What this site is
RecapHours is a small set of calculators for over-the-road drivers and owner-operators: how many hours come back on a recap, what a per diem year is actually worth, what a mile costs to run, how far to slide the tandems, whether an axle spread clears the bridge formula, and when the filing deadlines land. Every one of them runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and there is no account to make.
It exists because the arithmetic behind these questions is not hard, but it is fiddly, and it usually gets done at 4 a.m. on a phone in a truck stop parking lot with a fuel receipt in the other hand. A calculator that does the fiddly part and shows its work is worth something. A calculator that hides its assumptions is worth less than nothing, because you can't check it.
Who builds it
RecapHours is built and maintained by one person — an independent developer, not a law firm, not a compliance vendor, not a carrier, and not a DOT officer. Nobody pays to appear here and nothing on the site is sponsored. It is funded by advertising, which is disclosed in the privacy policy.
That matters for how you should read the site. The value here is not somebody's professional opinion. The value is that every number is traced back to a public, primary source that you can open and check yourself, and that the worked examples are tested. Where the regulation is ambiguous, the site says it is ambiguous instead of picking a side and sounding confident.
Where the numbers come from
The rule is simple: primary sources only, cited on the page where the number is used, and named specifically enough that you can go read the same sentence we read. "According to the FMCSA" is not a citation. A section number is.
- Hours of service — the regulation text itself, 49 CFR Part 395 on eCFR, cross-checked against FMCSA's own Summary of Hours of Service Regulations. Two independent sources, because getting this wrong costs a driver a violation. The cycle rule the whole site is built on is FMCSA's one-sentence version — "May not drive after 60/70 hours on duty in 7/8 consecutive days. A driver may restart a 7/8 consecutive day period after taking 34 or more consecutive hours off duty" — and §395.3(b) and (c) in the regulation itself.
- Bridge formula and axle weights — FHWA's Bridge Formula Weights publication and 23 CFR 658.17. FHWA's own worked example (51 ft, 5 axles, 80,000 lb) is one of this site's automated tests, so if the calculator ever stopped matching the government's answer, the build would fail rather than ship.
- Per diem — IRS Notice 2025-54 for the special transportation-industry rate ($80 CONUS, $86 outside CONUS, $5 incidental-only, effective October 1, 2025), Publication 463 for the partial-day method ("3/4 of the standard meal allowance"), and 26 U.S.C. §274(n)(3) for the DOT percentage, which is quoted rather than summarized: for a person "subject to the hours of service limitations of the Department of Transportation," the statute says paragraph (1) "shall be applied by substituting '80 percent' for '50 percent'."
- Cost per mile — diesel from the EIA weekly retail on-highway diesel average, with the week-ending date printed next to the number, and the industry benchmark from ATRI's annual operational-costs report: "The industry-average cost to operate a truck in 2025 was $2.336 per mile, 3.4 percent higher than the previous year and the highest per-mile cost in the report's history."
- Heavy vehicle use tax — the IRS Instructions for Form 2290 for the deadline rule ("must be filed by the last day of the month following the month of first use") and the tax period ("The filing season for Form 2290 filers is July 1 through June 30"), and the Tax Computation table on page two of Form 2290 itself for the $550.00 top-of-table annual figure.
- IFTA — the quarterly tax-rate matrix published by IFTA, Inc., which this site links rather than republishes, and a base-jurisdiction revenue agency for the filing rule: "IFTA returns are due quarterly, on the last day of the month following the end of the calendar quarter," and "if the due date is a Saturday, Sunday or a legal holiday, the next business day is considered the due date." Those weekend shifts are then computed by the site, not copied from somebody's blog.
- Kentucky weight-distance tax — the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet's own KYU page and KRS 138.660 for the rate ("two and eighty-five hundredths cents ($0.0285) per mile") and the threshold ("combined license weight greater than 59,999 pounds").
- UCR — plan.ucr.gov for the registration window ("The 2026 Registration Portal through the NRS opened October 1, 2025") and the Federal Register document for the fee rulemaking. The calendar page prints the window and deliberately prints no fee, because the fee bracket depends on a fleet count the site cannot see.
If a number on this site has no source next to it, that is a defect. Report it and it gets fixed or removed.
Where the authorities disagree, and what happens then
Two sources on the same rule do not always say the same thing. FMCSA publishes a plain-language summary of the hours-of-service rules; the rules themselves live in 49 CFR Part 395. The summary is written to be read quickly, and the price of that is detail. Where the two differ, this site prints the regulation's own words and says which source each sentence came from, rather than blending them into one smooth paragraph that belongs to nobody.
