DOT compliance checker: which filings does your truck actually owe?

Your file number with the federal government. It is not a permit and it does not grant you the right to haul for anyone: it is the identifier your inspections, crashes and audits are recorded against for as long as you operate. One number per company, not per truck.

If you miss it: Operating without one is an out-of-service violation at roadside, and the carrier is fined. It is also the number every shipper and broker checks before they tender you a load, so in practice not having one means not getting work.

Before the first load. There is no annual renewal, but see the biennial update below.

Where it is filed: motus.dot.gov

Permission to be paid to move other people's freight across state lines. A USDOT number identifies you; authority is what makes hauling for hire lawful. If you only ever haul your own company's goods you are a private carrier and you do not need it. If you only run inside one state, federal authority does not apply, though your state may have its own.

If you miss it: Operating for hire without authority draws federal civil penalties, and it also means you cannot legally enforce collection of your freight charges. A customer who does not want to pay you has a defense.

Before the first for-hire interstate load. Allow several weeks: authority is not instant, and insurance has to be filed before it activates.

Where it is filed: motus.dot.gov

The minimum liability coverage a for-hire carrier must carry, filed electronically with FMCSA by your insurance company rather than by you. General freight sits at $750,000; certain hazardous materials go to $1,000,000 or $5,000,000. You cannot file this yourself and you should be suspicious of anyone who offers to.

If you miss it: A lapse revokes your authority. Reinstatement is a separate filing with its own fee, and the gap shows permanently in your public record where every broker can see it.

Continuous. Your insurer files it and files again if it lapses.

Where it is filed: Your insurance company files this. You cannot, and nobody else can either.

The name of somebody in each state who can legally receive court papers on your behalf. In practice you pay one blanket agent a small one-time fee and they cover all states at once. By rule only a blanket process agent can make this filing, not you, so this is one of the few items where using a third party is not a convenience but a requirement.

If you miss it: Authority will not be granted without it, and an existing authority can be revoked if the agent resigns and is not replaced.

Filed alongside the authority application.

Where it is filed: Through a blanket process agent, who files it for you. By rule you cannot file it yourself.

An annual federal fee collected by the states, based on how many power units you run. It applies to private carriers and brokers as well as for-hire carriers, which is the part that catches people: you can owe UCR without owing operating authority. Registration opens in the autumn for the following year.

If you miss it: Enforcement is at roadside in participating states, and fines run into the hundreds per stop. It is also cheap to pay and expensive to argue about, so it is the wrong thing to be behind on.

For the following calendar year. Register early: the portal is slow in December.

Where it is filed: ucr.gov

A confirmation that your company details, fleet size and mileage are still accurate. It is due even in a year when nothing changed and even if you did not operate at all. Historically the due month was derived from your USDOT number's digits, and FMCSA's new Motus system has changed how registration works, so confirm your own date in Motus rather than relying on the old rule of thumb.

If you miss it: Missing it deactivates your USDOT number and revokes your operating authority. This is the single most common way a working carrier accidentally becomes an unlawful one.

Every two years, on a schedule tied to your USDOT number. Check your date in Motus.

Check this one: Motus replaced the legacy registration systems in May 2026. Confirm whether the USDOT-digit schedule still applies to you.

Where it is filed: motus.dot.gov

A federal tax on heavy trucks using public highways. The tax year runs 1 July to 30 June. File for vehicles used in July by 31 August; for a truck first used in any other month, the deadline is the last day of the following month. You get back a stamped Schedule 1, which your state will demand before it will register or renew the plate.

If you miss it: No stamped Schedule 1 means no plate renewal, so the truck comes off the road. Late filing also carries IRS penalties and interest on top.

31 August for vehicles used in July. A truck first used later is due the last day of the month after that first use.

Where it is filed: IRS trucking tax center

One fuel tax licence that covers all member states instead of a permit for each. You buy diesel wherever you like, then each quarter you report miles driven and fuel bought per state, and the difference is settled through your base state. It is not a tax on top of the pump price, it is a reallocation of it: you end up paying each state for the miles you actually drove there.

If you miss it: A missed return is a penalty plus interest per jurisdiction, and repeated misses get the licence revoked, which strands the truck. The return is due even for a quarter with zero miles.

