Track Your Hours of Service Under FMCSA Rules
See exactly how many driving hours, duty window hours, and cycle hours you have remaining. Color-coded gauges for all FMCSA HOS limits — covers both 60/7 and 70/8 cycles.
Reviewed by TruckLeap Editorial Team — Trucking Industry Researchers & Writers
Data current as of
Managing HOS manually is risky. A quality ELD automatically tracks all four limits and alerts you before violations. Compare top ELDs for owner-operators.
HOS Key Limits at a Glance
| Daily driving limit | 11 hours | within 14-hour on-duty window |
| On-duty window | 14 hours | starts from first on-duty moment |
| Required off-duty reset | 10 consecutive hours | before next drive period |
| Weekly driving limit (7-day) | 60 hours on-duty | rolling 7-day cycle |
| Weekly driving limit (8-day) | 70 hours on-duty | rolling 8-day cycle |
| 34-hour restart requirement | 2× 1AM–5AM periods | resets 60/70-hr cycle |
Sources: FMCSA Hours of Service regulations 49 CFR Part 395
Quick Answer
Federal HOS rules allow 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour on-duty window, with a mandatory 30-minute break after 8 consecutive hours of on-duty time. A 34-hour restart resets your 60- or 70-hour cycle clock. Enter your current hours below to see exactly how much drive time you have left and when your next required break is due.
Four rules, four clocks — understand all of them or risk a violation
Most drivers know about the 11-hour driving limit. Far fewer understand that you can get put out of service without ever touching your drive-time clock. The 14-hour rule catches more drivers off guard than any other HOS regulation, and it's the one that most often turns a profitable day into a dead stop.
Here's how each rule works in plain language, with real examples of how they interact on an actual workday.
After 10 consecutive off-duty hours, you have up to 11 hours available to drive. This resets every time you get a full 10-hour break. Most long-haul drivers push close to this limit daily — 11 hours at 60 mph is 660 miles, which is roughly a good day's run on I-70 or I-40.
The catch: you have to complete all 11 hours within your 14-hour window. If your 14-hour window closes before you use all 11 drive hours, those unused hours disappear.
This is the one that trips people up. The 14-hour clock starts when you go on duty — not when you start driving. If you do a 45-minute pre-trip at 6:00 AM, your duty window closes at 8:00 PM, period. A 2-hour break at a truck stop during the day does not pause or extend that window.
A driver who starts their shift at 5:30 AM, spends an hour loading, drives 9 hours, takes a 2-hour break, then tries to drive again at 7:00 PM is in violation — even with drive hours remaining.
After accumulating 8 hours of driving time since your last qualifying rest, you must take a 30-minute break before driving again. The break must be taken off-duty or in the sleeper berth. You cannot fulfill this requirement while sitting at a shipper's dock in on-duty status.
The practical implication: plan this break proactively. If you're 7.5 hours into your driving and 30 minutes from a truck stop, stop there. Waiting until you hit 8 hours means you need to pull over immediately, wherever you are — not always a safe or convenient option.
The 70/8 cycle is the standard for most trucking operations. You cannot exceed 70 on-duty hours in any rolling 8-day period. This includes driving time plus all other on-duty time — pre-trips, post-trips, loading supervision, fueling, waiting at shippers in on-duty status.
The 60/7 cycle is used by carriers that don't operate every day of the week. It limits you to 60 on-duty hours in any 7 consecutive days.
If your cycle hours get depleted, a 34-hour restart resets your rolling count to zero. There are no restrictions on how many restarts you can take or when you take them — the old rules requiring two 1:00–5:00 AM periods were eliminated in 2015 and have not been reinstated.
The restart doesn't reset your daily limits (11-hour and 14-hour) — those reset with your regular 10-hour off-duty period. The restart only affects your cycle hour count.
Drivers who operate within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location and return to that location each day may qualify for the short-haul exemption. This eliminates the 30-minute break requirement and the 14-hour rule for qualifying trips, and also eliminates the ELD requirement. Check 49 CFR § 395.1(e) for exact criteria.
Legal strategies experienced drivers use to run more miles and fewer violations
Running maximum legal miles isn't about pushing rules to their limits — it's about planning your day so the limits don't sneak up on you. Experienced drivers who consistently run 500–600 miles a day without violations all have one thing in common: they treat HOS management like route planning, not an afterthought.
Your 14-hour window starts at your first on-duty activity. If you can complete your pre-trip, fuel stop, and paperwork before your pickup appointment, do it the night before or use the sleeper berth provision. Some drivers do pre-trips while still technically off-duty using the personal conveyance provision for movement to a fueling location — know your carrier's policy and what your ELD logs correctly.
For local and regional drivers: if your shipper has a history of late appointments, push your start time. A driver who starts duty at 8:00 AM for a 9:00 AM appointment that doesn't load until 11:00 AM has burned 3 hours of their 14-hour window before turning a wheel.
