FMCSA public records · updated daily
Check a carrier's authority before the load moves
One USDOT or MC number in, the federal record out: operating authority, insurance on file, fleet size — with the date it was read stamped on it.
Free · No account · Company records only, never a person
Stamped with a date
Every record carries the snapshot date it was read from FMCSA. A screenshot with no date proves nothing six months later; a dated record does.
Facts, no scores
Authority status, insurance on file, fleet size — reproduced as published. No rating, no grade, no opinion about who you should book.
Same data over JSON
The page and the API return the identical carrier card. One GET, no SOAP, no scraping, no key needed to try it.
A carrier you cleared in March can lose its authority in July.
Nobody sends you a letter. Watch a carrier and the daily pass tells you when the record moves — authority, insurance, legal name, address.
See monitoring plansWhat comes back
Four things the record answers, and four it doesn't
Identity
Legal name, DBA, USDOT and MC numbers, physical address.
It will not tell you the company you were emailed by is the company on the docket. Match the name yourself.
Operating authority
Common, contract and broker authority, each shown separately, plus whether a revocation is pending.
Active authority is permission to haul, not evidence that a particular load is legally covered.
Insurance on file
BIPD on file against BIPD required, cargo and bond, and the individual filings behind them.
On file is not the same as in force today. An insurer cancellation reaches the federal file after it happens, not before.
Dates
The last MCS-150 update, the filing dates on each record, and the snapshot date the whole card was read on.
A record with no date on it cannot answer the only question that matters afterwards: what did you know, and when.
For developers
The carrier card, one GET away
If you build a TMS, a dispatch board or an agent that touches carriers, you shouldn't have to scrape SAFER or parse a federal ZIP file. The same JSON that renders the page above is the API — no SOAP envelope, no session, no key to try it.
Monitoring ships with it: watch a carrier and a daily pass reports authority, insurance, name and address changes — by webhook or by polling a change log.
curl https://checkmycarrier.com/v1/carriers/264184
{
"dot_number": "264184",
"mc_number": "MC133655",
"legal_name": "SCHNEIDER NATIONAL CARRIERS INC",
"usdot_status": "ACTIVE",
"authority": { "common": "ACTIVE", "revocation_pending": false },
"insurance": { "bipd_on_file_usd": 1000000 },
"source": "FMCSA",
"snapshot_date": "2026-08-20"
}Guides
The record is public. Reading it is the skill.
How to vet a carrier
The federal record in the order a person actually checks it: identity, authority, insurance, then the dates that decide how much any of it is worth.
Double brokering, in the record
Why a load ends up with a company you never hired, and which federal fields disagree with each other when it happens.
Comparing carrier data services
The four questions worth asking of any of them — where each fact comes from, whether it is dated, whether software can read it, and whether it tells you when something changes.
Common questions
What is a USDOT number? +
A USDOT number is the identifier FMCSA assigns to a company that operates commercial vehicles in interstate commerce. It stays with the company and is the key every federal record is filed under.
What is the difference between a USDOT number and an MC number? +
The USDOT number identifies the company and its safety record. The MC (motor carrier) docket number is the operating authority that permits it to haul regulated freight for hire across state lines. Many carriers hold both; a carrier hauling only exempt commodities or operating intrastate may hold just a USDOT number.
Where does this data come from? +
From the FMCSA public datasets published on data.transportation.gov — the census file, the carrier authority file with history, and the insurance file with history. Nothing here is scraped and nothing is user-submitted.
How current is it? +
FMCSA republishes those datasets daily, and every response is stamped with the date it was read. Filings can take days to appear in the federal record after they happen, which is exactly why the snapshot date is on every card.
Is this free? +
Looking up carriers on the site is free. The JSON API is free to try at 100 lookups a day; a key lifts the cap for production use.
What does monitoring cost? +
The unmetered API is $29 a month and monitoring up to 500 carriers is $79 a month. Both come with a 14-day trial that needs no card, and the key is issued on the spot.
Can I use this to decide whether to book a carrier? +
You can use it to read the federal record, which is one input among several. This is not a consumer report and not for FCRA purposes, it carries no rating or score, and it says nothing about anyone’s experience with a company — only what FMCSA has on file, and when it was read.