Due 30 April, 31 July, 31 October and 31 January. A zero-mile quarter still needs a return. The licence itself renews annually by 31 December.

Where it is filed: Through your base state's revenue or motor carrier office, not a federal site.

One registration that is valid in every member state, priced by the share of your miles run in each. The cab card lists the jurisdictions you are registered for, and it is the document an officer asks for. Adding or removing a truck mid-year is a supplement, not a whole new application.

If you miss it: Running a state that is not on your cab card is a registration violation, and the fine plus the trip permit costs far more than apportioning it would have.

Annual renewal on your base state's cycle, plus a supplement whenever the fleet changes.

Where it is filed: Through your base state's IRP or motor carrier office, not a federal site.

The licence itself, plus any endorsements the work needs: hazmat, tanker, doubles. It comes with a federal medical examiner's certificate that has to stay current, and an expired medical card downgrades the licence even though the licence itself has not expired.

If you miss it: Driving without the right class or endorsement is an out-of-service violation for the driver and a fine for the carrier.

Ongoing. Watch the medical certificate expiry, which is usually the one that lapses.

Where it is filed: Your state licensing agency.

Pre-employment testing before a driver first performs a safety-sensitive duty, then random testing through the year at rates FMCSA sets annually, plus post-accident, reasonable-suspicion and return-to-duty testing. Owner-operators join a consortium or third-party administrator because the random selection has to be genuinely random and out of your hands.

If you miss it: It is one of the first things a new-entrant safety audit looks at, and a missing programme is close to an automatic failure. Penalties are per-driver, per-day.

Continuous. The annual random testing rate is set by FMCSA each year, so check the current figure rather than assuming last year's.

Check this one: Random testing rates change by Federal Register notice. Confirm the current year's rate.

Where it is filed: A consortium or third-party administrator. There is no government portal for this one.

A federal database of drug and alcohol violations. You run a limited query on every driver once a year and a full query before hiring. You must buy a query plan yourself: a third-party administrator can run the queries for you but cannot purchase the plan on your behalf, which surprises people who assumed they had outsourced the whole thing.

If you miss it: A missed annual query is a recorded violation per driver, and it is trivially easy for an auditor to find because the database logs exactly who queried whom and when.

Once per driver per year. The date is yours to choose, so pick one and keep it: many carriers use 31 December so it rides with the other year-end filings.

Where it is filed: clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov

A folder per driver holding the application, the licence, the medical certificate, the employment verification, and a motor vehicle record pulled at hire and once a year after. Once a year you also record a written review of the driver's record. An owner-operator keeps a qualification file on themselves, which sounds absurd and is still required.

If you miss it: Missing files are the most-cited finding in audits, because they are the easiest thing to check and the easiest thing to let slide.

Annual MVR and annual review per driver, on each driver's own anniversary.

Where it is filed: Nothing is filed. You keep the files and produce them at an audit.

A documented inspection of every vehicle once a year by a qualified inspector, with the report kept on file and proof carried on the vehicle. It is separate from your daily pre-trip and separate from a roadside inspection, though a clean CVSA roadside inspection can satisfy it.

If you miss it: No current inspection is an out-of-service violation, and it counts against your CSA vehicle maintenance score, which is what brokers and insurers actually look at.

Every 12 months per vehicle, on each vehicle's own anniversary.

Where it is filed: Nothing is filed. A qualified inspector signs the report and you keep it.

An ELD wired to the engine records driving time automatically. There are real exemptions, and the one that matters most in drayage is the short-haul exception: a driver who starts and ends at the same place, stays inside the air-mile radius the rule sets, and is released within the shift, can keep timecards instead of logs. Plenty of port work qualifies, and plenty of operators run an ELD anyway because the day it does not qualify is the day they get inspected.

If you miss it: Log violations are heavily weighted in CSA scoring and are among the most common roadside citations.

Continuous. Records are retained six months.

Check this one: The short-haul exception has specific radius and duty-time conditions. Confirm the current figures before relying on it.

Where it is filed: Nothing is filed. Records live in the ELD and you produce them on request.

