Tennessee Crash Reporting Requirements
In Tennessee, the crash reporting threshold is $1,500 in damage. Deadline to file: 20 days. Submit to: Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
- Damage threshold
- $1,500
A written report is required for any crash causing injury or death, property damage to any one person over $1,500, or damage to state or local government property over $400. Separately, any crash with injury or at least $50 of apparent damage must be reported to police immediately (§ 55-10-106).
- Deadline to file
- 20 days
The written report is due within 20 days. If it is not filed, the Department of Safety may suspend the driver's license and the vehicle's registration (§ 55-12-104(c)).
- Submit to
- Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security
The driver files the written report with the Department of Safety; one report under § 55-12-104 also satisfies § 55-10-107. Immediate notice goes to the local police inside a city, otherwise to the county sheriff or the nearest Highway Patrol office.
Tennessee sets $1,500 — higher than 28 of the 44 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $250 to $4,000.
How Tennessee compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
$1,500 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 12 of the 44 that set a dollar figure start higher. 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 20 days. 38 of the 43 with a day count give you less time, 4 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 Tennessee the report goes to Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security. 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 Tennessee
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 Tennessee
Checked against the primary sources above on September 22, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.