New York Highway Use Tax (HUT) in 2026: Who Needs the Certificate, MT-903 Deadlines, Rates and Thruway Miles

Published October 16, 2026 | TruckerNavi Inc | 39 min read

By the TruckerNavi compliance team, led by Dmitry Borovoy, a New Jersey-licensed insurance producer and author of "Safety Manager: From Zero to Expert".

Short answer: if a truck or tractor with a gross weight over 18,000 pounds uses any public highway in New York State, other than the toll-paid parts of the Thruway, it needs a New York HUT certificate of registration and a decal before the first mile. The credential costs $1.50 per vehicle, ordered in OSCAR once your HUT account is open (Form TMT-39 by fax, about three business days) or by mail on Form TMT-1. From then on you file Form MT-903 every quarter, due April 30, July 31, October 31 and January 31, and you file it even when the New York mileage is zero. The tax itself is per mile and per weight: a tractor-trailer at 80,000 pounds pays $0.0546 per laden mile under the gross weight method, so a quarter with 1,000 laden and 300 empty miles in the state comes to about $59. IRP, IFTA and the federal Form 2290 do not replace any of this. If you go to New York only a few times a year, a trip certificate costs $25, is good until midnight of the third day, and you may buy no more than 10 in a calendar year.

The people who get hurt by this tax are rarely New York carriers. They are owner-operators based in Paterson, Edison, Allentown or Bridgeport who cross the George Washington Bridge with a New Jersey or Pennsylvania cab card and assume that IRP and IFTA closed the state for them. New York does not send a welcome letter. The first contact is usually a weigh station officer looking for a small sticker near the front plate, and by then the fine is already on the table. Everything below is built from the Tax Department's own bulletins and the current Form MT-903 instructions, with the source next to each number.

What is the New York highway use tax and who has to pay it?

The New York State highway use tax (HUT) is a tax on motor carriers for operating certain motor vehicles on New York State public highways, excluding the toll-paid portions of the New York State Thruway. It is a weight-distance tax: the rate depends on the weight of the vehicle and on the reporting method you choose, and the base is the number of miles driven in the state. It lives in Article 21 of the New York Tax Law and is administered by the Department of Taxation and Finance, not by the DMV.

Who needs the certificate, from the same page:

• Any truck, tractor or other self-propelled vehicle with a gross weight over 18,000 pounds. Gross weight here is the HUT definition, not your GVWR: under Tax Bulletin TB-HU-40 it is the unloaded weight of the power unit, plus the unloaded weight of the heaviest trailer it will pull, plus the maximum load to be carried or drawn. The driver and any helper are not counted. A 17,500-pound tractor pulling a 14,000-pound dry van with 45,000 pounds of freight has a gross weight of 76,500 pounds.
• If you elect the unloaded weight method, the certificate is required for any truck with an unloaded weight over 8,000 pounds and any tractor with an unloaded weight over 4,000 pounds. Unloaded weight is the actual weight of the vehicle with all permanently attached equipment and full fuel tanks, again without the driver.

Vehicles with a gross weight of 18,000 pounds or less are exempt, unless you choose the unloaded weight method and they cross the 8,000 or 4,000-pound line (TB-HU-245). Trailers do not get their own HUT decal; their weight is counted into the gross weight of the power unit that pulls them. The one exception is a trailer carrying automotive fuel, which needs its own AFC certificate (more on that trap below).

The tax is imposed on the carrier. TB-HU-260 adds that if you are not the owner of the vehicle, both you and the owner may be held liable for any tax due. Where the truck is plated does not matter at all: a New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Connecticut carrier that runs into the state is covered from the first mile exactly like a company registered in New York.

Is NY HUT the same as the federal heavy highway use tax (Form 2290)?

No, and this is the confusion that generates most of the search traffic around the word HUT. The federal heavy vehicle use tax is collected by the IRS on Form 2290 from anyone who registers a highway motor vehicle with a taxable gross weight of 55,000 pounds or more. It is annual, the tax period runs July 1 through June 30, the return for a vehicle first used in July is due August 31, and the stamped Schedule 1 is what your IRP office wants to see. The New York HUT is a state tax on miles, it starts at 18,000 pounds, and it is filed every quarter on Form MT-903. Paying one does nothing for the other. The full deadline logic for the federal side is in our Form 2290 deadline guide; the side-by-side of all four programs is in IRP vs IFTA vs NY HUT vs 2290. The table below is the short version.

