What does Motus actually replace?
Three things, all at once: the FMCSA Portal (the web front-end most registrants used day to day), the Unified Registration System or URS (the back-end online registration process, first rolled out in pieces starting 2015), and the former Interstate Commerce Commission Licensing & Insurance system, which dated back to 1994. FMCSA's own notice describes Motus as satisfying the statutory mandate for a single unified registration system that URS was supposed to be but, after years of delayed rollout phases, never fully became.
The name is deliberate: Motus is Latin for "movement" or "progress." Functionally, it's a single account-based system -- create a user profile, create or claim a company account, then apply for or manage a registration -- replacing what used to be a handful of disconnected forms and systems (OP-1, MCS-150, the old L&I lookup, the Portal) with one place.
What happened to the FMCSA Portal?
It's retired. Motus rolled out in two phases: Phase I opened 8 December 2025 to "supporting companies" only -- BOC-3 blanket filers, insurance and surety companies, and transportation service providers -- letting them set up accounts ahead of the full launch. Phase II, opened to every regulated entity, went live 14 May 2026, and the legacy FMCSA Portal, URS, and Licensing & Insurance system were retired the same day.
If a bookmark or an old guide points you to the FMCSA Portal for registration, that's the reason it doesn't work the way it used to -- the destination is motus.dot.gov now.
How do I complete a biennial update in Motus?
FMCSA's own "Move into Motus" guidance lays out three steps:
- Create a user profile. Motus uses Login.gov for identity verification. First login requires scanning a QR code with a phone or tablet, photographing a government-issued ID, and a face scan -- a one-time step to protect the account.
- Create or claim a company account. If your company already has a USDOT number, the company official claims it using the same Login.gov email that was the company official on file in the old FMCSA Portal -- this imports the existing record instead of re-entering everything.
- Submit the update. Review, update, and certify the company's information. The biennial update itself, address or name changes, additional authority types, and reinstatement after a suspension or revocation are all handled the same way, inside the same account.
FMCSA's own job aid, Motus Quick-Start Guide to Your First Login, walks through the identity-verification step in more detail if you're doing this for the first time.
Are MC numbers still required?
Yes, as of this writing. FMCSA is considering phasing MC numbers out in favor of a suffix system on the USDOT number, but its own Federal Register notice on Motus explicitly says Phase II does not eliminate MC or FF numbers -- that change was deferred after stakeholders asked for more time. Several widely shared articles claiming MC numbers were eliminated in October 2025 are simply wrong; FMCSA's own FAQ, last updated 21 May 2026, confirms none of that has happened.
For the full breakdown -- what a USDOT suffix would look like, what's actually confirmed versus proposed, and the primary sources -- see the MC number lookup guide.
What is the USDOT suffix system?
Inside Motus, each type of registration a company holds -- for-hire common authority, broker authority, freight-forwarder authority, and so on -- can show as a suffix appended to that company's USDOT number, visible in the system for convenience. FMCSA's own notice is specific that these suffixes do not (yet) change formal agency correspondence -- letters, notices, and orders still reference registrations the old way. A registrant can carry more than one suffix if it holds more than one type of authority. This is the mechanism FMCSA is testing as groundwork for the possible MC-number phase-out above, not a finished replacement for it.
How does Motus fight registration fraud?
Two new verification layers, both named directly in FMCSA's Federal Register notice. Identity verification, run with vendor IDEMIA since April 2025, requires every new applicant to scan a government-issued ID and complete a live face match before their registration goes through -- and FMCSA says it will extend this check to its roughly 800,000 existing registrants as each one accesses Motus for the first time. Business verification, run with vendor CLEAR since September 2025, cross-checks a company's legal name, address, ownership, and officers against outside records to confirm the business is what it claims to be.
FMCSA's stated reason is a real, named problem: a documented rise in fraudulent registration activity, including identity theft, hijacked motor carrier accounts, and the outright sale of USDOT numbers and personal identification numbers -- some of it, per FMCSA's own notice, tied to foreign actors. Neither vendor is described as storing or sharing the personal data collected beyond the verification step itself.
Where does FMCSA's public data come from now?
Two different things are easy to conflate here, so it's worth being precise. FMCSA's open-data catalog (published free, no API key, at data.transportation.gov) is separate from the Motus application itself -- and within that catalog, not every dataset is still live. Checked directly on 8 September 2026: the older "Carrier - All With History" and "Revocation - All With History" datasets each carry FMCSA's own note, verbatim -- "This dataset was last refreshed on 05/14/2026 and will no longer be updated." That's the exact date the legacy systems retired. Anyone building on those specific datasets today is working from a frozen snapshot, not a live feed.
The datasets FMCSA is actively continuing to update carry the "Motus" name in the catalog itself (Motus Carrier, Motus Insur, Motus RevokeSuspend, and related history tables) -- each showed an update timestamp from the same day this was checked. If a tool or a report cites carrier data and doesn't say which of these two families it's built on, that's worth asking about; the difference between "current" and "frozen since May" matters for anything time-sensitive, like an insurance lapse or a revocation.