BOC-3 process agents: what the filing is, who must have one, and how it gets you suspended

The obligation starts in the statute. 49 U.S.C. 13304(a): "A motor carrier or broker providing transportation subject to jurisdiction under chapter 135 ... shall designate an agent in each State in which it operates by name and post office address on whom process issued by a court with subject matter jurisdiction may be served in an action brought against that carrier or broker. The designation shall be in writing and filed with the Department of Transportation." The same paragraph says what happens if you do not designate: "If a designation under this subsection is not made, service may be made on any agent of the carrier or broker within that State." That means your driver, your dispatcher, or whoever answers the phone at a terminal.

The form is fixed by 49 CFR 366.2T: "Designations shall be made on Form BOC-3, Designation of Agent for Service of Process. Only one completed current form may be on file. It must include all States for which agent designations are required. One copy must be retained by the carrier or broker at its principal place of business."

Who may serve: § 366.3T requires that "All persons ... designated as process agents must reside in or maintain an office in the State for which they are designated."

Part 366 carries two parallel sets of sections. §§ 366.1 through 366.6 were suspended effective January 14, 2017 (82 FR 5303), and the "T" sections are the operative text. Below we quote the operative sections and label the suspended ones wherever they add detail the "T" text leaves out.

How we verified this: we read the full XML of 49 CFR part 366 from the eCFR API for the text in effect 2026-09-01, retrieved 2026-09-14, including every effective-date note, and 49 U.S.C. 13304 from the Legal Information Institute the same day.

The operative applicability section, § 366.1T, reads: "These rules, relating to the filing of designations of persons upon whom court process may be served, govern motor carriers and brokers and, as of the moment of succession, their fiduciaries." The suspended § 366.1 is broader and names "for-hire and private motor carriers, brokers, freight forwarders and, as of the moment of succession, their fiduciaries."

Freight forwarders are not in the operative regulation's text, but the statute assumes they have one. 49 U.S.C. 13903(e) requires a freight forwarder to update its registration "not later than 30 days after a change in the freight forwarder's address, other contact information, officers, process agent, or other essential information." § 13904(g) says the same for brokers. FMCSA's Motus notice of April 29, 2026 (91 FR 23144) cites § 366.4T for the state-by-state designation duty of carriers and brokers.

If you are a private carrier operating only inside the United States, the operative § 366.4T(a) reaches you only in one case: "Every motor carrier (including private carriers) operating in the United States in the course of transportation between points in a foreign country shall file a designation for each State traversed." The suspended § 390.205(a)(3) would have required "All motor carriers (both private and for-hire)" to designate; it is suspended (88 FR 80184), and we do not present it as operative.

§ 366.4T(a): "Every motor carrier (of property or passengers) shall make a designation for each State in which it is authorized to operate and for each State traversed during such operations." § 366.4T(b): "Every broker shall make a designation for each State in which its offices are located or in which contracts will be written."

The suspended § 366.4(a) spells out the arithmetic the operative text implies: a carrier "except a motor carrier operating exclusively in Alaska or Hawaii, must designate process agents for all 48 contiguous States and the District of Columbia, unless its operating authority registration is limited to fewer than 48 States and DC." Interstate authority is not limited to a handful of states, so in practice a carrier needs an agent in every one it might traverse.

Finding 48 individual agents is what § 366.5T exists to avoid: "Where an association or corporation has filed with the FMCSA a list of process agents for each State, motor carriers may make the required designations by using the following statement: Those persons named in the list of process agents on file with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration by ________ (Name of association or corporation) and any subsequently filed revisions thereof, for the States in which this carrier is or may be authorized to operate, including States traversed during such operations, except those States for which individual designations are named." The blanket company is what FMCSA's 2026 notice calls a "blanket company (Form BOC-3 filer)."

The filing is tied to the authority application by § 365.109T(a)(6): "Applicants also must submit Form BOC-3—designation of legal process agents—within 20 days from the date an application notice is published in the FMCSA Register." It sits next to (a)(5), the 20-day insurance filing, and both precede the grant. FMCSA's Motus notice describes the same sequence for the new system: blanket companies "will use the new registration system to complete their required actions, including registering their business entity information, managing users, and submitting or removing filings."

The regulation contemplates the agent, not the carrier, transmitting the form. The operative § 365.507T(e)(2), written for Mexico-domiciled applicants, requires the carrier to "File a hard copy of, or have its process agent(s) electronically submit, Form BOC-3." The Motus notice confirms that Phase II "will not include ... changes to the Form BOC-3 filing process." In practice the blanket company files on your behalf; § 366.2T requires you to keep a copy.

What skipping it costs is stated most directly in suspended text. § 366.2(b), suspended since 2017: carriers, brokers and freight forwarders "must file the FORM BOC-3 designation at the time of their application for registration. Failure to file a designation in accordance with this paragraph will result in deactivation of the carrier's USDOT Number." We flag that as suspended rather than operative. The operative chain is § 365.109T(a)(6) plus 49 U.S.C. 13902(a)(1)(A)(i), under which FMCSA registers a carrier only if it "is willing and able to comply with ... this part and the applicable regulations of the Secretary." An application with no BOC-3 does not get to a grant.

On price: the operative fee schedule at § 360.3T(f) has no line item for a process agent designation, and the suspended § 360.3(f) prices it at $0. What a blanket company charges to file and to stand as agent is a private price. We publish no range for it.

The statute gives FMCSA the power. 49 U.S.C. 13905(d)(2)(A) lets the Secretary "suspend, amend, or revoke any part of the registration of a motor carrier, foreign motor carrier, foreign motor private carrier, broker, or freight forwarder for willful failure to comply with (i) this part; (ii) an applicable regulation or order of the Secretary." A carrier with no process agent on file is out of compliance with § 366.4T.