Sources: tax.ny.gov HUT overview and TB-HU-115; IRS Trucking Tax Center; tax.ny.gov IFTA page (license free, $8 per set of decals); dmv.ny.gov IRP page. The IFTA Thruway rule comes from the OSCAR FAQ: "What roads are exempt from IFTA? None."

Gross weight method or unloaded weight method: which one is cheaper for your truck?

When you file the first return of a calendar year you mark one of two boxes, and TB-HU-360 is blunt about what follows: you must use the same method for each return filed during the year, you cannot change the selected method until the following year, and you must use it for all your vehicles. There is no mid-year correction.

Under the gross weight method you have two options. The straight line option rates every vehicle on its own: its laden miles at the gross weight rate and its unladen miles at the unloaded weight rate. The heaviest weight option lets you list only the heaviest truck, tractor and combination in the fleet and apply their rates to everyone; it saves paperwork for a large uniform fleet and usually costs more for a mixed one. The unloaded weight method charges a single rate on all miles, set by the unloaded weight of the power unit, and by the instructions it must then be used for every truck over 8,000 pounds unloaded and every tractor over 4,000 pounds unloaded. That is the catch: it drags light box trucks that were exempt at 18,000 pounds gross into the tax.

A worked comparison from the current rate tables. A tractor with an unloaded weight of 17,500 pounds, running at 80,000 pounds gross with the trailer and load, drives 1,000 laden and 300 unladen non-Thruway miles in New York during the quarter.

• Gross weight method, straight line: 1,000 laden miles at $0.0546 = $54.60, plus 300 unladen miles with trailer at the 16,001 to 18,000-pound rate of $0.0140 = $4.20. Total $58.80.
• Unloaded weight method: a tractor over 12,000 pounds unloaded pays $0.0462 on every mile: 1,300 miles at $0.0462 = $60.06.

The two are close at this mix. The more empty miles you run, the more the gross weight method wins, because empty miles drop to the small Table 2 rates. A straight truck that runs short legs with light freight can come out ahead on the unloaded method. The only honest answer is to take last quarter's New York miles, split them laden and unladen, and price both methods before the first return of the year. Do not copy the neighbor's choice.

How much is NY HUT per mile: the rate tables from the MT-903 instructions

All rates below are copied from the Instructions for Form MT-903 on tax.ny.gov (page reviewed June 3, 2026) and match the Web File rate schedule. They are the Schedule 1 rates, which is what nearly every general freight carrier uses. Rates are dollars per taxable mile in New York, meaning miles off the toll-paid Thruway.

Schedule 2 of the same instructions carries lower rates (for example $0.0390 instead of $0.0546 at 80,000 pounds), but only for three or fewer trucks or tractors used almost exclusively, meaning 90 percent or more of the month's laden New York miles, to haul boltwood, logs, pulpwood, woodchips or raw milk in bulk. General freight never qualifies.

How to get the HUT certificate of registration and decal through OSCAR

OSCAR, One Stop Credentialing and Registration, is the shared portal of five New York agencies (DOT, Thruway Authority, DMV, Taxation and Finance, State Police) where a carrier orders HUT and AFC credentials, IFTA decals, IRP plates and cab cards, and oversize permits. It is the fastest route to a certificate, but you cannot log in until a HUT account exists. Here is the sequence in the order it actually happens.

