HOS ETA Calculator: Estimate Arrival Time Within Your Drive Clock

What Is an HOS ETA Calculator?

An HOS ETA calculator estimates a truck's arrival time by combining trip distance and speed with federal Hours of Service limits — the 11-hour drive limit and 14-hour duty window. Rather than just dividing miles by speed, it checks whether the remaining drive time actually covers the trip, factors in the mandatory 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, and adds 10-hour restarts if the trip can't be finished within the current duty window. For dispatchers planning multi-stop routes, this prevents promising a delivery time that's legally impossible to hit.

How to Use the HOS ETA Calculator

Enter the driver's hours already used today along with trip distance and speed, and the calculator returns a realistic ETA that respects HOS limits.

Enter hours already driven today, out of the 11-hour drive limit.
Enter duty window hours used since the shift started, out of the 14-hour limit.
Enter miles remaining to the destination and average highway speed.
Set the planned departure time.
Add any expected stop time for fuel, meals, or shipper delays.
Review the estimated arrival, drive time remaining, and any required restarts before confirming the ETA with dispatch or the customer.

Who This Tool Is For

Built for dispatchers and ops managers setting delivery appointments or relaying ETAs to brokers and customers. If a driver is already partway through their duty window and the next leg is long enough that HOS limits might force a restart, this calculator catches that before an appointment gets booked that the driver legally can't make.

Key Terms Explained

11-Hour Drive Limit: The maximum number of hours a property-carrying driver can spend actually driving within a single duty period under federal Hours of Service rules, before requiring 10 consecutive hours off duty.
14-Hour Duty Window: The total span of time — driving and non-driving work combined — a driver has to complete their 11 hours of driving after coming on duty. Once the 14-hour window closes, the driver cannot drive again until taking a 10-hour off-duty break.
30-Minute Break Rule: A mandatory 30-minute off-duty break required after 8 cumulative hours of driving, before the driver can continue. This break must be factored into any ETA calculation for trips longer than 8 hours of drive time.
10-Hour Restart: The minimum consecutive off-duty rest period required before a driver's drive and duty clocks reset and they can legally begin a new duty period. Trips that exceed remaining available hours require one or more restarts to complete.
Effective Hours Remaining: The smaller of the driver's remaining drive-time hours and remaining duty-window hours. Since both limits apply simultaneously, the lower number is what actually constrains how much more driving can legally happen before a break is required.

Example: Estimating ETA for a 550-Mile Trip

A driver has already used 4.5 hours of their 11-hour drive limit and 6 hours of their 14-hour duty window, leaving 6.5 hours of drive time and 8 hours of duty window — 6.5 effective hours available. The remaining trip is 550 miles at an average 55 mph, requiring exactly 10 hours of driving plus 60 minutes of stops. Since 10 hours of drive time needed exceeds the 6.5 hours available, the calculator flags that a 10-hour restart will be required mid-trip, pushing the realistic ETA well past what a simple miles-divided-by-speed estimate would suggest.

Why Simple Mileage Math Gets ETAs Wrong

Dividing miles by speed gives a drive-time estimate, not a legal one. A driver several hours into their duty window has less room left than a fresh start, and federal HOS rules don't bend for a tight delivery window. Promising an ETA based on distance alone — without checking remaining drive and duty hours — is one of the most common ways dispatch ends up scrambling to explain a missed appointment. Building the HOS clock into the ETA calculation from the start means the number given to a broker or customer is one the driver can actually, legally hit.

Related Calculators

01 Detention Calculator

Calculate detention pay owed when dock delays eat into the duty window an ETA depends on.

02 Break-Even Lane Calculator

Check if a lane's rate justifies the hours and restarts an ETA calculation reveals.

03 Load Comparison Calculator

Compare two load offers, including how HOS constraints affect each one's timeline.

04 Deadhead Mileage Calculator

Factor empty miles into total drive time before estimating an HOS-aware ETA.

Frequently Asked Questions

Property-carrying drivers can drive up to 11 hours within a 14-hour duty window under federal Hours of Service rules. After reaching either limit, the driver must take 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving again.

A 30-minute off-duty break is required after 8 cumulative hours of driving. This break can be taken as off-duty time, sleeper berth time, or in some cases on-duty not-driving time, depending on current FMCSA rules.

If remaining drive or duty hours aren't enough to finish the trip, the driver must take a 10-hour off-duty restart before continuing. The HOS ETA calculator flags this automatically by comparing drive time needed against effective hours remaining.

No. For most drivers, the 14-hour duty window runs continuously from the start of the shift and does not pause for breaks, fuel stops, or meals — only driving time pauses during a break, not the duty clock itself.

A GPS estimate reflects driving time only and ignores legal limits on how long a driver can keep driving. An HOS-based ETA accounts for required breaks and restarts, making it more realistic for trips that approach or exceed a driver's remaining available hours.