If you have no transportation to jury duty, call the court or log into its online juror portal before your service date and ask for a postponement or an excusal based on hardship. Courts deal with transportation problems routinely and would rather reschedule you than penalize you for not appearing. What gets people in trouble is silence, not the underlying problem.
Contact the Court Before Your Service Date
The most important step is reaching out as soon as you realize you can’t get there. Your summons includes a phone number, and most federal courts now offer an online portal called eJuror where you can log in, click the excuse or postponement link, and submit your hardship in writing. If your summons includes a participant number or PIN, use it.
Be specific when you make contact. “I don’t have a car” is a start. “My vehicle broke down on June 3rd and the repair shop estimates two weeks for parts” gives the court something to evaluate. If you call, follow up in writing so there’s a record. Federal courts and most state courts require hardship requests to be in writing or placed on the court’s record, so a phone call alone may not be enough.
Postponement or Excusal
These are two different requests, and the distinction matters. A postponement moves your service to a later date when your transportation situation might be resolved. An excusal releases you from the summons entirely.
Courts grant postponements far more readily than excusals, and transportation problems are a textbook reason for one. If your car is in the shop, you’re between vehicles, or a temporary transit disruption is blocking your route, a postponement is the realistic outcome. The court will reschedule you weeks or months out.
Full excusals are harder to get. They’re typically reserved for situations that won’t change. The federal Jury Selection and Service Act authorizes courts to excuse jurors when service would cause “undue hardship or extreme inconvenience,” and each of the 94 federal district courts sets its own policies for how that standard applies.1United States Courts. Juror Qualifications, Exemptions and Excuses State courts follow similar frameworks under their own statutes. A permanent disability that prevents you from using any available transportation, or living in an extremely remote area with no realistic way to reach the courthouse, might qualify. A flat tire won’t.
If you’re unsure which to request, ask for a postponement. It’s easier to obtain, keeps you in good standing, and buys time to arrange a ride for your new date.
What Counts as a Real Transportation Hardship
Courts evaluate requests case by case, but a few situations come up repeatedly and tend to be taken seriously:
- No working vehicle and no public transit route to the courthouse. Rural jurors face this regularly.
- Extreme distance. Some federal courts treat distances of 60 miles or more each way as grounds for special accommodation, including overnight lodging the evening before you report. The threshold varies by district.
- Financial hardship from travel costs. Under the federal framework, courts can grant deferrals or excusals when service creates undue hardship, and financial burden from commuting qualifies.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 US Code 1863 – Plan for Random Jury Selection
- A physical disability that prevents you from driving or using public transportation, with no reasonable accommodation available.
The common thread is that the barrier has to be real, not just inconvenient. “I’d rather not take the bus” won’t work. “There is no bus route to the courthouse and I have no car” will.
Documentation That Strengthens Your Request
Courts see plenty of vague excuses. Specific, verifiable documentation separates a legitimate hardship claim from one that gets denied. Match the evidence to your situation.
For a vehicle breakdown, a repair invoice or mechanic’s estimate showing the problem and the expected repair timeline directly supports your claim. Make sure the dates line up with your service date. For public transit gaps, a printout of the local transit schedule showing no service to the courthouse during the hours you’d need to travel is straightforward and hard to argue with.
Financial hardship takes more detail. A breakdown of anticipated travel costs compared to your income helps the court see the real impact. If a round-trip rideshare would cost $80 and your daily take-home pay is $90, that math speaks for itself. Bank statements or recent pay stubs can back this up, though courts vary in how much financial documentation they require.
For disability-related barriers, a letter from your doctor is typically required. The letter should identify the condition, explain why it prevents you from traveling to the courthouse, estimate how long the limitation will last, and confirm that no reasonable accommodation would solve the problem. A vague note saying “patient cannot serve” without explaining the transportation connection is likely to be sent back for more detail.
Help the Court May Already Offer
Before you assume you can’t get there, ask the jury clerk what help is available. Many jurors don’t realize courts have programs built specifically to remove transportation barriers, and failing to ask about them weakens any later hardship claim.
Some courts have partnered with rideshare companies to offer free or discounted rides to jurors. You request a ride through the app, and the court or a promotional arrangement covers the fare up to a set dollar amount. Other courts offer transit passes or rail vouchers to jurors who agree to forgo their mileage reimbursement. If you live near a bus or rail line that reaches the courthouse, this kind of program can solve the problem entirely.
For jurors who live far from the courthouse, some federal districts arrange overnight accommodations the evening before you’re due to report. This is most common when you live 60 or more miles away, but courts have discretion to approve it in other circumstances if you can show good cause.
Parking reimbursement is easy to overlook. Several federal courts pay for parking at designated garages near the courthouse, so the cost of driving in and parking downtown doesn’t fall on you. Ask the jury clerk whether validated or reimbursed parking is available.
Juror Pay and Mileage Reimbursement
Courts don’t expect you to serve for free, and the money they pay can change the math on whether you can afford to get there. Federal jurors receive a $50 daily attendance fee, and petit jurors hearing a case that lasts more than ten days can receive up to $60 per day at the judge’s discretion. On top of that, federal jurors receive mileage reimbursement for the round-trip distance between home and the courthouse, calculated using the shortest practical route. The 2026 federal mileage rate is $0.725 per mile, and courts also reimburse tolls for bridges, tunnels, and ferries in full.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 US Code 1871 – Fees
State court pay is a different story. Daily attendance fees at the state level range from nothing in a couple of states to around $50, with a national average near $22. About half of all states provide no mileage reimbursement at all, and those that do pay anywhere from a few cents to roughly a dollar per mile. If your summons is for state court, check the fee schedule before assuming you’ll be reimbursed enough to cover gas or a rideshare.
If you’re summoned to federal court and live 30 miles away, you’d receive about $43.50 in mileage reimbursement each day on top of your $50 attendance fee. That may be enough to cover a rideshare or to reimburse a friend who drives you. Run the numbers before concluding that transportation makes service impossible.
What Happens If You Just Don’t Show Up
Ignoring a jury summons is where this goes from inconvenient to genuinely risky. In federal court, a juror who fails to appear can be ordered to show up and explain why. If the court doesn’t find good cause, the penalties include a fine of up to $1,000, up to three days in jail, community service, or a combination of all three.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1866 – Selection and Summoning of Jury Panels State penalties vary but follow a similar range, with fines typically starting around $100 and climbing for repeat offenses or willful defiance.
Courts rarely jump straight to the harshest consequences. The typical escalation starts with a warning letter or failure-to-appear notice. If you ignore that, the court issues an order to show cause, which is a formal demand that you appear before a judge and explain yourself. Continued silence after that can lead to contempt charges, steeper fines, and eventually a bench warrant. Jail time for missing jury duty is rare and almost always involves someone who ignored multiple warnings over weeks or months.
Every one of those consequences is avoidable by picking up the phone or logging into the online portal before your service date. A juror who contacts the court, explains a legitimate transportation problem, and requests a postponement faces no penalty at all.