1. Have a USDOT number and an EIN. The TMT-39 instructions say it plainly: you must have a USDOT number to get HUT credentials, and OSCAR enrollment requires an active USDOT and an employer identification number (OSCAR enrollment rules). If you are starting from zero, FMCSA registration has run through Motus with a login.gov identity check since May 14, 2026; the walkthrough is in our Motus registration guide.
2. Open the HUT account. Fax Form TMT-39, New Account Application for HUT and AFC, to 518-435-8538. The instructions ask you to allow three business days for processing; the department replies by fax or email with instructions to obtain your credentials in OSCAR. The paper alternative is Form TMT-1, mailed with a check for $1.50 per vehicle payable to the Commissioner of Taxation and Finance to NYS Tax Department, HUT/IFTA Application Deposit Unit, W A Harriman Campus, Albany NY 12227-0863. TMT-1 wants, for each vehicle, the VIN, type (truck, tractor, AFC trailer), fuel, make, year, unloaded weight, gross weight, own or lease, and the plate state and number. Have the weights right: operating above the weight on the certificate is a separate violation.
3. Log in to OSCAR and order the credentials. The login is your USDOT number, your NYS Tax ID (the EIN, nine digits without hyphens) and a password; a forgotten password goes through 518-457-5735. Order the certificate and decal for each power unit at $1.50 each, up to 30 new vehicles per session. Then print Form TR-8, Temporary Credential or Receipt of Application, and put it in the truck. Under TB-HU-115 a carrier that already has a HUT account and uses OSCAR may acquire credentials to be used immediately; the TR-8 is carried until the department issues the certificate and decal by mail. The department does not publish how many days the mail takes.
4. Affix the decal, file the certificate. TB-HU-160: on a truck or tractor the decal goes on the body, which includes the bumper, as near as possible to the front registration plate. The certificate of registration stays at your regular place of business, not in the cab. The decal is issued for one particular vehicle and may not be moved to another, even inside your own fleet. It must be surrendered within five days after the certificate is revoked, the vehicle is sold, the lease ends, or the vehicle stops being subject to the tax.

Fees after the first order: a duplicate certificate or a replacement for a lost or damaged decal is $1.50, requested in OSCAR or on Form TMT-334. A revised certificate after a plate change or a weight increase is free; a weight decrease is free only if filed in January, otherwise you cancel and reapply, also free. The $1.50 figure dates from April 13, 2016, when TSB-M-16(2)M reduced the registration and decal fees; the trip certificate stayed at $25. The department may require an annual renewal at $1.50 per vehicle with new certificates and decals; the current credentials are the 25th series, and the next renewal is announced on the tax.ny.gov HUT renewal page and through the Highway use tax email list, so subscribe rather than guess at a date.

Two more things worth knowing about the portal. OSCAR is open every day except 8:45 p.m. to midnight, with telephone support Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET at 518-474-7667 (OSCAR FAQ). And the OSCAR home page carried a notice dated August 31, 2026 that IFTA renewals open November 1, 2026 and that "coming in 2027, OSCAR services are moving." Where they move is not yet published; the same email list is where it will appear. The third way to get a certificate, listed in TB-HU-40, is a permit service company approved by the Tax Department, for a service fee on top of the $1.50; that is the route we use when a client wants everything, including IRP, IFTA and KYU, handled from one desk (permit services).

Leased power units follow their own rule in TB-HU-115: if the lease runs more than 30 consecutive days, the lessee must obtain a certificate and decal in its own name unless it will operate the vehicle for 10 days or less in New York; a lease of 30 days or less needs nothing beyond the owner's credentials.

Only a few trips a year: the $25 trip certificate

If you only occasionally operate in New York, TB-HU-116 lets you skip the account, the decal and the returns and buy a HUT trip certificate of registration instead. The rules, all from that bulletin:

• $25 per certificate, through OSCAR or an approved permit service company (which adds its own fee). No refund for an unused certificate.
• Valid until midnight of the third day after the date it was issued; the expiration is printed on it, and weekends and holidays do not extend it. Carry a copy in the vehicle.
• For the period covered you file no return and pay no tax on the miles driven under it. Keep copies for at least four years.
• No more than 10 trip certificates in a calendar year. Not available for vehicles transporting automotive fuel.

The arithmetic decides this quickly. Ten trips a year is the cap, so anyone with two or three runs a month is already over it; at that volume a $1.50 permanent certificate plus a quarterly MT-903 is both cheaper and the only legal option. Note also that a trip certificate solves HUT only. A vehicle that is subject to both the highway use tax and the fuel use tax may need a separate fuel use tax trip certificate (TB-HU-116), and a truck without New York apportionment on its IRP cab card needs a 72-hour IRP trip permit before it enters, sold through the same OSCAR site along with a 30-day Hunter's permit at $10 (OSCAR FAQ).

Form MT-903: due dates, zero returns and Web File

Anyone issued a certificate of registration, other than a trip certificate, must file a HUT return even if no tax is due, or even if another person will pay the tax on the vehicle operated under that certificate (TB-HU-260). You start filing with the calendar quarter in which you began operating in New York and stay quarterly until the department tells you otherwise.

