Do you need IFTA sticker on truck?

Yes.

Have them next day a new sticker to you.

 

It's like not having proof of insurance. You may get a ticket to appear and show paperwork after the fact.
Heck, they may not even notice, I drove my truck over a month without the '18 stickers bc I knew it was going into paint and didn't want to put them on until after.

 

While I am not an O/O...

Yes, you need said yearly sticker.

If you don't have it and get pulled over/stopped at a scale house, you can get fined.

 

I've got fined for not having IFTA paper with me on inspection. $200 or so. I did have sticker though.

 

I had one bozo driver who lost the stickers and didn't tell anyone.

The state of Alabama put the truck out of service for this and a log defect issue. I wasn't happy about it but then I got the fine in the mail, $250 for the ifta sticker.

 

I got a ticket once on 1 March for outdated IFTA sticker.

I was asleep for a 1am pickup, and the boss called me at 8pm. I didn’t hear the phone and when I saw the call at 12:30am, I figured I would call in the am and see what was up. Turns out, they wanted to fax me the copy of the active permit (4hrs before previous one was no longer valid).

I got pulled in at 5am, and the scale wouldn’t let me go with just a fine. The fine was $495 in 2012. I waited until the office opened at 8am, and they faxed the scale house the active permit.

Despite the fax watermark showing the permit had been issued Feb 29, 2012 the monkey in the scalehouse claimed my company had just gotten the permit that morning in response to the ticket, and ticketed me anyway.

 

Couple years ago in January. Wyoming scale asked for ifta license. I still had previous year sticker on truck.
New sticker was at home. I had new license emailed. I showed her my new license.
Inspector said I could replace sticker or show her the license that matched the sticker on truck.
She said I had 1st quarter to get new sticker on truck.
I usually have sticker on truck first week of January.

Yes you need sticker on truck.

 

You can stop at every border and buy a permit for that state if you don't have IFTA, that will save you a ticket if you get stopped but it might not save you any money.

I would probably just use some creative routing for a little while.