What Is the IRP Average Per Vehicle Distance Chart?

IRP fees are apportioned, which means each member jurisdiction charges you a share based on the distance you ran there. That works cleanly once you have a year of history. In your first year it creates an obvious problem: the fees depend on miles you have not driven yet.

Jurisdictions solve this with the Average Per Vehicle Distance chart, usually shortened to APVD. It is one of the most misunderstood parts of apportioned registration, partly because carriers assume they are being asked to guess. You are not. Michigan puts it well on its own pages: the chart exists *rather than asking you to invent an estimate*.

What is the Average Per Vehicle Distance chart?

It is a published table of averages. Each IRP jurisdiction produces its own chart showing how far a typical vehicle based in that jurisdiction travelled into every other member jurisdiction during the previous year.

The important word is *based*. A chart is specific to the state you register in, because a fleet based in California does not distribute its miles the way a fleet based in Maine does. California publishes a California chart, Iowa publishes an Iowa chart, and so on. There is no single national table you can look up.

So when you register a brand new fleet, your jurisdiction applies its own averages to work out what share of your fees each member jurisdiction receives. Nothing is invented, and nothing is left to your judgement.

When does the chart apply to you?

Two situations, and jurisdictions state them consistently.

• Your fleet is considered new under the relevant section of the Plan.
• Your fleet accrued no actual distance during the distance reporting period.

Texas puts the second one plainly: if a fleet accrued no actual distance during the reporting period, you must use average per vehicle distance. It is not an option you select, it is what applies when there is nothing else to report.

Colorado adds a case people forget. A carrier who has been out of the Plan for a long stretch can find themselves back on the chart, because the test is whether distance was accrued in the reporting period, not whether you have ever been an IRP registrant before.

When must you use actual distance instead?

Whenever you have any. The rule as Colorado states it is that actual distance must be used when the fleet accumulated any actual distance during the distance reporting period.

Read that carefully, because "any" is doing real work. A fleet that ran for only part of the period, or ran a small number of miles, still has actual distance. It reports what it actually did. The chart is for the genuine zero case, not for a thin case.

This is also why existing carriers renewing their fleets are not put on the chart. Once you have history, you renew on your real numbers.

You cannot mix actual distance and the chart

This is the single rule most worth remembering, and it catches carriers who try to be helpful by combining what they know with an average for the rest.

Colorado answers the question directly. Can a new fleet use a combination of actual and average per vehicle distance? No. A new fleet has no actual distance, so the jurisdiction's chart is used to determine fees for all IRP jurisdictions.

It is one method or the other, applied across the whole application. Trying to blend them produces an application that will come back to you.

What if all your miles were in your base state?

A fair question, and the answer is not a loophole. Colorado addresses it head on: if all of the actual miles occurred in Colorado, the registrant reports the actual distance accumulated and pays 100 percent of that jurisdiction's fees.

Running entirely inside your base state during the reporting period does not reduce what you owe. It concentrates it. Apportionment splits fees according to where you ran, so running in one place means one place collects everything.

That is also a useful sanity check on whether you need IRP at all. Apportioned registration is for vehicles operating in two or more member jurisdictions. If you genuinely never leave your state, our guide to interstate against intrastate trucking is the one to read first.

What ends up on your cab card

Once fees are calculated you receive an apportioned plate and a cab card. Under the Plan, the cab card shows the gross vehicle weight for every IRP jurisdiction, built from your base declared gross weight and the comparable weight in each other jurisdiction.

Since the Full Reciprocity Plan took effect on 1 January 2015, every member jurisdiction appears on the cab card whether or not you told anyone you planned to run there. That is what removed most of the old trip permit busywork, and it is why the first year chart matters less than carriers fear: you are not locking yourself out of states you did not predict. Wyoming and Pennsylvania both describe this the same way, covered in our Wyoming CCOWS and Pennsylvania apportioned registration guides.

How this fits with your Form 2290

Carriers setting up a first apportioned fleet are usually doing two new things at once, and the order matters.

IRP fees answer the question *where did you run*. The federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax on Form 2290 answers a completely different question: *how heavy is the vehicle*. It is charged on taxable gross weight from 55,000 pounds, regardless of how your miles are distributed, and no APVD chart affects it at all.

What connects them is the counter. Your jurisdiction wants proof the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax has been paid before it will register a heavy vehicle, and that proof is your stamped Schedule 1. Our guide to getting IRP plates with a Schedule 1 covers exactly that handover, and Form 2290 against IRP, IFTA and USDOT separates all four obligations.

If this is your first filing, first time filing Form 2290 walks through the timing, and the HVUT calculator gives you the figure before you commit.

IRP registration renews every year, on your own cycle

Apportioned registration is annual. A vehicle registered in August 2026 comes up for renewal in August 2027, and the cycle repeats each year from there.

What surprises people is that the renewal month is not the same for everyone. Renewal dates are registrant specific rather than a single national date, which is why Colorado's own guidance works through an example of a registrant whose renewal date falls on 1 April. Yours depends on your fleet and your base jurisdiction.

This is where it collides with your Form 2290, and it is worth planning around. The federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax year is fixed for everybody: 1 July to 30 June, no matter when you registered. Your apportioned plate renews on your own anniversary. So the two almost never line up.

The practical consequence: when your IRP renewal comes round, the state wants a current stamped Schedule 1, meaning the one for the tax period in force at that moment, not last year's. An August renewal needs the Form 2290 for the period that began that 1 July. Turning up with a Schedule 1 that expired on 30 June is one of the most common ways a renewal stalls, and our guide to checking whether your 2290 is current covers how to tell the difference at a glance.

One thing to confirm with your base jurisdiction

The distance reporting period is the window your fees are calculated from, and jurisdictions state it in their own manuals. We are deliberately not printing a date range here, because the safe move is to read it from your own base jurisdiction rather than from a summary. Our state IRP portals page points you at the right agency.

While you are there, confirm two more things: which chart applies to you, and what your jurisdiction wants as evidence of an established place of business. Several states, Wyoming and Pennsylvania among them, treat that certification as a gate rather than a formality.

Key takeaways

• The Average Per Vehicle Distance chart sets your IRP fees when your fleet has no travel history.
• Each jurisdiction publishes its own chart. There is no single national table.
• It applies when a fleet is new, or accrued no actual distance in the reporting period.
• If you accrued any actual distance, you must report actual distance instead.
• You cannot combine the two methods. It is one or the other across the whole application.
• Running entirely in your base state means that state collects 100 percent of the fees.
• Since the Full Reciprocity Plan in 2015, every member jurisdiction appears on your cab card.
• IRP registration is annual and renews on your own cycle. The federal 2290 year is fixed at 1 July to 30 June, so the two rarely align.
• None of this touches Form 2290, which is charged on weight, not distance.

The bottom line

First year IRP registration feels uncertain because the fee basis is unfamiliar, not because you are being asked to guess. The chart is published, the rules about when it applies are stated plainly by every jurisdiction, and the one real trap is trying to blend it with partial actual mileage.

Get the federal side settled first. The Heavy Vehicle Use Tax does not care how your miles fall, it is due on weight, and the stamped Schedule 1 is what your jurisdiction will ask for before it issues anything.