A due date that falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday moves to the next business day, and for mailed returns the postmark is the filing date. The department reviews every account's total liability once a year and notifies you if the frequency changes; until that letter arrives, keep filing quarterly.

Zero returns. For a period with no New York activity you mark an X in the no-activity box and enter 0 on line 3, then complete the rest of the return. The Web File page states there is no penalty or interest for no-activity returns filed late, but do not read that as permission to skip: failure to file a highway use tax return is one of the two grounds on which the department may deny, suspend or revoke a certificate without a hearing (TB-HU-835). A carrier that runs into New York only in season files four returns a year regardless, and the empty ones take two minutes.

Web File. HUT Web File runs inside your Business Online Services account, calculates the tax, takes payment from a bank account, and issues a confirmation number with the date and time; you can file now and schedule payment for any date up to the due date. To Web File you must report the current certificate number for every vehicle with mileage, which is printed on the TMT-7 (HUT) or TMT-7.1 (AFC). Web File cannot add vehicles to or cancel vehicles from your account, and cannot submit TMT-1, TMT-39, TMT-334 or DTF-406; those go through OSCAR. Fleets over 200 vehicles file by upload. The paper return goes to NYS Tax Department, RPC - HUT, PO Box 15166, Albany NY 12212-5166.

Amended, final, refund. An amended return shows the correct figures for the period, not the difference, with a written explanation attached; in Web File you can amend only returns originally filed there. A final return is marked as such and the certificates (TMT-7, TMT-7.1) and decals are mailed to NYS Tax Department, HUT Registration Unit, W A Harriman Campus, Albany NY 12227-0863, after which you clear outstanding bills and file any delinquent periods, because filing a final return cancels neither. An overpayment can be applied against future HUT, penalty or interest for four years; a cash refund requires Form DTF-406 filed separately.

Fuel use tax. If you are licensed under IFTA you pay New York's fuel use tax on the IFTA return filed with your base jurisdiction, and since IFTA uses the same four quarterly dates, most carriers file MT-903 and the IFTA quarterly return on the same afternoon. A carrier not required to hold an IFTA license that burns New York fuel bought without New York tax files Form MT-903-FUT instead.

Thruway miles: which roads are exempt and how to prove it

The exclusion covers toll-paid portions of the New York State Thruway and nothing else. Which roads those are is spelled out in TSB-M-95(6)M, and the list matters because two roads operated by the Thruway Authority are not toll-paid and are taxed at ordinary rates.

Proof is your problem, not the state's. TB-HU-765 requires you to establish Thruway travel with toll receipts or monthly invoices, and the receipt should carry the certificate number or VIN and the trip number; where a section is toll-paid but no receipt is issued, bridge tickets, vehicle logs and fuel receipts serve. The same bulletin sets the general record rule: daily mileage records for each vehicle with a certificate, showing the date, origin, destination, New York and non-New York miles and the toll-paid Thruway miles, split laden and unladen if you use the gross weight method, kept for at least four years from the due date or the filing date, whichever is later, and kept inside New York unless the department agrees otherwise. On the return itself there are two mileage boxes, total taxable miles and total miles including Thruway miles, and you do not report toll-paid Thruway mileage or the mileage of exempt or excluded vehicles in the taxable box. One reminder from the OSCAR FAQ: for IFTA the Thruway is fully taxable, so the same E-ZPass statement lowers your HUT and changes nothing on your fuel tax.

Excluded and exempt vehicles: household goods movers, farm, government

TB-HU-245 splits the carve-outs into two groups, and the difference is in what breaks them.

• Excluded vehicles are excluded by design, as long as they are used for the purpose they were built for: an omnibus, power shovel, road-building machine, road roller, road sweeper, sand spreader, snow plow, tractor crane, truck crane, well driller. Use one of them for anything else and you must first obtain a certificate and pay tax on those miles.
• Exempt vehicles are exempt by activity, and only while used exclusively for it: vehicles carrying U.S. mail under contract, vehicles owned and operated by government bodies, farm vehicles hauling the farmer's own products, household goods movers operating exclusively under New York State DOT or U.S. DOT authority, fire vehicles, recreational vehicles, and vehicles on transporter or dealer plates.
• Vehicles with a gross weight of 18,000 pounds or less are outside the tax unless you elect the unloaded weight method.