Placarding, shipping papers, emergency response information, and training that has to be repeated on a fixed cycle and documented. Some materials and quantities also require federal hazmat registration and a written security plan. A hazmat endorsement on the licence is the driver's part; this is the company's part.

If you miss it: Hazmat penalties are an order of magnitude above ordinary violations, and a serious one can end an operation rather than fine it.

Registration is annual where it applies. Training repeats on its own cycle.

Check this one: Which materials and quantities trigger registration and a security plan is specific. Verify against 49 CFR Parts 107 and 172 for what you actually haul.

Where it is filed: PHMSA registration

A federal identity card for unescorted access to secure areas of ports and vessels. You apply, get fingerprinted, pass a security threat assessment, and collect the card. It is valid for five years. Applying takes weeks, not days, which is why it is the credential that most often stops a new driver from starting port work on schedule.

If you miss it: Without one a driver needs an escort inside the terminal, which in practice means they do not get the work.

Valid five years. Start the renewal well before expiry: the appointment backlog is the bottleneck, not the processing.

Where it is filed: universalenroll.dhs.gov

New York charges for the distance you drive inside the state at your weight, on top of the fuel tax you already settle through IFTA. It needs its own registration, and in most cases its own credential carried on the truck. This is the cluster operators most often miss entirely, because it is reasonable to assume IFTA settled your road taxes, and it did not.

If you miss it: Unregistered operation is a fine at roadside, and the back tax is assessed with penalties from the date you should have registered.

Quarterly, due the last day of the month after the quarter ends.

Check this one: Thresholds, rates and filing frequency are set by New York and change. Confirm with the state before filing.

Where it is filed: New York motor carrier tax office

Kentucky charges for the distance you drive inside the state at your weight, on top of the fuel tax you already settle through IFTA. It needs its own registration, and in most cases its own credential carried on the truck. This is the cluster operators most often miss entirely, because it is reasonable to assume IFTA settled your road taxes, and it did not.

If you miss it: A return is due every period whether or not you entered Kentucky that period. Carriers who "do not really run Kentucky" quietly accumulate years of delinquent filings and find out when the account is referred for collection.

Quarterly, due the last day of the month after the quarter ends.

Check this one: Thresholds, rates and filing frequency are set by Kentucky and change. Confirm with the state before filing.

Where it is filed: Kentucky motor carrier tax office

New Mexico charges for the distance you drive inside the state at your weight, on top of the fuel tax you already settle through IFTA. It needs its own registration, and in most cases its own credential carried on the truck. This is the cluster operators most often miss entirely, because it is reasonable to assume IFTA settled your road taxes, and it did not.

If you miss it: A return is due every period whether or not you entered New Mexico that period. Carriers who "do not really run New Mexico" quietly accumulate years of delinquent filings and find out when the account is referred for collection.

Quarterly, due the last day of the month after the quarter ends.

Check this one: Thresholds, rates and filing frequency are set by New Mexico and change. Confirm with the state before filing.

Where it is filed: New Mexico motor carrier tax office

Oregon charges for the distance you drive inside the state at your weight, on top of the fuel tax you already settle through IFTA. It needs its own registration, and in most cases its own credential carried on the truck. This is the cluster operators most often miss entirely, because it is reasonable to assume IFTA settled your road taxes, and it did not.

If you miss it: Unregistered operation is a fine at roadside, and the back tax is assessed with penalties from the date you should have registered.

Monthly by default, due the last day of the following month. Some accounts qualify for quarterly.

Check this one: Thresholds, rates and filing frequency are set by Oregon and change. Confirm with the state before filing.

Where it is filed: Oregon motor carrier tax office

Connecticut charges for the distance you drive inside the state at your weight, on top of the fuel tax you already settle through IFTA. It needs its own registration, and in most cases its own credential carried on the truck. This is the cluster operators most often miss entirely, because it is reasonable to assume IFTA settled your road taxes, and it did not.

If you miss it: Unregistered operation is a fine at roadside, and the back tax is assessed with penalties from the date you should have registered.

Monthly by default, due the last day of the following month. Some accounts qualify for quarterly.

Check this one: Thresholds, rates and filing frequency are set by Connecticut and change. Confirm with the state before filing.

Where it is filed: Connecticut motor carrier tax office