Two live examples, both of which change what a driver actually does with a day:
The 30-minute break
FMCSA's summary says: "Drivers must take a 30-minute break when they have driven for a period of 8 cumulative hours without at least a 30-minute interruption." Read alone, that sounds like a break — the off-duty kind. The regulation is more specific. Section 395.3(a)(3)(ii) states that driving is not permitted once more than 8 hours of driving time have passed "without at least a consecutive 30-minute interruption in driving status," and goes on to say the interruption may be satisfied either by off-duty, sleeper berth or on-duty not driving time, or by a combination of them.
That is not a contradiction. It is an omission, and it is an expensive one: a 30-minute live unload, a fuel stop, a scale queue — time a driver is on duty and paid — already satisfies the requirement, and drivers routinely take a second unpaid half hour they did not owe. So the explainer quotes the CFR sentence, and there is an automated test on this site whose only job is to fail the build if that page ever drifts back to the off-duty-only version of the rule.
The sleeper-berth split
FMCSA's summary says: "Drivers may split their required 10-hour off-duty period, as long as one off-duty period is at least 2 hours long and the other involves at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth. All sleeper berth pairings MUST add up to at least 10 hours." Every word of that is right, and it still leaves out the reason most drivers use a split in the first place, which is in §395.1(g)(1)(iii)(B): "The 14-hour driving window for purposes of § 395.3(a)(2) does not include qualifying rest periods."
The clock stopping is the entire point of the maneuver, and the summary does not mention it. So the site quotes the regulation, and — because a split that fails to qualify is a violation rather than a rounding error — it does not attempt to judge whether any particular pairing you took qualified.
Federal versus state
The bridge formula table on this site is the federal one, from FHWA and 23 CFR 658.17, which governs the Interstate System. States set their own limits on their own roads, issue permits, and carry grandfathered routes, and a posted or permitted number can be lower or higher than the federal table for reasons this site has no way to see. The bridge page says so on the page rather than in a disclaimer at the bottom. Same with kingpin-to-tandem distance: several states regulate it, the rules differ, and the tandem page names the issue and sends you to your own state instead of picking a number.
Numbers this site will not print, because nobody publishes them
A lot of trucking content fills gaps with a confident-sounding average. Averages are how a wrong number gets laundered into a fact. Where no authority publishes a figure, this site says that no authority publishes it:
- What your truck costs per mile. Nobody publishes this. ATRI publishes an industry average from a survey sample — $2.336 per mile for 2025 — and that is a benchmark to compare against, not a number that describes your operation. The cost-per-mile page computes yours from your own fixed costs, fuel, maintenance and pay, and shows ATRI's figure beside it as a sanity line, labeled as an average and dated.
- Pounds per hole on a tandem slide. There is no universal figure, and the tandem page explains why in the algebra rather than asserting it: the transfer works out to T·s ÷ (d + s), so it depends on your hole spacing and your kingpin-to-tandem distance, and it grows as that distance shrinks. The same load moves roughly 236 lb on one trailer and roughly 694 lb on another. The page runs your numbers instead of quoting somebody's 250.
- An "average" IFTA rate. There isn't one. Rates are set per jurisdiction per quarter and published in IFTA, Inc.'s quarterly matrix, several of them carry surcharges filed as separate lines, and at least one jurisdiction taxes by weight and distance instead. The IFTA page links the official matrix rather than republishing rates that are stale within ninety days, and it says plainly why it does not yet ship a full estimator.
- A UCR fee. The calendar page prints the registration window and not the dollar figure, because the bracket depends on a vehicle count only you have, and because the fee schedule is set by rulemaking that can land after the window opens.
- A safe reserve of recap hours. No regulation says how many hours you should keep in the bank before taking a load. That is a dispatch preference and a personal risk judgment, and the recap calculator will show you the projection without ever suggesting a floor.
How the math is checked
Every calculator on this site has a matching test file that re-implements the same formula independently and checks it against the source authority's own published example — not against what the page happens to output. Where an authority publishes a worked example, that example becomes a test. Where it doesn't, the test checks internal consistency instead: that a 4-foot tandem spread comes out to exactly the 34,000-pound cap, that rounding always moves in the conservative direction, that a repositioning mile can never make an offer look better than it is.
