Kentucky Crash Reporting Requirements
In Kentucky, the crash reporting threshold is $500 in damage. Deadline to file: 10 days. Submit to: Department of Kentucky State Police.
- Damage threshold
- $500
You file your own report only when property damage exceeds $500 and no law enforcement officer investigated the crash. There is no dollar test for the other duty: any crash causing injury or death, or leaving a vehicle inoperable, must be reported to a law enforcement officer having jurisdiction immediately, and the officer then investigates and files the report.
- Deadline to file
- 10 days
Ten days from the date of the crash, on forms provided by the department. The same ten days apply to the investigating agency when an officer did handle the crash. Separately, at the scene you must stop, render reasonable assistance, and on request give your name, address, vehicle registration number and — on an interstate or parkway — your insurance information.
- Submit to
- Department of Kentucky State Police
The State Police maintain Kentucky's crash reporting system statewide; the driver's report goes to them, not to a local department or a court. These reports are confidential and not open records: they are released only to the parties, their attorneys and insurers, and a few other listed requesters.
Kentucky sets $500 — higher than 2 of the 44 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $250 to $4,000.
How Kentucky compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
$500 is the number to keep in mind, and it is a damage figure rather than an injury one: a crash with no one hurt still has to be reported once the damage reaches it. Only 2 of the 44 that set a dollar figure start lower. Note what the threshold is measured against — apparent damage at the scene, not the final repair invoice — so the call has to be made before anyone has priced anything.
You have 10 days. 23 of the 43 with a day count give you less time, 8 give you more. The clock runs from the crash, not from the insurance claim or the repair estimate, and it keeps running while you wait to hear whether the police filed a report of their own.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In Kentucky the report goes to Department of Kentucky State Police. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for Kentucky
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on Kentucky
Checked against the primary sources above on September 27, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.