CarrierScrub
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.
How do I claim my existing USDOT number in Motus?
Claiming links your existing record to a new Motus company account, so the company's data imports instead of being typed in again. Only the company official can do it, and only while signed in to Login.gov with the same email that was the company official's in the old FMCSA Portal. FMCSA's job aid sets out the steps:
- Log in and create your user profile. Sign in to Motus with your existing Login.gov account, set up the profile and complete identity verification.
- Link the USDOT number. A pop-up says one or more USDOT numbers are associated with your Login.gov account. Choose "Link USDOT Number", select the number you are claiming and click "Continue".
- Enter the verification code. FMCSA emails a code to your Login.gov address; enter it in the "Verify Your Identity" window.
- Accept the first certification. Confirm you are the owner, an official partner or an authorized corporate officer, and sign with your name.
- Review the business information. The new company account opens with a "Pending Certification" notice. Check every record and update anything out of date.
- Certify. Click "Certify" in the orange banner, accept the USDOT Claiming Certification Statement, and a confirmation window shows the claim is complete.
If your USDOT number is not listed, or the pop-up never appears, FMCSA's instruction is to contact it through motus.dot.gov/contact-fmcsa; the Contact FMCSA link inside Motus reaches an agent by chat, email or phone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern. Supporting companies -- insurers, BOC-3 process agents and other service providers -- should not claim a USDOT number at all: FMCSA has them create a supporting company account instead.
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. Fraudsters have since targeted Motus itself with look-alike sign-in sites; FMCSA's warnings are in the timeline below.
Can you look up a carrier in Motus?
Yes. Motus has a public company search at motus.dot.gov/public/search. Its own help text names two ways in: a USDOT number, which has to match exactly, or the start of a company's legal or DBA name. It lists no MC-number search, so to start from an MC number use an MC number lookup, which finds the USDOT record the docket belongs to.
SAFER's Company Snapshot still answers one carrier at a time, free, for the safety side: inspections, crashes and the safety rating. Neither tells you whether to tender the load. That takes reading the authority and insurance filings together, which is what a DOT number lookup here returns as one dated GO / CAUTION / STOP.
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.
How many suspension notices has Motus sent?
An involuntary suspension notice is FMCSA's warning before it suspends a carrier's, broker's or freight forwarder's operating authority. FMCSA publishes the ones it serves in its open-data file "Motus RevokeSuspend - All With History". Read in full on 3 October 2026, the file listed 22,546 involuntary suspension notices, served between 18 May and 3 October 2026 to 18,073 USDOT numbers. Almost all of them (22,214) take effect exactly 30 days after they were served.
| Month served | Notices |
|---|---|
| May 2026 (from the 18th) | 2,180 |
| June 2026 | 5,571 |
| July 2026 | 3,558 |
| August 2026 | 4,502 |
| September 2026 | 6,202 |
| October 2026 (1st to 3rd) | 533 |
Repeats are common. Of the 18,458 authorities with a notice, 2,993 have two or more and 581 have three or more; one has 51. On 680 occasions the same authority was served more than one notice on the same day. On 3 October, 5,803 notices, against 5,377 USDOT numbers, still had an effective date ahead.
A notice on file is not proof that a carrier is uninsured. Overdrive reported on 4 September 2026 that FMCSA had restored 165 authorities suspended despite active insurance on file, and noted more than 1,200 carriers suspended despite active policies.
If you are the carrier, open data.transportation.gov/resource/wb4f-neki.json?usdot_number= with your USDOT number added on the end. Each entry is one notice, with the date it was served and the date it takes effect, written YYYYMMDD. A page showing only [] means the file holds nothing for that number. If an involuntary notice is listed while your insurance is in force, have your insurer confirm its filing with FMCSA before the effective date.
If you are the broker, a DOT number lookup here reads the same file on every check. A pending notice shows as CAUTION, "Revocation pending", with the date it was served and the date it takes effect. It is a dated fact to ask the carrier about, not a verdict on its own.
What has happened since Motus launched?
The rollout has been rough, and FMCSA says so. The dated record, from FMCSA's own notices, its open data and the trade press:
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 8 December 2025 | Phase I opens Motus to supporting companies only: BOC-3 blanket filers, insurance and surety companies, and other service providers. | 91 FR 23144 |
| 14 May 2026 | Phase II opens Motus to every registrant. FMCSA retires the FMCSA Portal, URS and the Licensing & Insurance system, and stops updating its legacy open-data files. | 91 FR 23144; FMCSA's dataset notes |
| 18 May 2026 | The first involuntary suspension notices appear in FMCSA's Motus RevokeSuspend file. By 3 October it lists 22,546. | CarrierScrub count |
| August 2026 | FMCSA warns of a fake “New MOTUS Portal” on look-alike domains, reached from emails titled “Notice of Required Off-Cycle Update.” The real address is motus.dot.gov. | FMCSA fraud alerts |
| 4 September 2026 | Overdrive reports that FMCSA has restored 165 authorities suspended despite active insurance on file. | Overdrive |
| 10 September 2026 | FMCSA temporarily stops enforcing biennial updates, and stops inactivating USDOT numbers for missing them, for registrants whose update was due on or after 1 June 2026. | FMCSA |
| September 2026 | FMCSA records 1,651 reinstatements that correct errors from its own move to Motus. | Motus Q3 2026 report |
| 1 October 2026 | At the NMFTA cybersecurity conference, Deputy Administrator Jesse Elison says the weeks after launch were hard -- “every time we tried to fix it, it worked less” -- and that the user experience should be fixed within weeks, with back-end work finished well within a year. A Proofpoint researcher reports credential-harvesting sites aimed at carriers and brokers: “We do see some targeting Motus.” | CCJ; FreightWaves |
If you are the carrier, type motus.dot.gov yourself rather than following a link in an email; FMCSA's alert lists the fake domains. The pause covers biennial updates only: from July to September FMCSA suspended 6,093 carriers' authority, 5,596 of them because liability insurance was cancelled with no replacement on file.
If you are the broker, read the date on any status. A carrier Motus suspended in error can show Inactive for a time, and the reverse also happens: on 9 October 2026, 1,088 carriers that Motus listed as Active were under a federal out-of-service order. Freight fraud in 2026 covers the schemes that exploit the confusion.