ELD Requirements for Trucking Companies in the US and Canada

ELD requirements in the United States apply to any driver required to keep records of duty status: they must use a device self-certified and registered with the FMCSA unless an exemption applies. Under Canada's ELD mandate, federally regulated carriers must run an ELD certified by a third party accredited by Transport Canada, enforced with penalties since January 2023.

Both countries wrote their rules to fix the same problem: paper logs were easy to fudge and hard to audit. The devices are similar. The paths to a legal device are not, and a truck that crosses the border has to satisfy both. Here is what the rules require in 2026, who is exempt, and how to pick hardware you will not be ripping out in two years.

ELD requirements in the United States

The FMCSA's ELD rule has been fully in force since December 2019, when the last grandfathered recorders aged out. The coverage test is simple: if a driver must keep records of duty status under the hours of service regulations, that driver needs an ELD. In practice that means most interstate operations in vehicles with a weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, plus certain passenger and placarded hazmat operations.

The US uses self-certification. The manufacturer tests its own device against the technical standard and registers it on the FMCSA list, and carriers must choose from that list. The list changes: FMCSA has pulled devices that failed to meet the standard, forcing the fleets running them onto replacement hardware on short notice. Check the registration before you buy, and recheck it periodically after.

The main US exemptions

• Short-haul drivers who qualify for the timecard exception and do not keep records of duty status.
• Occasional loggers who keep paper logs no more than 8 days in any 30-day period.
• Driveaway-towaway operations, where the vehicle being driven is itself the commodity being delivered.
• Pre-2000 equipment, meaning vehicles manufactured before model year 2000.

Exempt does not mean unregulated. The hours of service limits still apply in full. The exemption only changes how the hours are recorded.

The ELD mandate in Canada: certification is the difference

Canada's ELD mandate has been in force since June 12, 2021, under the Commercial Vehicle Drivers Hours of Service Regulations. A progressive enforcement period ended on January 1, 2023, and since then non-compliance draws penalties, not warnings. The federal mandate covers federally regulated carriers, which means fleets whose trucks cross a provincial or international border.

The structural difference from the US is certification. Canada does not accept a vendor's word for it. Every device must be tested and certified by a third-party certification body accredited by Transport Canada, and Transport Canada publishes the list of certified models. Certifications can be revoked, so confirm a device is currently on the list, not just that it was certified once. A US-registered ELD that never went through Canadian certification is not a legal logging device in Canada, no matter how well it works.

Provincial adoption matters too. Most provinces now apply matching ELD rules to carriers that operate inside a single province, but adoption is not uniform across the country, so an intra-provincial fleet should confirm the rule with its own province before assuming it is off the hook.

The main Canadian exemptions

• Short-haul drivers operating within a 160 km radius of the home terminal who are not required to keep a daily log.
• Pre-2000 equipment, meaning vehicles manufactured before model year 2000.
• Short-term rentals, vehicles operated under a rental agreement of 30 days or less.
• Permit and statutory exemptions, carriers operating under a specific permit or an exemption issued under the Motor Vehicle Transport Act.

Cross-border operations: one truck, two lists

A Canadian carrier running into the United States must comply with the US rule on US highways, which means an ELD self-certified and registered with the FMCSA. A US carrier running into Canada must record Canadian hours of service on a device certified by an accredited Canadian body. Neither country recognizes the other's list.

The workable answer for a cross-border fleet is one device that appears on both lists and switches between the US and Canadian HOS rule sets when the truck crosses. Most major vendors now hold both registrations, but most is not all, and the burden of checking sits with the carrier. Cross-border compliance is also bigger than the logging device, which is why carriers on both sides of the line run TMS software built for Canadian and cross-border operations alongside their ELDs for IFTA, customs paperwork, and two-currency invoicing.

Choosing an ELD: what separates the devices

Once a device is on the right lists, compliance is settled and the real comparison starts. Four things are worth weighing before you sign:

• Certification everywhere you run. FMCSA registration for US lanes, Transport Canada certification for Canadian lanes, both for cross-border. Verify on the government lists, not the vendor's brochure.
• Telematics depth. The better devices also capture GPS position, engine fault codes, and the distance and fuel data that feeds IFTA reporting. That is back-office hours recovered every quarter.
• Driver usability. The device gets used at 5 a.m. in an inspection line, so log edits, unassigned driving prompts, and the roadside data transfer need to work on the first try. Read reviews written by drivers, not just the ones written by fleet managers.
• Network hardware. When US carriers shut down their 3G networks in 2022, ELDs on that hardware stopped transmitting almost overnight, and Canada followed when Rogers retired 3G in July 2025 with the other national carriers close behind. Buy current LTE or 5G hardware and ask the vendor, in writing, how it handles the next network sunset.

Where the ELD data goes

An ELD that only satisfies an inspector is a pure cost. It becomes an operating asset the moment its HOS feed lands in front of dispatch. A dispatcher who can see that a driver has 3 hours left will not commit that driver to a 5-hour run, and that one decision avoids the violation, the fine, and the missed delivery appointment at the same time.

That is the case for connecting the ELD to a TMS rather than leaving it as a standalone compliance box. TransPlus, for example, integrates with Samsara, Motive, and ISAAC, so remaining hours sit on the dispatch board next to the load before it is assigned. The full operational payoff is its own topic, covered in how ELD integrations benefit freight carriers.

The regulation side is stable on both sides of the border: known coverage, known exemptions, published device lists. The carriers that come out ahead are the ones that treat the mandate as a data source they already paid for, and put it to work planning loads instead of just surviving inspections.