The gross on a lease-on settlement is the number people compare. The deductions are the number that decides what the week was worth. Federal law is unusually specific about them: every charge a carrier takes out of your settlement has to be written into the lease before it can be taken, and you are entitled to the documents that prove each one. Here is what the rule requires, what the common line items actually are, and how to read a settlement against them.
The rule: itemized in the lease, or it should not be on the settlement
Truth-in-Leasing is 49 CFR Part 376, and the clause that governs deductions is 376.12(h). It requires the lease to clearly specify all items that may be initially paid for by the carrier but ultimately charged back to you — and to specify them with the amount, or with a recitation of how the amount is computed. Not a category. A number or a formula.
The same paragraph gives you the right to see the documents necessary to determine the validity of each charge. That is the part operators leave on the table. You are not asking a favor when you ask for the invoice behind a chargeback; you are exercising the mechanism the regulation built for exactly that purpose.
Put the two halves together and you get a working test for any line on any settlement: which clause of my lease authorizes this, and what document proves the amount. A charge that cannot answer both is a question, in writing, today — not a shrug at the end of a long week.
Escrow gets its own rules — including the 45-day return
Escrow is money of yours that the carrier holds, and 49 CFR 376.12(k) treats it more strictly than any other deduction. The lease must state the amount held, the specific items to which the fund may be applied, and that you may demand an accounting of transactions involving the fund at any time. It also requires that interest accrue on the balance, with the rule tying the minimum rate to a 91-day Treasury-bill yield — so an escrow that earns nothing does not meet the standard.
When the lease ends, the balance comes back. The regulation gives the carrier 45 days from termination to return what remains, and any final deductions taken out of it have to be accounted for item by item. That is a hard clock on a real amount of your money, and knowing it exists changes the tone of the conversation at the end of a lease.
Two habits make escrow behave. Know the balance — ask for the accounting periodically rather than only when you are leaving. And know the permitted uses, because escrow is meant to cover the specific things the lease names, not to function as a general-purpose pool the carrier reaches into.
The deduction categories you will actually see
Insurance. Any coverage you buy through the carrier shows up as a deduction, and Part 376 entitles you to the certificate of insurance for coverage charged back to you. Read what it covers before you accept what it costs — the deduction line tells you the price, not the protection.
Fuel. If you pull fuel on a carrier-provided card, the fuel is advanced and then recovered from your settlement. This is the largest deduction most weeks and it is arithmetic, not judgment: every gallon on the statement should match a receipt and a truck.
Plates and permits. Apportioned plates, permit costs, and the registration side of running interstate are frequently carrier-paid and charged back, sometimes spread across weeks rather than landing all at once. Know which method your lease uses, because a spread charge and a one-time charge look very different on a single settlement.
ELD and technology. The logging device and whatever telematics ride with it may be provided, rented, or charged back. Ask which, and ask what happens to the hardware when the lease ends.
Occupational accident and similar coverages. Commonly offered, commonly deducted, and commonly misread as workers' compensation. It is a policy with limits and exclusions, and the certificate is the document that tells you what you bought.
Advances. A cash advance against a load is a loan against your own settlement, and it gets recovered with whatever fee the lease names. Used occasionally for a real reason, it is a tool. Used routinely, it is how a week starts underwater before the truck moves.
Chargebacks proper. Damage, a lumper the carrier paid, a claim, a repair fronted on your behalf, a late-return penalty on rented equipment. These are the ones that vary most and get itemized least carefully, which is precisely why the supporting document matters most here.
What has to be in the lease before a deduction is legal
Walk your lease with 376.12 open and check four things for every deduction you can imagine encountering. Is the item named specifically, rather than folded into a general clause about costs? Is there an amount or a stated method of computing it? Does the lease say how you obtain the documents that verify it? And is the charge one you actually agreed to, rather than one that appeared after signing?
And the part that is not in the regulation but decides most disputes: a deduction agreed verbally is a deduction that does not exist. Recruiters are not villains for saying something on a phone call, but nobody is bound by a phone call when there is money on the table. If it matters, it is written down before you sign.
How to read a settlement against the lease
Do it once properly and it takes twenty minutes; do it every week and it takes five. Lay the settlement next to the lease. For every deduction line, write the clause number that authorizes it in the margin. Anything with no clause number goes on a short list. Then ask for the backing document for each item on that list, in writing, and keep the reply.
If you are paid percentage, get the rated freight bill or its equivalent, which Part 376 entitles you to at or before settlement — because a percentage of a gross you cannot verify is not a percentage, it is a number you were told. Reconcile the fuel line against your own receipts rather than accepting the total. And keep every settlement, because a pattern across eight weeks is visible in a way a single week never is.
Our settlement specimen exists for this reason. It is a blank form showing the actual structure — which lines exist, in which order, and where each one comes from — with no numbers filled in, because the numbers are yours and they come from your lease and your week. Read the structure first. Then when the real one arrives you are checking a document you already understand instead of learning the layout while trying to find a mistake.
None of this is adversarial. A clean settlement survives this reading without complaint, and a carrier that does the itemization properly wants you to check — it is cheaper to answer a question than to argue about eight weeks of them. This is education, not legal advice; a real dispute with real money in it belongs with a transportation attorney. But know what your deductions are, know which clause authorizes each one, and nobody has to explain your own money to you.