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• Unified Carrier Registration Agreement (UCRA) UCRA Filings will process by next business day. Fee is $45.00 (processing fee), plus UCRA fee. Complete UCRA Form Detailed Information on the Unified Carrier Registration Agreement (UCRA)SSRS Is Gone. There will be no Single State Registration System (SSRS) program in 2007 or in future years. Instead, all interstate motor carriers – regulated, exempt, and private – as well as interstate brokers, freight forwarders, and leasing companies, are subject to fees under a new system, the Unified Carrier Registration Agreement, or UCRA, enacted by Congress and administered by states. States will shortly begin to require interstate carriers and others to register for the UCRA program and to pay the new fees imposed under this program. Who Is Subject to UCRA? Any motor carrier that operates in interstate or international commerce is subject to the UCRA fees. That includes many businesses that were not subject to SSRS, including private carriers, exempt carriers, regulated carriers that did not travel into SSRS states, brokers, freight forwarders, and leasing companies. Carriers based in Canada and Mexico and operating in the U.S. are also subject to UCRA. Like SSRS, UCRA Is a Base-State Program. That is, a motor carrier or other business subject to UCRA will register with and pay fees to its base state only, on behalf of all the other UCRA participating states. In most cases, a regulated carrier’s UCRA base state will be the same state as its SSRS base state has been. Which States Are Participating in UCRA for 2007? The following 34 states are in the UCRA program for 2007, and can serve as a UCRA base state:
Carriers and other affected businesses located in other states, or in Canada or Mexico, will have to choose one of these states to serve as their UCRA base state. How Are the UCRA Fees Computed? Unlike SSRS fees, UCRA fees are not per-vehicle fees, but are levied per fleet. Nor do the UCRA fees depend on where a carrier intends to travel, as the SSRS fees did. Instead, whether an interstate carrier travels in few or many states, the size of the fee depends only on the number of commercial motor vehicles it operates. For this purpose, commercial motor vehicles include trailers as well as power units. The total number of vehicles will in most cases be the same as the carrier reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation on its latest Form MCS-150. For 2007, the UCRA fees are:
Brokers, freight forwarders, and leasing companies that do not operate trucks of their own will owe $39. How Will UCRA Be Enforced? When a business pays its UCRA fees, the base state will convey that information to the U.S. DOT, which will flag the carrier’s US DOT number. Roadside enforcement can check for that flag on-line, to determine whether a carrier is current with its UCRA obligations. It is anticipated that states will begin to enforce the 2007 URA requirements about November 15.
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