The 150 Air-Mile Short-Haul Exemption: Conditions Checklist

Not every driver runs long-haul, and the hours-of-service rules recognize that with a short-haul exception designed for local operations. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, sets it out in its regulations at 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1). When a driver meets every one of its conditions, that driver is relieved of some of the logging and break obligations that apply to everyone else. The catch is in the phrase every one of its conditions. This is an all-or-nothing exemption: miss a single requirement on a given day and you lose it for that day and fall back under the full rules. This guide lays the conditions out as a checklist so you can test yourself before you rely on it.

The conditions, one by one

To qualify under 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1), a property-carrying driver must meet all of the following on the day in question:

• You operate within a 150 air-mile radius of the normal work reporting location. Air miles are straight-line distance, not road miles, so the actual roads you drive can cover more ground than the radius suggests.
• You return to that same work reporting location and are released from work within 14 consecutive hours of coming on duty.
• You have at least 10 consecutive hours off duty separating each 14-hour on-duty period, the same qualifying rest the standard rules require.
• You do not drive after the 11th hour of driving, so the 11-hour driving limit in 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(i) still applies to you.

Meet all four and the exemption is yours for that day. Fail any one and the exemption does not apply to that day at all.

What the exemption actually relieves

The value of the short-haul exception is what it takes off your plate. Under 49 CFR 395.1(e)(1), a qualifying driver does not have to prepare a traditional record of duty status, meaning the detailed graph-grid log, and is not required to use an Electronic Logging Device. Instead, the carrier keeps time records showing when the driver came on duty, went off duty, and the total hours. A qualifying short-haul driver is also relieved of the 30-minute break requirement in 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(ii). Those two reliefs, no ELD and no mandatory 30-minute break, are the whole point of the exemption for most local operations.

What it does not change

The exemption is about paperwork and the break, not about how long you can work. The 11-hour driving limit still applies, the requirement for 10 hours off between shifts still applies, and the weekly 60- or 70-hour limit in 49 CFR 395.3(b) still applies. The short-haul driver is genuinely limited to a 14-hour on-duty window as a condition of the exemption; there is no extension for local work. In short, you are freed from the log and the break, not from the underlying limits on driving and duty time.

How quickly you can lose it

Because it is all-or-nothing on a daily basis, the exemption is fragile. If a delivery runs long and you are not released from work within 14 hours, you have failed a condition and that day requires a full record of duty status. If a detour or an added stop takes you beyond the 150 air-mile radius, same result. Carriers that use the short-haul exception generally have a plan for the days it breaks, because a driver who exceeds the radius or the 14-hour release without a compliant log can end up with a violation even though they were operating in good faith. The safe habit is to treat the exemption as something you re-earn every single day rather than a standing status.

A note on the related 16-hour provision

Drivers sometimes confuse the short-haul exemption with the occasional 16-hour short-haul extension found in 49 CFR 395.1(o), which lets certain qualifying drivers extend the 14-hour window to 16 hours once per cycle under tight conditions. They are separate provisions with separate rules. If you think you might rely on the 16-hour extension, read that section directly and confirm the conditions, because it does not stack freely with the 150 air-mile exemption.

Where this fits

The short-haul exemption is the main reason the 30-minute break rule may not apply to a given driver, which is why our 30-minute break guide points here. For the underlying limits that still apply to short-haul drivers, see the 11-hour driving limit and our overview of the hours-of-service rules.

A quick disclaimer

This article is a planning aid, not a compliance record. Your records, your Electronic Logging Device where one is required, and the current FMCSA regulations are the authoritative account of your hours and your eligibility for any exemption. Whether you qualify is fact-specific and decided day by day, so confirm the specifics with the FMCSA and with your carrier before relying on anything here. Start at the Trucker Clock Hub home page to reach the tools.