FMCSA carrier vetting for freight brokers
Double-brokered loads, lapsed cargo insurance and revoked authority all show up in FMCSA's own filings first. Enter a USDOT or MC number, or drop in a list, and get a dated GO / CAUTION / STOP you can staple to the carrier packet.
Rather look first? See a sample report.
SAMPLE FREIGHT LLC
No disqualifying facts on file today. Operating authority and insurance filings both check out.
Proof
This is the whole output: one card, every section dated. A section whose FMCSA source has not been loaded yet is left off rather than shown as a clean result we cannot stand behind.
What the same checks find across every active carrier: the Q3 2026 fraud signals report.
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Carrier411 lists $99 a month and BrokerSnapshot starts at $100 a month, by their own sites on 13 September 2026. CarrierScrub checks authority and insurance by fixed, published rules, with 25 lookups free every month. Each comparison says, cell by cell, where the other product goes further.
FAQ
New to vetting, or training someone who is? How to vet a carrier walks through every check, in order, with FMCSA's own sources.
FMCSA's records for the carrier: whether carrier authority is active and whether a revocation order is pending; whether FMCSA has placed the carrier under an out-of-service order; whether liability insurance on file meets the required minimum, and any filed cancellation or insurer churn; whether FMCSA's current record shows a required cargo insurance or bond filing missing, or its mail to the carrier returned undeliverable; the safety rating, recent investigation findings, roadside out-of-service rates and crash history from FMCSA's SMS snapshot; and whether the registration shares contact details with a revoked carrier. Each result is a dated GO, CAUTION or STOP with the reason codes.
Yes. Three distinct carriers a day with no account and no card. A free account adds 25 lookups a month, then $1.00 each; Small Brokerage ($79/mo) and Agency ($249/mo) remove the monthly lookup cap and include Shield dispatcher checks and more Compliance Assistant messages; Agency makes API lookups unlimited, and the API works on every plan. Batch upload, the watchlist and team roles come with the free account.
STOP means a blocking fact is on file: no active carrier authority, broker-only authority, a federal out-of-service order, no liability insurance in force or less than the required minimum, or new authority registered at a revoked carrier's contact under a different name. CAUTION means a fact worth checking before tendering, such as a served revocation not yet in effect, a filed cancellation, three or more insurers, a Conditional or Unsatisfactory safety rating, FMCSA's mail to the carrier returned undeliverable, or a phone shared with a revoked carrier. GO means none of those conditions is on file. The rules are fixed and published.
From FMCSA's open data, updated in periodic imports. A check uses the carrier's current Motus record where FMCSA has one, and otherwise FMCSA's legacy file, which FMCSA stopped updating on 14 May 2026. Every result shows which record it used and that record's date. Safety rating, roadside out-of-service history and crash history come from FMCSA's SMS snapshot and are dated to it. FMCSA does not publish BASIC percentiles for property carriers, so no result shows one.
No. SAFER is the authoritative federal record and every CarrierScrub result links to it. CarrierScrub resolves the filings a broker would otherwise cross-check by hand into one dated verdict, and adds Shield, which compares a dispatcher's phone number with the number on the carrier's FMCSA registration.
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