FMCSA's public authority-history feed shows how the agency actually applies that. The feed records each status change with a reason string. As of 2026-09-14, for changes dated on or after January 1, 2026, the three involuntary suspension reasons read, verbatim:

Our authority changes page shows these as "Involuntary suspension — BOC-3 process agent cancelled" and "Involuntary suspension — insurance and BOC-3 cancelled," and the carrier lookup shows them in the authority history of the affected docket. In the same window the feed records 2,936 "Reinstated" and 1,596 "REINSTATED" changes, which is why our authority changes page notes that most involuntary suspensions are cured within days. Cured is not free: while suspended, the docket is Inactive, and a broker checking it sees Inactive.

A suspension is not a revocation, but it can become one. § 13905(e) lets FMCSA revoke after an order under § 14701 "and the registrant willfully does not comply with the order for a period of 30 days." Getting revoked authority back is a separate filing priced at $80 under § 360.3T(f)(52), "A petition for reinstatement of revoked operating authority."

How we verified this: the counts are from FMCSA's "Motus AuthHist - All With History" dataset (yu5v-wbh6) on data.transportation.gov, queried 2026-09-14, grouped by reason and status for status change dates after 2026-01-01. The reason strings are quoted exactly as the feed returns them.

The operative rule is one sentence. § 366.6T: "A designation may be canceled or changed only by a new designation except that, where a carrier or broker ceases to be subject to § 366.4T in whole or in part for 1 year, designation is no longer required and may be canceled without making another designation." The statute agrees: § 13304(b), "A designation under this section may be changed at any time in the same manner as originally made."

Read together with § 366.2T ("Only one completed current form may be on file"), the safe order is: engage the new agent, have the new agent file its BOC-3, and only then let the old one go. A new designation replaces the old one; a cancellation with nothing behind it is the "no active process agent (BOC-3) filing on file" condition in section 5.

Reporting duties depend on what you are:

• Brokers and freight forwarders have an operative statutory deadline: registration must be updated "not later than 30 days after a change in the ... process agent" (49 U.S.C. 13904(g) for brokers, § 13903(e) for freight forwarders).
• Motor carriers have no operative regulatory deadline in part 366. The suspended § 366.6(b) and (c) set 30 days to report a change "such as name, address, or contact information" to FMCSA and to your process agent, and the suspended § 366.6(d) says an agent that terminates the relationship "should report the termination to FMCSA within 30 days." Those are suspended, and we say so. Following them anyway costs nothing.
• Mexico-domiciled carriers under the operative § 365.509T(a) must notify FMCSA in writing "within 45 days" of any change to the BOC-3 during the application or after provisional authority, and § 365.509T(b) allows FMCSA to "suspend or revoke its operating authority until it meets those requirements."

A name, address or business-form change does not by itself require a new BOC-3 under the operative text, but § 366.2T requires the form on file to be "current," and the blanket statement in § 366.5T is made in the name of "this carrier." Tell the agent when your legal name or docket changes so the designation on file still describes you.

• This is not legal advice, and CarrierStat is not affiliated with FMCSA or any government agency. Service of process is governed by court rules as well as this part.
• We name no blanket companies and publish no price for their service. A blanket company is one that "has filed with the FMCSA a list of process agents for each State" (§ 366.5T); the regulation sets no fee for the designation.
• State-level agent requirements. § 13304(a) allows each state to "require that an additional designation be filed with it." We do not list which do.
• Suspended sections are labeled. §§ 366.1–366.6, § 390.205, § 360.3 and most of part 365 have suspended twins. Wherever we quote one, the word "suspended" is next to it.

49 CFR part 366 — operative §§ 366.1T through 366.6T, and the suspended §§ 366.1, 366.2(b), 366.4(a) and 366.6(b)–(d), quoted only where labeled. Suspended at 82 FR 5303, effective Jan. 14, 2017. eCFR API, text in effect 2026-09-01, retrieved 2026-09-14; human-readable at ecfr.gov.

49 CFR part 365 — § 365.109T(a)(6) (20-day filing), § 365.507T(e)(2) (electronic submission by the agent), § 365.509T (change notice, Mexico-domiciled). Same snapshot; ecfr.gov.

49 CFR 360.3T(f) and suspended § 360.3(f)(7); 49 CFR 390.205(a)(3) (suspended at 88 FR 80184). Same snapshot.

49 U.S.C. 13304, 13902, 13903, 13904, 13905 — retrieved 2026-09-14 from law.cornell.edu.

91 FR 23144 (Availability of Motus, Apr. 29, 2026) — retrieved 2026-09-14 from federalregister.gov.

FMCSA Motus AuthHist - All With History (data.transportation.gov, yu5v-wbh6) — reason strings and counts, queried 2026-09-14. FMCSA's own web pages return HTTP 403 to automated retrieval, so nothing on this page is sourced from fmcsa.dot.gov.

Authority changes — the most recent BOC-3 and insurance suspensions, grants and reinstatements across all carriers.

Carrier authority & insurance lookup — a docket's authority history, including any BOC-3 suspension, by USDOT or MC number.

USDOT number vs MC number — which registrations you need before a BOC-3 matters.

BMC-91, BMC-91X, BMC-34 and the broker bond — the other 20-day filing, and the other cause of involuntary suspension.

What a new authority actually costs — the $300 fee and every other federally fixed amount.

MCS-150 biennial update checker, UCR 2026 fee calculator, IFTA tax rates, carrier data by state.