Hours of Service rules explained: the 11, 14, 30, and 60/70 limits.

Miss the math on your logs and you can lose a day, a load, or your standing with FMCSA over hours you actually worked legally. Hours of Service rules are not complicated once you see them as four clocks running at the same time. This is how the 11, 14, 30, and 60/70 limits work for property-carrying drivers, where carriers get tripped up, and how each mistake follows you on your CSA record.

Note: these limits are the federal rules for property-carrying commercial motor vehicles. Passenger-carrying rules differ. Always verify current rules at FMCSA.

How many hours can a truck driver drive?

A property-carrying driver can drive up to 11 hours, and only within a 14-hour on-duty window, after taking 10 consecutive hours off duty. On top of that, driving time is capped at 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days, depending on your carrier's schedule.

Those are four separate limits, and you have to stay under all of them at once:

• The 11-hour driving limit
• The 14-hour on-duty window
• The 30-minute break
• The 60/70-hour weekly limit

Break any one and you are out of hours, even if the other three still have room.

What is the 11-hour driving limit?

You may drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. Once you hit 11 hours behind the wheel, you cannot drive again until you take another 10 consecutive hours off.

The 11-hour limit counts driving time only. Loading, fueling, paperwork, and waiting do not count against it. They count against the 14-hour window instead.

What is the 14-hour on-duty window?

You may not drive beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, following 10 consecutive hours off. This is a window, not a running total, and this is where most drivers get caught.

The clock starts the moment you go on duty and does not stop. Breaks, meals, a two-hour wait at a shipper, none of it pauses the 14-hour window. Once 14 hours pass from your start time, you cannot drive, even if you have not used all 11 driving hours.

The 11-hour limit caps how long you drive. The 14-hour rule caps the total window that driving has to fit inside, driving plus everything else you do that day.

When do I have to take the 30-minute break?

You must take a 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving time. The break has to be at least 30 minutes and can be any period where you are not driving: off duty, sleeper berth, or on duty not driving.

The trigger is 8 hours of driving, not 8 hours on the clock. You do not have to stop and sleep. You just cannot drive again until you have logged 30 straight minutes of non-driving status.

How do the clocks work together on a real day?

Say you come on duty at 6:00 a.m. after a full 10 hours off.

• 6:00 a.m. You go on duty. The 14-hour window opens, and it closes at 8:00 p.m. no matter what happens in between.
• 6:30 to 10:30 a.m. You drive 4 hours.
• 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. You sit at a shipper for 3.5 hours. The 14-hour window keeps running the whole time. And because that dock time was more than 30 minutes of not driving, it also satisfies your 30-minute break and restarts the 8-hour count.
• 2:00 p.m. You roll out. You have 7 driving hours left on the 11-hour clock, but only 6 hours left in the window.
• 8:00 p.m. The window closes and you have to be parked, with an hour of legal driving time you never got to use.

That is the trap in real life. The 11-hour clock rarely runs out first. The 14-hour window does, and detention time you cannot control is usually what burns it.

What are the 60/70-hour limits?

You may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days, or 70 hours on duty in 8 consecutive days. Which one applies depends on whether your carrier operates every day of the week.

• The 60-hour/7-day limit is for carriers that do not operate every day of the week.
• The 70-hour/8-day limit is for carriers that operate every day of the week.

This is a rolling total. Each day, the hours from 8 (or 9) days ago drop off, and the new day's hours get added. It counts all on-duty time, not just driving.

What is the 34-hour restart?

You can reset your 60- or 70-hour clock back to zero by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off duty. After a full 34-hour restart, your weekly total starts fresh.

The restart is optional. If you never hit the 60/70 limit, you do not need it. It exists so a driver who runs hard early in the week can wipe the weekly clock and start over instead of waiting for hours to roll off one day at a time.

What is personal conveyance?

Personal conveyance is driving the truck for your own reasons while you are off duty, and when it qualifies, it does not count against any of the four clocks. Driving from a terminal to a motel or a restaurant after your shift is the classic example.

The test is who the movement benefits. If the trip is for you, it can be personal conveyance. If it advances the load, positions you closer to your next pickup, or gets the truck to the shop for the carrier, it is on-duty driving no matter what the log says. Under FMCSA's current guidance the trailer can even be loaded, because what matters is the purpose of the movement, not what is behind you.

