IFTA quarterly fuel-tax · Carrier filings
IFTA quarterly — four due dates, one return, one net bill from your base state.
Mileafi carries the IFTA track for the 1–50 truck fleet. We track the four fixed quarter-end dates, the per-jurisdiction mile + gallon record, the IFTA-100 return itself, and the decals that run on a separate annual cycle — so a missed due date or a missing per-jurisdiction record never costs the carrier a credit they already earned.
What IFTA quarterly requires
Four filings cover the IFTA cycle for a 1–50 truck fleet.
None of these are optional. The IFTA-100 runs every quarter on a fixed date that does not roll forward. Decals order annually through the base state. New carriers start with IFTA-101. The per-jurisdiction record sits underneath all of it.
IFTA-001
A quarterly return on IFTA-100
Every carrier holding an IFTA decal files Form IFTA-100 once per quarter to the base-state IFTA office. The return is per jurisdiction: total miles driven in each member jurisdiction and total gallons purchased in each member jurisdiction. The base state nets the credits and debits across the agreement and the carrier receives one bill or one refund — never fourteen.
IFTA-002
IFTA decals on every vehicle
A licensed IFTA carrier displays one IFTA decal per vehicle, ordered through the base-state IFTA office. Decals run on an annual cycle on a fixed December 31 calendar. An undecaled vehicle is operating outside the IFTA agreement on the day the decal lapses — and the audit surface is open on a jurisdictional inspection, not a docket query.
IFTA-003
IFTA-101 application (new carriers only)
A carrier new to IFTA files Form IFTA-101 with the base state to obtain the IFTA account and the first set of decals. The base state issues two free decals at application; additional decals are billed. The application is the surface that gets the deck in place — without it, every jurisdiction the carrier operates in would require a separate state-level fuel-tax permit.
IFTA-004
Per-jurisdiction odometer and fuel-card records
IFTA-100 is only as good as the per-jurisdiction record behind it. The carrier must keep total miles per jurisdiction (from odometer or GPS) and total gallons per jurisdiction (from fuel-card receipts) for the entire quarter. A missing per-jurisdiction record forces an estimate on the return, and an estimated return is the audit surface that gets opened at the next base-state review.
Track it on a deadline calendar
Push your IFTA filings onto Mileafi’s IFTA track — once your base state and the last four quarters of per-jurisdiction data are seeded, the four filings above appear as a single deadline board, with a 30-day, 14-day, and 72-hour alert on each.
Common pitfalls
The three things that flip an IFTA track out from under a small fleet.
Each of these is a date on the calendar that does not roll forward, a per-jurisdiction record the auditor opens first, or a decal order that landed in the dead month — and the consequence never arrives through FMCSA, only through the base-state office or a jurisdictional inspection.
PITFALL-01
The deadline missed because it does not roll forward
IFTA due dates do not roll forward when they fall on a weekend or holiday — the carrier still has until the calendar date. Most small carriers set a reminder on the first business day after, and that is one day too late. The penalty is a per-jurisdiction late-filing assessment that stacks across every member state, not a single fine.
PITFALL-02
The per-jurisdiction record is missing for two states
IFTA deadlines are not the only surface that catches a slip. The audit surface is the per-jurisdiction record — and an IFTA-100 with two states estimated rather than recorded is the document the base state opens first. The auditor is the base state, not FMCSA, not PHMSA, not the broker.
PITFALL-03
Decals lapsed because the order landed in the dead month
IFTA decals run on an annual cycle that ends December 31 — the dead month for most carriers, when the office is consumed with UCR and the year-end close. A late decal order means a truck is undecaled on January 1, and the trip the first driver takes to a non-base state is the trip the jurisdictional inspector cites.
FAQ
The questions IFTA carriers raise before they sign the return.
IFTA is the most calendar-bound of the carrier filings — every quarter has a fixed date, every state has a per-jurisdiction calculation, and the auditor is the base state, not FMCSA. These are the five questions that come up most often on the IFTA track, and the answers that decide whether a quarterly return clears cleanly.
Page URL: mileafi.com/ifta-quarterly
Ready when you are
Start with Mileafi’s IFTA track.
Sign up, drop in your USDOT number and base state, and the matching IFTA filings light up inside your account. The 30 / 14 / 72-hour alert cadence is on by default; you can hand off the filing or do it yourself — Mileafi gives you the audit-ready packet either way.