Two related programs, one set of records
If you run under your own operating authority and cross state or provincial lines, you're almost certainly enrolled in two related but separate programs.
The International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) covers quarterly fuel tax reporting across jurisdictions. The International Registration Plan (IRP) covers apportioned vehicle registration and your cab card. They're administered by different organizations and file on different schedules, but the records that support them — mileage by jurisdiction and fuel purchased — overlap almost completely.
Neither program is run by FMCSA. IFTA is coordinated nationally by IFTA, Inc. and IRP is coordinated by IRP, Inc., but your actual license, decals, cab card, and any audit are handled by your base jurisdiction — the state or province where your business is established and your records are kept.
Audits look backward, sometimes years later
IFTA and IRP both require you to keep supporting records for a fixed retention period, and both explicitly warn that if your records are missing or inadequate, the auditor doesn't just skip that part of the review — they're authorized to make their own determination and recalculate your mileage or fuel usage, which can mean additional tax, penalties, and interest on top of what you actually owed.
The habit that protects you is a simple one: capture the mileage-by-jurisdiction and fuel-purchase details as you go, every trip, rather than trying to reconstruct a quarter's worth of driving from memory when a filing deadline or an audit notice arrives.
What every owner-operator should know
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Who needs both: generally, a vehicle with three or more axles regardless of weight, or a two-axle vehicle or combination with a gross vehicle weight over 26,000 lbs, that travels in two or more IFTA/IRP member jurisdictions.
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Retention periods differ slightly: IFTA records generally must be kept 4 years from the date the tax return was due or filed, whichever is later. IRP records must generally be kept 4 years after the end of the registration year they support.
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Every mile counts, not just "working" miles: distance records must show all mileage in each jurisdiction — loaded and unloaded, business and personal. IFTA does not recognize a short-haul or mileage-radius exemption the way some other trucking rules do.
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Fuel receipts need specific fields: date of purchase, seller name and location, fuel type, gallons, price per gallon, and the vehicle's unit number. A prepaid receipt or a non-itemized credit card statement typically isn't accepted as proof of tax-paid fuel.
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No device is officially "IFTA-certified" or "IRP-certified": GPS and ELD systems can support your distance records if they log readings at least every 10 minutes while the engine runs, with date, time, and coordinates — but buying an ELD doesn't automatically satisfy IFTA or IRP recordkeeping on its own.
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IRP issues two things per vehicle: an apportioned license plate and a cab card listing every jurisdiction the vehicle is registered to run in, along with the registered weight for each. The original cab card — paper or an accepted electronic image — must be with the vehicle at all times.
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Raw receipts aren't the finish line: both programs expect monthly and quarterly mileage summaries by vehicle and by jurisdiction, and IRP also expects an annual summary that ties back to what you reported at your last renewal.