Nothing ships unless the whole suite passes — currently 304 assertions across 11 pages, covering the math, the quoted regulation text, and the wording rules this site holds itself to. This does not make the site infallible — a test can only check the formula it was given — but it does mean a silent typo in a rate or a constant gets caught before you see it.
Some of what the suite checks is not arithmetic at all. It checks that the calculator pages still contain the specific sentences quoted from the CFR, so a well-meaning rewrite can't quietly soften a rule. It checks that no page ever makes an affirmative claim that you are clear to drive. It checks that the pages carrying only policy text — this one and the privacy policy — carry no advertising code, because a page of boilerplate is not something to sell inventory against. And it checks that the 404 page is a real, useful page rather than a redirect to the homepage. Those are all failures the build treats exactly like a wrong number, because in practice they cost the same.
Which authority governs which number
A short map, so you can go straight to the source rather than taking our word for any of it:
| Page | Governing source | What it fixes |
|---|---|---|
| Recap calculator | 49 CFR 395.3(b), (c) | 60/7 and 70/8 limits, 34-hour restart |
| How recap hours work | 49 CFR 395.1, 395.2, 395.3 | Daily limits, 30-min interruption, sleeper split, adverse conditions |
| Bridge formula | FHWA Bridge Formula Weights; 23 CFR 658.17 | The formula, the 20,000/34,000/80,000 caps, 500-lb rounding |
| Tandem slide | Statics; the 34,000-lb axle-group cap | Only the cap is regulatory — the lever math is physics, shown in full |
| Per diem | IRS Notice 2025-54; Pub. 463; 26 U.S.C. §274(n)(3) | $80/$86/$5, the ¾ partial-day method, the 80% DOT limit |
| Cost per mile | EIA weekly diesel; ATRI operational costs | Nothing regulatory — two dated benchmarks, and your own inputs |
| IFTA | IFTA, Inc. quarterly matrix; base-jurisdiction agency | Filing dates and the weekend/holiday shift; rates stay at the source |
| Compliance calendar | IRS i2290 and Form 2290; IFTA; plan.ucr.gov; drive.ky.gov; CVSA | Deadlines, the $550 top-of-table 2290 figure, the KYU rate |
How often it's reviewed
Pages carrying rates, limits, or deadlines are re-checked against their sources at least twice a year, and immediately whenever a source changes — a new IRS per diem notice, a mid-year mileage rate change, an FMCSA rulemaking. Pages that have been re-checked carry a "Reviewed" stamp with the month and year at the bottom, next to the citation. If a page has no stamp, assume it hasn't been checked since it was written.
The current review pass is July 2026. Two things that pass turned up, and both are worth stating out loud rather than burying. First, a government link on this page had rotted: FHWA moved the Bridge Formula Weights publication, and the old address returned a 404 for who knows how long. It is fixed above, and the lesson is that a citation is only as good as its last check. Second, the IRS page that carries the standard mileage rates had not been updated to show the current year's figures at the time of review, so the mid-year rate change on the calendar page rests on the IRS announcement number rather than on that summary page — which is noted on the calendar page itself instead of being papered over.
The next scheduled pass is October 2026, timed to land after the IRS publishes its annual per diem notice, which takes effect on October 1 each year and changes the single most-used number on the per diem page.
The one thing this site will never tell you
It will never tell you that you are legal, clear, or good to drive.
This is deliberate and it is not a lawyer's hedge. The calculators work from the numbers you type in. They cannot see your ELD, your carrier's policy, whether your log is accurate, whether you're running under a state exemption, whether the 34-hour restart you took actually qualified, or whether an officer is going to read your situation the way you do. A number is not a permission slip. What this site gives you is your own numbers, computed correctly and shown with the work — so you can walk into a conversation with dispatch or a scale house knowing what the arithmetic actually says.
Your logbook, your ELD, your carrier's compliance department, and the regulation itself are the authorities. This is a planning tool. If the two disagree, the tool is wrong.
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, or a rule has changed, or something is worded in a way that could get a driver in trouble, say so: [email protected]. Corrections to regulatory content get priority over everything else on the list, including new features. Include the page and, if you have it, the source that contradicts us — that turns a fix from an afternoon into ten minutes.
Privacy, briefly
Your hours never leave your device. The calculators are plain JavaScript running in your browser; there is no server that sees your inputs, because there is no server involved at all beyond delivering the page. The optional "save on this device" feature uses your browser's own local storage and nothing else. Full details, including how the advertising works, are in the privacy policy.