Check any U.S. motor carrier before you hire, load or insure it.

What a lookup returns

Each result is assembled at request time from seven FMCSA open-data files, and every section names the file it came from and the date of the snapshot it reflects. For a single USDOT number you get:

Registration record. Legal name, USDOT and docket (MC/FF/MX) numbers, census status, operation classification (interstate or intrastate, for-hire or private), entity type, power units, driver and CDL-holder counts, hazmat indicator, physical city and state, the date the carrier was first added to the census, and the date and mileage on its most recent MCS-150 filing. Source: the FMCSA Company Census File, refreshed daily.

Operating authority. Whether the carrier holds common, contract or broker authority, what it is authorized to carry (property, passengers, household goods), the minimum bodily-injury and property-damage (BIPD) liability coverage FMCSA requires of it, the BIPD amount actually on file, and whether cargo insurance or a surety bond is required and filed. Source: FMCSA's carrier authority file, which stopped updating on May 14, 2026 and is labeled with that date wherever it appears.

Authority history and revocations. Every recorded grant, reinstatement, suspension or revocation of each authority type, newest first, from the current daily AuthHist feed, plus the revocation orders served against the carrier from the retired revocation file. Read the two together: a revocation is often followed by reinstatement, and only the history feed stays current.

Safety record. Total, driver and vehicle roadside inspections over FMCSA's 24-month measurement window, the share of each that produced an out-of-service order, inspections with a violation and the roadside performance measure in each of five Safety Measurement System (SMS) BASICs, and whether an investigation in the last 12 months recorded an acute or critical violation. Source: the monthly SMS snapshot files.

Insurance. Policies with no cancellation recorded in the retired active-insurance file, then the ten most recent filings from the current Motus insurance feed: form (BMC-91, BMC-91X, BMC-34 and so on), insurer, policy number, coverage amount, effective date and the date FMCSA received the filing.

How to read the result

Census status is not authority. An "A" census status only means the USDOT record is active; a carrier can be active in the census with no operating authority, or with authority that has been revoked. For-hire interstate carriage of regulated commodities needs an active authority, so check the Operating authority section and the newest row of the Authority history.

Compare the BIPD minimum with what is on file. FMCSA requires most for-hire property carriers to keep at least $750,000 of liability coverage on file, with higher minimums for hazardous materials and passenger operations (49 CFR 387.9 and 387.33). The lookup shows both the minimum FMCSA has set for the carrier and the amount its insurer last filed, so a shortfall is visible at a glance.

Mind the dates. FMCSA moved licensing and insurance processing to its Motus system in 2026 and froze the previous generation of authority and insurance files on May 14, 2026. CarrierStat pulls the current Motus feeds for insurance filings and authority events, and shows figures from the frozen files only with that date attached. A site that quotes an "active" policy without a date may be reading a feed that no longer receives cancellations.

MCS-150 currency. Every carrier must update its MCS-150 at least every two years, in a month determined by its USDOT number (49 CFR 390.19T). A last-filed date more than two years old on the registration record is a warning sign; the MCS-150 checker works out the exact deadline.

What is deliberately missing. The census also carries telephone numbers, email addresses, street addresses and officer names. CarrierStat never selects those fields and never publishes them, so the lookup cannot be used as a contact list.