Kentucky motor fuels transporter bonds.
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Anyone who hauls gasoline or special fuel on which Kentucky’s fuel tax has not yet been paid needs a motor fuels transporter’s license from the Kentucky Department of Revenue. The Department’s bond form fixes the transporter bond at $5,000. A specialist confirms your premium and replies, usually within one business day.
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How much does a Kentucky motor fuels transporter bond cost?
It is underwritten: the premium is quoted from the bond amount and your financial picture, so there is no flat price to show.
Built for the motor fuels license application.
The Department of Revenue will not issue a transporter’s license until the bond arrives with the application. Here is how the bond side of that works:
Send us the file
Apply online with the $5,000 bond amount, the effective date, your entity type, and your business and contact details — the fields this bond actually turns on. Use the principal name exactly as the Department requires: the owner for a sole proprietorship, the partnership name, or the corporate name as registered with the Kentucky Secretary of State.
A specialist confirms your premium
A surety specialist reviews the file and returns the premium for the $5,000 penal sum. The Department fixes the amount; the review sets the price. There is no credit review of any kind on this bond.
Execute & file with the Department
Once you pay, we issue Form 72A301 from a surety authorized in Kentucky, signed by the surety and its Kentucky resident agent, with the power of attorney attached. File it with Form 72A300 at the Motor Fuels Tax Compliance Section in Frankfort.
What it is and who needs it.
What the bond actually guarantees
Kentucky licenses everyone who handles motor fuel before its excise tax is paid. KRS 138.310(1) bars any person from transporting gasoline or special fuel on which the tax has not been paid or assumed unless the person holds an uncanceled license from the Department of Revenue. KRS 138.210 defines a transporter as any person who transports gasoline or special fuels on which the tax has not been paid or assumed — so this reaches tanker carriers moving product from terminals, barge and rail shippers, and fleets hauling untaxed fuel into or across the state.
Under KRS 138.320(3) the financial instrument is filed with the application, and no license issues without it. KRS 138.330 makes the transporter the principal and the state the obligee, and conditions the instrument on the prompt filing of true reports and on faithful compliance with KRS 138.210 to 138.340. For a transporter the key report is the monthly one under KRS 138.260: every delivery made in Kentucky in the prior month — consignor, consignee, origin, destination, date and gallons — filed under oath by the 25th. If the reports are false or missing, or tax, penalties and interest go unpaid, the Commonwealth can claim against the bond.
The statute allows a financial instrument in three forms — a bond from a corporation authorized to do business in Kentucky, a line of credit, or a bank account maintaining a compensating balance. The surety bond is written on the Department’s Form 72A301, Motor Fuels License Bond, which covers several fuel-tax activities. The transporter checks the motor fuels transporter box, and each tax activity needs its own bond with its own bond number. The Department’s instructions fix every new and replacement transporter bond at $5,000.
The bond has no annual renewal date. KRS 138.320(7) keeps the license in force until it is suspended, revoked or canceled, and the bond runs with it. A surety that wants off must ask the Department in writing, and it is released only from liability accruing more than sixty days after that request. The Department then notifies the licensee, and unless a replacement instrument is filed within those sixty days the license is canceled. Related duties are separate from the bond: a transporter that is not also a licensed dealer must paint its name, address and permit number on its vehicles, and the license cannot be assigned.
You need this bond if you’re
Claims, renewal, filing, and what sets the price.
If a claim is made
A claim comes from the party the bond protects, the obligee named on the form, when the duty the bond guarantees is not met.
The surety investigates and pays a valid claim, up to the bond amount. You then repay the surety: a surety bond is a guarantee of your performance, not insurance for you.
Renewal and term
Term and renewal are set in the underwriter's quote.
Keep the bond in force for as long as the obligation behind it runs.
How to file it
Execute & file with the Department. Once you pay, we issue Form 72A301 from a surety authorized in Kentucky, signed by the surety and its Kentucky resident agent, with the power of attorney attached. File it with Form 72A300 at the Motor Fuels Tax Compliance Section in Frankfort.
What sets the price
This bond is underwritten: the premium is quoted from the bond amount and your financial picture, so there is no flat price to show.
One application, one specialist review.
These are the actual application fields — the bond amount, the effective date, your entity type, and your business and contact details. Submit once and a surety specialist confirms your premium, typically within one business day. Free until your bond is issued.
Start the application →Common questions.
Other Kentucky bonds.
Requirements checked on the carrier’s application, .
Get bonded and get licensed to haul.
Apply for the $5,000 bond on Form 72A301, and a surety specialist confirms your premium — typically within one business day. Free until issued.