RV height clearance by state

Why there's no single national number

People reach for "13′6″" as if it were federal law. It isn't. The federal government sets no nationwide maximum vehicle height — each state does. Most land at 13′6″ or 14′, a handful allow more, and the tallest is Alaska at 15′. The reason 13′6″ still rules trip planning is simple: it's legal in every state, and most RVs fit under it.

Don't confuse the legal maximum with Interstate design clearance, either. Federal design standards call for at least 16 feet of vertical clearance over new rural Interstate construction (14 feet on some urban routes) — but that's a standard for new work. It says nothing about the older overpass on a county road or the stone-arch bridge on a parkway.

Measure your true height

Every one of these numbers is useless if you've measured your own rig wrong. Measure from the ground to the single highest fixed point — usually the rooftop air conditioner, sometimes an antenna, vent, or satellite dome. Manufacturer spec sheets routinely leave the A/C off, so measure it yourself and write it on a card on the dash. Then plan as if you were an inch or two taller, because repaving and imprecise signage eat into real clearance.

Watch the Northeast parkways

The single most dangerous exception to any state table: New York and New England parkways. Many were built for cars only, ban trucks and RVs outright, and carry landscaped stone overpasses with posted clearances as low as roughly 7 feet. A "13′6″-legal" state means nothing on a road your RV isn't allowed on in the first place. Use RV-safe routing, not a car map, anywhere near them.

Let your rig's height drive the route

The cleanest way to use any of this is to never think about it again after setup. Enter your height once and RV Compass computes every route against it, steering around low clearances and weight-limited bridges and telling you which ones it avoided. Any posted limit still close to your height is marked tight on the route, and navigation says it out loud before you get there. See the fundamentals in big-rig route planning and the deeper dive on avoiding low-clearance bridges.