The household goods line matters to a lot of Brooklyn and Queens moving companies. The exemption is tied to the authority and to exclusive use. One general freight load in a month puts the truck under HUT for that whole month, exempt miles included, and the certificate has to exist before the load moves, not after. Movers who take occasional commercial freight are better off holding the credential year-round and filing zero returns for the quiet months.

Penalties for driving without a HUT decal or filing MT-903 late

These are New York State figures from the Tax Law (sections 512, 1815 and 1801 through 1807) as summarized in TB-HU-835. Federal FMCSA penalty amounts are adjusted every year and are not quoted here; the state figures below come straight from the bulletin.

Late no-activity returns carry no penalty or interest, but they still count as failures to file for the revocation rule. The practical order of damage for a small carrier is not the fine; it is the revoked certificate that turns every trip into a violation, followed by the DMV plate hold that reaches trucks that never saw New York. Keep the records for four years and the quarterly calendar on the wall.

How NY HUT fits with IRP, IFTA, UCR and Form 2290

The OSCAR FAQ carries the sentence that settles most arguments with dispatchers: "I am currently registered for IFTA; do I still need to register for HUT? Yes. IFTA qualified motor vehicles that travel on New York State's public highways must have both the IFTA license and decals and the HUT/AFC certificate of registration." IRP is the other half of the confusion. Under the New York DMV IRP rules, apportioned registration applies to a power unit with two or more axles and a gross vehicle weight over 26,000 pounds, any power unit with three or more axles, or a combination over 26,000 pounds; trailers are exempt. IRP distributes your plate fees among states by distance. It does not include a New York mileage tax; HUT is obtained separately from IRP, which is exactly why so many carriers get through registration and still have no decal. One useful state rule in the same family: under TB-HU-860 the purchase, rental or lease of tractors, trailers and semitrailers that in combination exceed 26,000 pounds gross vehicle weight is exempt from New York sales tax on Form ST-121.1.

For a carrier based in New Jersey or New York that runs into the state, the year looks like this.

New York is not the only state that taxes miles by weight, and a New Jersey carrier heading south or west will meet the others. The thresholds and rhythm differ from state to state, so the table gives only what each state's own site states and leaves per-mile rates to the state tables where we did not verify them line by line.

Typical mistakes of New Jersey carriers running into New York

These are the patterns we see in the files of New Jersey carriers who come to us after a New York inspection or a Tax Department letter. None of them is exotic; all of them cost more than the $1.50 they were avoiding.

1. "I have New Jersey IRP and IFTA, so New York is covered." IRP is registration and IFTA is fuel. HUT is a third program with its own certificate, and the OSCAR FAQ says in one word that IFTA does not replace it.
2. Taking the first load and registering afterwards. The certificate and decal are required before operating on a New York public highway. With an open HUT account and OSCAR the credential can be issued the same day and the TR-8 printed for the cab, so there is no reason to roll uncovered.
3. Counting the George Washington Bridge, the Cross Bronx, I-287 or I-84 as Thruway. None of them is toll-paid Thruway under TSB-M-95(6)M. Those miles are taxable, and the auditor will add them back with penalty and interest.
4. Skipping the zero return in the off season. No penalty, but failure to file is grounds for revocation without a hearing, and a revoked certificate makes the next trip a violation with a $500 to $2,000 civil fine attached.
5. Buying a used tractor with the seller's HUT debt on it. New York DMV will not renew or transfer the registration without a Certificate of Tax Clearance. Ask for Form MT-370.1 before the money changes hands.
6. Picking the unloaded weight method because the rate looked lower, or trying to switch in July. The method is locked for the year and for every vehicle, and the unloaded method pulls light trucks into the tax. Price both methods on real miles first.
7. Running a leased tractor for more than 30 days on the owner's certificate. Beyond 30 consecutive days the lessee needs its own certificate and decal unless it operates the unit 10 days or less in New York.
8. Moving the decal to the replacement truck. The decal belongs to one VIN. Cancel the old vehicle in OSCAR, order a new credential for $1.50, and surrender the old decal within five days.

FAQ

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