What is IFTA?
IFTA stands for the International Fuel Tax Agreement. It is a cooperative arrangement between the 48 contiguous U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces that simplifies how interstate truckers report and pay fuel taxes. Before IFTA, a driver running through six states had to obtain a separate fuel permit and file a separate return with each one. IFTA replaced that with a single license, a single set of decals, and one quarterly return filed with your base jurisdiction — the state where your truck is registered. Your base jurisdiction then redistributes the money to every state you ran in.
IFTA applies to qualified motor vehicles used to carry freight across state lines: any truck with a gross vehicle weight over 26,000 lbs, or with three or more axles regardless of weight, or a combination exceeding 26,000 lbs. If you run interstate in a Class 8 tractor, you almost certainly need an IFTA license.
The core idea is simple but easy to get wrong: fuel tax is owed to the state where the fuel is burned, not where it is purchased. You pay fuel tax at the pump in whichever state you fill up. At the end of the quarter, IFTA reconciles what you actually burned in each state against what you already paid there — and you either owe the difference or get a credit. Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are not IFTA members, and Oregon uses a weight-mile tax instead of a per-gallon fuel tax.
How IFTA tax is calculated
Every IFTA return comes down to one equation applied to each state you drove in:
where taxable gallons = miles driven in state ÷ fleet MPG
“Taxable gallons” is the fuel you burned in that state — estimated from your miles and your average MPG. “Gallons purchased” is the fuel you boughtthere, on which you already paid tax at the pump. The difference, multiplied by the state’s rate, is what you owe that state. A negative result is a credit: you bought more taxable fuel in that state than you burned.
Here is an illustrative slice of a quarter at a fleet average of 6.5 MPG, using Q2 2026rates. Say you ran 1,000 miles in Illinois, 1,200 in Indiana and 800 in Ohio, and you happened to buy 300 gallons of fuel while in Illinois:
| State | Miles | Taxable gal (÷6.5) | Bought gal | Rate | Net tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois | 1,000 | 153.8 | 300 | $0.738 | -$107.86 |
| Indiana | 1,200 | 184.6 | 0 | $0.630 | $116.31 |
| Ohio | 800 | 123.1 | 0 | $0.470 | $57.85 |
| Quarter total owed | $66.29 | ||||
Notice Illinois came back as a $107.86 credit — you bought far more fuel there than you burned, so you overpaid Illinois at the pump. Indiana and Ohio, where you burned fuel but bought none, are where the money is owed. Net it all and you owe roughly $66.29 for the quarter. (This is a teaching slice: on a real return your purchased gallons are spread across many states and your MPG is computed from your own totals — plug your real numbers into the calculator above.)
The 4 steps to calculate IFTA
- 1. Total your miles by state. Pull your trip records or ELD mileage report and add up the miles you drove in each jurisdiction during the quarter. Your total of all state miles should match your odometer miles for the period.
- 2. Calculate your fleet MPG. Divide total miles for the quarter by total gallons purchased. Carry it to two decimals. This single average is used for every state — IFTA does not expect a different MPG per state.
- 3. Find taxable gallons per state. For each state, divide the miles you drove there by your fleet MPG. That is the fuel you are deemed to have burned — and therefore owe tax on — in that state.
- 4. Net the tax per state. Multiply each state’s taxable gallons by its tax rate, subtract the tax you already paid on fuel bought there, and add up all the states. A positive total is what you remit with your return; a negative total is a refund or credit.
Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia add a surcharge on top of the base rate, billed on taxable gallons with no purchase credit — file those separately. Oregon’s weight-mile tax is also handled outside the IFTA fuel-tax columns.
IFTA rates by state — Q2 2026
These are the Q2 2026 diesel (special fuel) tax rates in U.S. dollars per gallon, the same table the calculator above uses. Rates change quarterly — always confirm against your base jurisdiction before filing.
| Jurisdiction | Code | Diesel rate ($/gal) |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | AL | $0.310 |
| Alaska | AK | $0.089 |
| Alberta | AB | $0.360 |
| Arizona | AZ | $0.260 |
| Arkansas | AR | $0.285 |
| British Columbia | BC | $0.415 |
| California | CA | $0.971 |
| Colorado | CO | $0.325 |
| Connecticut | CT | $0.489 |
| Delaware | DE | $0.220 |
| District of Columbia | DC | $0.235 |
| Florida | FL | $0.410 |
| Georgia | GA | $0.373 |
| Hawaii | HI | $0.165 |
| Idaho | ID | $0.320 |
| Illinois | IL | $0.738 |
| Indiana | IN | $0.630 |
| Iowa | IA | $0.325 |
| Kansas | KS | $0.260 |
| Kentucky | KY | $0.220 |
| Louisiana | LA | $0.200 |
| Maine | ME | $0.312 |
| Manitoba | MB | $0.346 |
| Maryland | MD | $0.468 |
| Massachusetts | MA | $0.240 |
| Michigan | MI | $0.524 |
| Minnesota | MN | $0.326 |
| Mississippi | MS | $0.180 |
| Missouri | MO | $0.295 |
| Montana | MT | $0.297 |
| Nebraska | NE | $0.318 |
| Nevada | NV | $0.270 |
| New Brunswick | NB | $0.427 |
| New Hampshire | NH | $0.222 |
| New Jersey | NJ | $0.561 |
| New Mexico | NM | $0.210 |
| New York | NY | $0.381 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | NL | $0.263 |
| North Carolina | NC | $0.410 |
| North Dakota | ND | $0.230 |
| Nova Scotia | NS | $0.426 |
| Ohio | OH | $0.470 |
| Oklahoma | OK | $0.190 |
| Ontario | ON | $0.249 |
| Oregon | OR | Weight-mile tax* |
| Pennsylvania | PA | $0.741 |
| Prince Edward Island | PE | $0.391 |
| Quebec | QC | $0.559 |
| Rhode Island | RI | $0.400 |
| Saskatchewan | SK | $0.415 |
| South Carolina | SC | $0.280 |
| South Dakota | SD | $0.280 |
| Tennessee | TN | $0.270 |
| Texas | TX | $0.200 |
| Utah | UT | $0.379 |
| Vermont | VT | $0.310 |
| Virginia | VA | $0.327 |
| Washington | WA | $0.584 |
| West Virginia | WV | $0.357 |
| Wisconsin | WI | $0.329 |
| Wyoming | WY | $0.240 |
* Oregon levies a weight-mile tax rather than a per-gallon IFTA fuel tax. Canadian provinces are shown in U.S. dollars per gallon. Rates span roughly $0.18 (Mississippi) to $0.97 (California).
