statement that WVDOH publishes no route-by-route weight or clearance lists because every application is analysed dynamically — which is why the bridge fee cannot be predicted. undated document · read
WVDOT — Legal size and weight limits — West Virginia Department of Transportation — The per-route-class limit table. UNDATED — the page carries no publication or revision stamp. Every figure on it is corroborated below against W. Va. Code Chapter 17C, which is what makes it usable. undated document · read
WVDOT — Permit types and fees — West Virginia Department of Transportation — Source of the bridge-monitoring schedule. UNDATED. Restates the $20 base fee and $0.04 ton-mile charge in the same words as 157 CSR 5, which corroborates both. undated document · read
Common questions
Questions
How much is an oversize permit in West Virginia?
The single-trip base is $20, before the dimension bands, the overweight component and the transaction charge. The base alone is rarely what is paid.
When does West Virginia require a pilot car?
The first width trigger is 10'6" or more, and it varies by road class — the figure shown is the lowest across classes.
What is a superload in West Virginia?
West Virginia's published gross-weight superload line is over 120,000 lb. It is not 80,000 lb; that is the federal legal gross limit, not a superload threshold.
Do West Virginia's own documents contradict each other?
Yes, in 1 place(s) we hold both documents for. They are set out in full above, each with its pinpoint citation, and none of them has been adopted.