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The International Registration Plan (IRP) provides for payment of vehicle registration fees for interstate vehicles based upon “apportioning” the fees, which means paying fees in proportion to the distance traveled in each jurisdiction.
Scope
Since it was established in 1973, the IRP has required carriers to declare their jurisdictions of travel for the following year. Only the declared jurisdictions were shown on the cab card; traveling into jurisdictions not listed on the cab card required the carrier to either add the jurisdiction(s) to the cab card or obtain trip permits.
The Full Reciprocity Plan (FRP) was approved by the IRP member jurisdictions in 2013 and made the most substantial changes to the IRP since its original establishment. FRP implementation began on January 1, 2015.
The FRP changed the IRP by granting all apportioned vehicles full reciprocity (intra-jurisdictional and inter-jurisdictional) in all member jurisdictions. With the implementation of FRP, carriers are no longer required to declare jurisdictions of travel. Instead, all IRP member jurisdictions are shown on the cab card and carriers do not have to add jurisdictions during the year or obtain temporary trip permits.
Regulatory citations
- The International Registration Plan Document
Key definitions
- Jurisdiction: A country or a state, province, territory, possession, or federal district of a country.
- Properly registered vehicle: A vehicle which has been registered in full compliance with the laws of all jurisdictions in which it is intended to operate.
- Reciprocity: The reciprocal grant by one jurisdiction of operating rights or privileges to properly registered vehicles registered by another jurisdiction, especially but not exclusively including privileges generally conferred by vehicle registration.
Summary of requirements
Renewing fleets. Renewing fleets under the FRP pay annual registration fees based upon actual distance traveled in IRP jurisdictions during the previous year. The registration costs are based upon the actual miles traveled by jurisdiction. The FRP operates very similarly to the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) in this regard — carriers only pay based on where they actually traveled.
New IRP registrants. A new IRP registrant without any actual distance during the reporting period uses the base jurisdiction estimated distance chart for all 59 jurisdictions and pays the proportionate amount of fees for each of those jurisdictions. Actual distance must be used when the registrant’s fleet accumulated any actual distance during the distance reporting period.
Effective date. The FRP was effective January 1, 2015.