There is no federal mileage cap on personal conveyance, but many carriers set their own limits, and some do not allow it at all. Your ELD also has to be set to record the time as PC. Logging an on-duty move as personal conveyance is a false log, and it is one of the first things auditors look for. When a move sits in the gray area, check your carrier's policy before you take it.

Are there any exceptions to these limits?

Yes. A few common ones can legally change how the clocks run:

• Sleeper berth split. You can split the required 10 hours off into two qualifying periods instead of one block. One period must be at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth. The other must be at least 2 consecutive hours, in or out of the berth, and the two together must total at least 10. In practice most drivers run it as an 8/2 or a 7/3. When the periods qualify as a pair, neither one counts against the 14-hour window, which is what makes the split useful on a day that runs long.
• Adverse driving conditions. You may extend both the 11-hour driving limit and the 14-hour window by up to 2 hours when conditions you could not have known about at dispatch make the run unsafe to finish as planned. A sudden snowstorm or a crash that closes the highway qualifies. Rush hour, a slow dock, or weather that was already in the forecast when you started do not. The test is whether the delay was truly unexpected.
• Short-haul exception. Some drivers do not have to keep a full log or use an ELD at all. To qualify, all of these must be true: you operate within a 150 air-mile radius of your normal work reporting location, you start and end the day at that same location, you are released from duty within 14 consecutive hours, and you get at least 10 consecutive hours off between shifts. The carrier still has to record your time in, time out, and total hours each day, and keep those records for six months.

These have specific conditions attached. Use them only when you actually qualify. Verify the details at FMCSA before you rely on one.

When did the HOS rules last change?

The last major rewrite took effect on September 29, 2020, and it is the version explained on this page. If you learned HOS before then, four things moved. The short-haul exception grew from a 100 air-mile radius and a 12-hour day to 150 air-miles and 14 hours. Adverse driving conditions now extends the 14-hour window, not just the driving limit. The 30-minute break triggers on 8 hours of driving instead of 8 hours on duty, and on-duty-not-driving time now satisfies it. And the sleeper berth split added the 7/3 option, with neither qualifying period counting against the 14-hour window.

Plenty of articles still describe the old rules, so check the date on whatever you read.

What are the most common HOS violations?

The violations that cost carriers most are the ones that are easy to slip into on a long or unpredictable day:

• Driving beyond the 11-hour driving limit.
• Operating past the 14-hour on-duty window.
• Driving more than 8 hours without the required 30-minute break.
• Driving after 60 or 70 hours on duty in 7 or 8 days.
• Log form and manner errors: problems with how the log is kept, even when no time limit was broken. Missing information like a shipping document number, logs that were never certified, and unassigned driving time on the ELD that nobody resolved all count.
• False logs: records that do not match what the driver actually did, including on-duty driving logged as personal conveyance. These are their own violation, more serious than form and manner, and they carry heavier weight.

Most of these are honest mistakes, not attempts to cheat. A shipper runs long, the 14-hour window closes, and a driver pushes to finish the load. That one decision can turn into a violation on the record.

How do HOS violations affect my CSA score?

HOS violations feed the Hours-of-Service Compliance BASIC, one of the categories FMCSA uses to score a carrier's safety in the CSA program. Each violation carries a severity weight and stays on your record for 24 months, weighted more heavily when it is recent.

That means one roadside HOS violation does not just cost you that day. It sits in your CSA profile for two years, where brokers, shippers, and insurers can see the pattern. Severity weights and scoring change over time, so confirm current values with FMCSA rather than assuming.

To go deeper on how these scores are built and what a good number looks like, read our guide to CSA scores. For how the electronic logging device that records your hours fits in, see our piece on ELDs.

How long do I keep my HOS records?

Drivers must keep the current day's records and the previous 7 consecutive days available in the vehicle. Carriers must retain HOS records, including supporting documents, for at least 6 months.

With an ELD, most of this is captured automatically. But you are still responsible for the accuracy of what the device records, and for the supporting documents that back it up during an audit.

Why this matters

HOS is not really about hours. It is about whether the person behind the wheel is rested enough to be safe, and whether the record proves it. The four clocks are simple once you see them side by side, but they run all day while you are focused on the load, and a single missed break can follow you for two years.

The rules will keep changing, and the pressure to run one more hour never goes away. Compliance shouldn't come down to whether you did the math right at the end of a 14-hour day. We're building Dotra to track these clocks and records for you, so your hours stay clean without you having to think about it.

Dotra keeps your compliance in one place, from HOS records to CSA and beyond. Start your free trial or book a demo to see it in action.