5 common IFTA mistakes owner-operators make
- Chasing cheap fuel in low-tax states. Buying in a $0.18 state and burning it in a $0.97 state does not save the tax — IFTA claws back the difference. Optimize for pump price net of tax, not the sticker.
- Sloppy mileage by state. Estimating instead of using ELD or GPS records is the number-one audit trigger. Your state miles must reconcile to your total odometer miles.
- Losing fuel receipts. No receipt means no purchase credit — you pay the full taxable amount with nothing subtracted. Keep every diesel receipt with date, location, gallons and price.
- Forgetting surcharge states. Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia surcharges are easy to miss and have no purchase credit, so they quietly add to the bill.
- Filing late or filing zero. Even a quarter with no miles requires a return. Skipping it triggers the $50-or-10% penalty and can suspend your IFTA license.
IFTA filing deadlines
IFTA returns are filed quarterly with your base jurisdiction. The deadlines are the same every year:
| Quarter | Period | Due date |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | January – March | April 30 |
| Q2 | April – June | July 31 |
| Q3 | July – September | October 31 |
| Q4 | October – December | January 31 |
If a due date lands on a weekend or legal holiday, it moves to the next business day. Late or missing returns generally cost $50 or 10% of the net tax due — whichever is greater — plus monthly interest on the unpaid balance in each jurisdiction. Keep your supporting records for at least four years in case of an audit.
Automating IFTA on DAT One
The quarterly return is the back-office side of fuel tax. The other side is the decision you make dozens of times a week on the load board: is this load actually worth it once IFTA, fuel and the rest of my costs are in? The state mix on a lane changes your real cost — a run through California, Pennsylvania and Illinois carries materially more fuel tax than the same miles through Texas and Oklahoma.
That is exactly the math Profit Guard runs automatically. It is a trucking profit calculator that lives on your DAT One board: for every load it reads the rate, miles and lane and shows real net profit per load — fuel by region, IFTA across all 48 states, deadhead, maintenance, DEF and driver pay — in your own truck numbers, right in the row. The same per-state fuel-tax logic behind this calculator runs on every load you look at, so you see the IFTA-aware number before you call the broker instead of after you file.
Want this on every DAT load, automatically?
Install Profit Guard freeIFTA calculator FAQ
What is an IFTA calculator?
An IFTA calculator works out the fuel tax you owe (or are credited) in each member state for a quarter. You enter the miles you drove and the gallons of fuel you bought in each jurisdiction, plus your average MPG, and it computes taxable gallons burned per state, subtracts the tax you already paid at the pump, and nets it to a single amount.
How is IFTA tax calculated?
For each state: taxable gallons = miles driven in that state ÷ your fleet MPG. Multiply taxable gallons by the state tax rate to get the tax owed, then subtract the tax you already paid on fuel bought in that state. The quarterly total is the sum of every state’s net (amounts owed minus credits).
Is this IFTA calculator free?
Yes. The calculator on this page is completely free and needs no signup. It uses the current Q2 2026 diesel rates and runs entirely in your browser.
What MPG should I use for IFTA?
Use your true fleet average for the quarter: total miles driven ÷ total gallons purchased, to two decimals. Most heavy trucks land between 5.5 and 7.5 MPG. The calculator defaults to 6.5 but you should replace it with your own figure.
Which states are part of IFTA?
The 48 contiguous U.S. states and 10 Canadian provinces are members. Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are not IFTA jurisdictions, and Oregon charges a weight-mile tax instead of a per-gallon fuel tax.
When are IFTA returns due?
Quarterly: Q1 (Jan–Mar) by April 30, Q2 (Apr–Jun) by July 31, Q3 (Jul–Sep) by October 31, and Q4 (Oct–Dec) by January 31. If a due date falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day.
What happens if I file IFTA late?
A late or unfiled return typically triggers a penalty of $50 or 10% of the net tax due, whichever is greater, plus interest accruing monthly on the unpaid balance per jurisdiction. Repeated late filing can put your IFTA license at risk.
Do I still owe IFTA if I bought all my fuel in one state?
Usually yes. IFTA taxes fuel where it is burned, not where it is bought. If you buy cheap fuel in a low-tax state but drive through high-tax states, you will owe the difference to those states even though you already paid tax at the pump.
About this calculator
This calculator is built and maintained by the team behind Profit Guard, a net-profit and IFTA calculator for the DAT One load board. The diesel rates come from the IFTA, Inc. quarterly tax-rate matrix (Q2 2026) and are refreshed each quarter. All arithmetic uses exact decimal math to avoid rounding drift on tax money.
It is provided for estimation and planning. It is not tax advice, it does not include every surcharge or local levy, and it cannot replace your official IFTA return. Always reconcile your numbers against your ELD mileage and fuel receipts, and confirm current rates with your base jurisdiction before filing.