Federal Register data, computed here
Hours-of-service and ELD rules in the Federal Register
FMCSA has published hundreds of documents about driving time and electronic logs since 2000. This page counts them by year and type, lists every final and proposed rule with its effective date, and totals the reading time for any span of years.
Federal Register, snapshotFederal Register API v1, FMCSA documents on hours of service and electronic logging devicesPublished Feb 16, 2000 to Oct 7, 2026Retrieved Oct 10, 2026, 12:09 UTCretrieved Oct 10, 2026
Read this first
This counts documents, not rule changes. Corrections, hearings, guidance, waivers and applications for exemption are in it, so a busy year is not necessarily a year with new limits. A rule that changes the hours without saying so in its title is not counted. This is not the official edition of the Federal Register and not the rule in force: read the text at each link and in 49 CFR Part 395.
Documents by year and type
FMCSA documents on hours of service and electronic logging devices in the Federal Register, by year of publication.
- Final rules
- Proposed rules
- Exemptions and waivers
- Other notices
What is the rule load in a span of years?
Pick the first and last year. The form counts the documents and totals the reading time at your own minutes and hourly cost.
Pre-filled values are Example data. Replace them with your own.
Federal Register documents in the window
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- Final rules
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- Proposed rules
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- Exemptions and waivers
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- Other notices
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- Documents a year, on average
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- Busiest year
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- Reading time for rules and proposals
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- Cost of that reading time
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Pick the years.
Formula: documents are counted by publication year. Documents a year = all documents x 10 / years in the window (tenths, half up). Reading time = (final rules + proposed rules) x minutes / 60, in tenths of an hour. Cost = (final rules + proposed rules) x minutes x hourly cost / 60, in cents, half up. The reading time is your own estimate times a count, not a measure of work needed. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Every final and proposed rule
Click a heading to sort. Includes corrections, hearings and guidance published as rules or proposals; exemption and waiver documents are counted in the chart but not listed here.
Source: Federal Register API, retrieved Oct 10, 2026. Effective = the effective date given by the Federal Register; a dash means none is given. Type is as classified by the Federal Register.
Counts by year
Click a heading to sort. Documents by year of publication.
| Year | Final rules | Proposed rules | Exemptions and waivers | Other notices | All documents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 2 | 15 |
| 2025 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 9 | 25 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2022 | 0 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 20 |
| 2021 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| 2020 | 2 | 0 | 24 | 2 | 28 |
| 2019 | 1 | 5 | 34 | 4 | 44 |
| 2018 | 2 | 8 | 42 | 3 | 55 |
| 2017 | 0 | 1 | 28 | 3 | 32 |
| 2016 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 2 | 23 |
| 2015 | 2 | 0 | 24 | 1 | 27 |
| 2014 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 6 | 24 |
| 2013 | 4 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 17 |
| 2012 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 15 |
| 2011 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 17 |
| 2010 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 12 |
| 2009 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2008 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 11 |
| 2007 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 11 |
| 2006 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2005 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 7 |
| 2004 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| 2003 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| 2002 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2001 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 2000 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
Source: Federal Register API, retrieved Oct 10, 2026. Exemption and waiver = the title says exemption or waiver, any document type. Other notices = all other notices.
What this number means
- The count of documents measures how much paperwork FMCSA put out, not how much your rules changed. A year of exemptions is a year of requests to be excused, not of new limits.
- Final rules cluster around the big rewrites of the driving-time limits, the move to electronic logs and their later revisions. Gaps between clusters are long.
- An effective date is when a rule starts to apply. A rule published in one year can start in the next.
What to do about it
- Pick the rules that touch your drivers, read each effective date, and set a date to check it in your driver file.
- If you run an operation that depends on an exemption or waiver, keep its end date and the notice that granted it with your compliance file.
- Use the rule feed and the comment deadlines page to see what is open now, and comment before the deadline if a proposal affects you.
Questions
Is every document here a change to the hours-of-service rules?
No. The count includes corrections, public hearings, supporting documents, regulatory guidance, 90-day waivers and applications for exemption, together with the rules themselves. A "final rule" document can be a technical correction or guidance, not a new limit on driving time.
How were the documents picked?
The Federal Register search returned FMCSA documents whose text mentions hours of service or electronic logging devices; this page keeps those whose title names hours of service, electronic logging, electronic on-board recorders' predecessors or the ELD abbreviation. A rule that changes hours of service without saying so in its title is not counted.
Which document is the rule that is in force today?
This page cannot say. A table of documents does not replace the Code of Federal Regulations. For the text in force read 49 CFR Part 395 (hours of service) and Part 395 Subpart B (ELDs) on eCFR, and check the effective dates in the table.
What counts as an exemption or waiver document?
A document whose title says exemption or waiver: an applicant asks FMCSA to be excused from a rule for a period, or FMCSA grants or denies it, or announces a short waiver for an event or commodity. They are often more frequent than rules.
How current is it?
The snapshot was retrieved Oct 10, 2026 and the newest document in it is dated Oct 7, 2026. This page is not the official edition of the Federal Register; the official text is at each document link.
Related guides and tools
- FMCSA rule timeline: the last 12 months of FMCSA rules
- Rule change feed: new FMCSA documents
- DOT comment deadlines: what is open for comment
- IFTA records: the other record you must keep
- Per diem: a rule-driven deduction
- Intelligence hub: all open-data pages
See what your last 20 loads show.
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