If your truck has a sleeper berth, you can split your required 10-hour off-duty period into two parts: one period of at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth and one period of at least 2 consecutive hours either off-duty or in the sleeper berth. Neither period counts against your 14-hour window.
This is powerful for team drivers and solo drivers running irregular schedules. A driver who takes an 8-hour sleeper break followed by a 2-hour off-duty break effectively pauses the 14-hour clock during that 2-hour period, giving more flexibility to complete the day's run.
Don't wait until you're forced to stop. The optimal time for a mandated break is during naturally unavoidable delays — fuel stops, weigh station queues, or pickup/delivery wait times where you can legally log off-duty. If a shipper has a consistent 45-minute wait, go off-duty during that wait. It resets your break clock and doesn't cost you any productive time.
One real-world example: a driver hauling produce from Salinas, CA to a Denver distribution center routinely chains their mandated break with a fuel stop in Barstow or Kingman. The fuel stop takes 20–25 minutes, and adding another 5–10 minutes off duty covers the 30-minute requirement. No productive time lost.
If you're running a regular weekly schedule, the timing of your 34-hour restart matters. A driver who finishes their week on a Friday evening and takes a full weekend off has 34+ hours of restart automatically — they start Monday with a full 70-hour cycle.
But if you're running hard mid-week and your cycle hours are down to 15–20, it can be worth taking a strategic restart on Wednesday night rather than limping through Thursday and Friday. You lose one partial day but gain a full cycle for the rest of the week. Run the numbers with this HOS calculator before deciding.
The best HOS violation prevention is a dispatcher who knows your hours before they call you with a load. Share your current status at the start of each shift. A dispatcher who knows you have 4 cycle hours remaining won't book you on a 6-hour run that creates a violation.
If you're working with a dispatch service, they should be tracking this actively. If they're not, that's a service quality issue worth addressing.
Understanding CSA points, inspection triggers, and how to protect your record
HOS violations are the most common category of violations found during roadside inspections. In 2023, hours of service violations accounted for roughly 20% of all out-of-service orders issued during Level I and Level II inspections. For owner-operators, a single serious violation can affect your CSA score, your insurance rates, and your ability to get loads from brokers who check carrier safety scores.
Not all violations carry the same weight. FMCSA assigns violations to severity categories under the CSA BASIC (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories) system:
Out-of-service violations (the 7-point offenses) are the ones that hurt. A driver found in violation at a weigh station or inspection point is parked until they've accumulated enough off-duty time to legally drive. That means missed deliveries, late fees, and a blemish that stays on your CSA record for 24 months.
Not every truck gets inspected at every scale. Inspectors use several factors to select targets:
PrePass and CVSA screening systems flag trucks with elevated CSA scores. A carrier or driver with a poor HOS BASIC score is more likely to be directed into the scale for inspection. This creates a feedback loop — violations raise your score, which leads to more inspections, which increases the chance of finding more violations.
New authority carriers (less than 18 months of operation) are flagged more frequently. If you recently got your own MC number, expect more inspections in your first year.
Certain corridors and states are more active than others. California, Texas, and Illinois weigh stations are known for thorough Level I inspections. If you're running these corridors regularly, your HOS discipline needs to be airtight.
Your ELD records the last 8 days of driving data. During a roadside inspection, the officer can view your logs directly on the device or via a wireless transfer. They're looking for gaps in the logs, unassigned driving events (the ELD detected motion but no driver was logged in), and the four limit violations described above.
During a carrier compliance review or audit, FMCSA investigators pull 6 months of ELD data. They run it through automated analysis tools that flag patterns — drivers who consistently hit exactly 11.0 hours, drivers whose off-duty periods are suspiciously short, etc. The systems are sophisticated.
If you're cited at a roadside inspection, stay calm and professional. You have the right to review the inspection report (the DataQ system at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov lets you do this online). If the violation is incorrect — for example, an officer miscalculated your hours or your ELD data was misread — you can file a DataQ challenge within 60 days of the inspection to have it reviewed and potentially removed.
For owner-operators: keep a log of any legitimate circumstances that affected your hours — mechanical breakdowns, weather holds, shipper delays that forced you to park. If you ever face an audit, documented explanations can support your case. Your ELD provider may also offer compliance monitoring tools that alert you before you approach a violation — this is worth the small monthly cost compared to the penalty exposure.
A single out-of-service violation at a roadside inspection costs you more than just the potential fine. Count the hours you're parked, the missed delivery, any late fees assessed by the receiver, and the CSA point increase that could affect your insurance premium at renewal. Owner-operators with clean CSA records consistently report lower insurance rates — often $500–$1,500/year cheaper than operators with violation history. Over a five-year period, clean logs can save more than some trucks cost.
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