The six inspection levels

Drivers talk about "the six levels," and for a long time that was right. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance now defines more than six, and knowing which one you are in tells you how long you will be there and what the officer is allowed to look at. About four million commercial vehicle inspections are conducted across North America every year, so this is not a question of whether you will be inspected.

Who is doing the inspecting

Roadside inspections are carried out by state and provincial enforcement officers, not by FMCSA staff. What they follow is the North American Standard Inspection Program, written and maintained by CVSA, an alliance of the agencies that do the work in the United States, Canada and Mexico. That is why an inspection in Florida and an inspection in Ontario look the same: the levels, the procedure and the out-of-service criteria are a shared standard, not fifty separate rulebooks.

The levels, one at a time

Level	Name	What it covers	Decal
I	North American Standard Inspection	The full one. Driver credentials — license, medical examiner's certificate, SPE certificate — record of duty status and hours, plus a complete vehicle examination including items only reachable from underneath	Yes
II	Walk-Around Driver/Vehicle	The same list of items, limited to what can be checked without getting under the vehicle	No
III	Driver/Credential/Administrative	Driver only. License, medical certificate, SPE certificate, record of duty status, hours of service, carrier status. No mechanical inspection	No
IV	Special Inspection	A one-time look at a specific item, usually to support a study or check a suspected trend	No
V	Vehicle-Only	Every Level I vehicle item, conducted without the driver present — often at a carrier's terminal	Yes
VI	Radiological	Enhanced standard for transuranic waste and highway route controlled quantities of radioactive material	Level VI decal
VII	Jurisdictional Mandated	State or provincial programs for school buses, limousines, taxis and similar vehicles that fall outside the other levels	No
VIII	Electronic	Conducted electronically or wirelessly while the vehicle is in motion, with no direct contact with an inspector	No

Two of those are newer than the "six levels" shorthand suggests. Level VIII, the electronic inspection, was approved by the CVSA board in 2017 and is voluntary for member jurisdictions — there is no implementation deadline, so how much of it you meet depends entirely on which states you run. And CVSA's Operational Policy 5, in its April 23, 2026 revision, defines a Level IX North American Standard Post-Crash Inspection for crashes involving a fatality, serious injury or a high-profile incident, covering all accessible Level I items. CVSA runs certification courses for it. If you hear a driver insist there are exactly six, they learned the list a while ago.

In day-to-day terms you will meet Level II and Level III far more often than Level I. A Level III is paperwork: you may never open the hood. A Level I can take the better part of an hour.

The decal, and why it matters to you

A Level I or Level V inspection with no critical vehicle violations earns a CVSA decal for the vehicle, and Level VI has its own version. The decal is valid for the month it was issued plus two more — so one issued on July 28 expires on September 30. The color tells an officer which quarter it came from.

A current decal does not make you immune. It does mean many jurisdictions will not run another full vehicle inspection on that unit while it is valid, which is why carriers care about them and why you should not scrape one off.

Out of service: what it actually means

There are two separate kinds of out-of-service order and new drivers mix them up constantly.

Vehicle out of service. Under 49 CFR 396.9, an inspector marks the vehicle out of service when its condition or its loading is likely to cause an accident or a breakdown. Nobody may operate it until the defect is repaired. The only real exception is moving it by tow.

Driver out of service. You stop driving, the truck may be fine. Being over your driving limit puts you out of service under the hours-of-service rules, normally for ten consecutive hours. Failing the English proficiency assessment puts you out of service immediately. So does driving without a valid medical certificate or the right class of license.

For the carrier, the inspection report goes onto its safety record whether anything was wrong or not, and any violation feeds the federal safety measurement data that shippers, insurers and prospective employers look at. Out-of-service rates are tracked separately from ordinary violations, and they weigh more. The guide to what carriers can see about you covers where those numbers go and how long they stay.

The paperwork obligation after an inspection is yours and then theirs. You deliver a copy of the report to your carrier when you reach the next terminal or facility, or transmit it immediately if you will not get there within 24 hours. The carrier then has 15 days to correct the violations, certify the corrections by signing the form, and return it if the issuing agency asked for it.

What to do during your first inspection

Most of what goes wrong at an inspection is behavior, not mechanics.

• Pull off completely and park straight. Signal early, get fully clear of the travel lane, set the parking brakes, and stay in the cab until the officer tells you otherwise.
• Have the documents together before you are asked. License and medical certificate at minimum, plus whatever your carrier requires. Fumbling through a glovebox for four minutes sets the tone of the whole stop.
• Know how to transfer your logs. The one skill new drivers consistently do not have is producing the records from an electronic logging device the way the instruction sheet describes. Practice it before an officer asks.
• Answer in English, plainly, and only what you were asked. Do not volunteer an explanation of the load, the dispatcher or your morning.
• Do not argue about a violation at the roadside. The officer is applying a written standard and has no authority to negotiate it. If you think something is wrong, note it and raise it through your safety department.
• Ask for your copy of the report and read it before you leave. Then call your carrier before you move the truck if anything was marked out of service.

The best preparation is not a script. It is doing a real pre-trip inspection every morning, because almost everything a Level I turns up is something a thorough pre-trip would have found first — and because being able to name and check the components out loud is the same skill an examiner already tested you on.

What to do next

Ask the next experienced driver you meet what level their last inspection was and what the officer wrote. You will learn more from ten minutes of that than from memorizing the table above. Then read CVSA's own description of the inspection levels once, so you recognize the level you are in while it is happening rather than afterward.

If you have not started training, the inspection procedure and the out-of-service criteria are part of the theory you cover before you touch a truck. You can apply and pick a Monday start whenever you are ready.