2.2M+ active USDOT numbers
About half of freight fraud hides behind a clean record. One read across 24 federal datasets catches what a lookup misses: fraud patterns, reincarnated authorities, safety percentiles estimated against peers. All of it, free.
Free: 5 reports a day, 20 with a free account.
Coverage
2,242,484 active carriers on record, by type
A carrier can count under more than one type. From FMCSA’s census as of .
The federal record behind every report, dataset by dataset
Sizes as of Oct 30, 2026.
Vet
Each report reads a carrier’s authority, insurance, inspections, crashes, fleet and shared officers, addresses, and phones together, and links the record behind every finding. Trucking company, bus operator or broker, you open the same report.
Why lookups fail
Much freight fraud is built to pass a basic lookup: hijacked identities, bought MC numbers, carriers that re-register under a new number. A SAFER snapshot that says “Active, insured, not rated” tells you what the carrier filed, not who is running it.
Identity
Insurance
Operations
An illustrative composite. Every line above is a signal fleetfax computes on every carrier. None of them appear on the lookup.
Since May 14, 2026
In Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, the Supreme Court held unanimously that brokers answer under state law for the carriers they select. NHTSA recorded 5,472 deaths in crashes involving large trucks in 2023, and GAO found that reincarnated “chameleon” carriers are involved in severe crashes at about three times the rate of other new carriers. fleetfax puts the full federal record in front of you, with every fact traced to its filing.
Sources: Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, No. 24-1238, decided May 14, 2026 · NHTSA FARS 2023 · GAO-12-364 · TIA State of Fraud 2025
Source
Trucking: search a lane for carriers seen at roadside inspections or crashes near both ends in the last 24 months, or a city for carriers based within a set distance. Bus: search near a city for passenger operators by vehicle type, from motorcoaches to vans, or browse them by state in the directory.
Monitor
Save the carriers you use and fleetfax checks them every night for removed or cancelling insurance, revoked authority, out-of-service orders, new crashes and safety rating changes. Changes on carriers with email alerts come in one nightly email, blocking changes first.
Monitor
A carrier’s record can change between the day you vet it and the day it hauls your load. Authority gets revoked, insurance is replaced mid-quarter and enforcement cases land. Most carriers are checked once, at onboarding.
Your book turns that one-time check into a standing one. Every carrier in it shows what changed each time you come back. Changes on carriers with email alerts come in one nightly email, blocking changes first.
Build
Your book is the carriers you work with, in one place. Add them by DOT or MC number, paste a list you already keep, or import a spreadsheet.
Each carrier shows what the federal record says, what your rules say and what you ran with them. Up to 15 carriers in your book, 5 monitored.
The record
fleetfax reads FMCSA’s published files nightly and checks authority and insurance with FMCSA’s live system when you open a report. Each finding links to the record behind it, and on Pro a dated history shows what changed and when.
fleetfax is not affiliated with FMCSA or the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Facts, not opinions
You make the call. Every carrier is checked against the fleetfax starter rules, or against your own rules on Pro. When you need to show your work, the record is already on the page: every signal is read from a federal filing, and the report links straight to the carrier’s own FMCSA file. It’s the promise in the name: the fax is for facts.
Unify
24 federal datasets that normally sit in separate systems, read together into one report, with the filing dates shown.
Every report leads with blocking issues and cautions, each backed by the data behind it.
When a public insurance record looks wrong, the report shows what FMCSA’s live system says. Read the research.
Derive
94% of registered USDOT numbers, active and inactive, have no federal safety rating
Unrated means FMCSA has never done a compliance review of the carrier.
Vet a carrier before you tender a load, and see who runs your lane.
Check the carriers on your freight and hear when one changes.
Check an operator’s passenger authority and insurance before you book a coach.
Read an applicant’s filings, inspections, crashes and shared officers, addresses, and phones in one place.
Check a carrier before you fund it, and hear when its authority or insurance changes.
See a borrower’s authority, fleet and safety record from federal filings.
In the browser
The same fleetfax record, docked in a side panel beside DAT, Truckstop, or wherever you work.
Pricing
The choice used to be a free lookup that restates filings, or a paid platform with a monthly fee. fleetfax gives you the full check free, on every load.
Free
Search any carrier and open its full report: 5 a day without an account, 20 with a free account. Monitor 5 carriers.
Pro
/month. Monitor up to 200 carriers each night, save your own rules, bulk check 200 a day and export to CSV.
| Capability | The government lookup | Paid vetting platforms | fleetfax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Check carriers without a subscription | $0 | $99 to $515 a monthor priced by quote | $05 full reports a day, 20 with a free account |
| Look up a carrier with no sign-up | No account | An account and a paid plan, trial or demo | No account, no card |
| See who a carrier is tied toShared officers, addresses and phones | Not shown | Paid plans only, if offered | Free counts in every report; names on Pro |
| See safety against similar carriers | Hidden for most carriers since 2015 | Paid plans only, if offered | Free peer percentilesA fleetfax estimate, where the record allows |
| Know when a carrier changes | Not tracked | Paid plans only | Free for your bookUp to 15 carriers in your book, 5 monitored; up to 200 on Pro |
Comparison based on the platforms’ published plans and pages, Oct 2026
There is no catch. Carrier reports are free, with a daily limit: no trial, no card, and no sign-up for your first 5 reports a day. A free fleetfax account gives you 20 a day, shows the phone and email on file, and adds carrier sourcing and a book of the carriers you work with. Up to 15 carriers in your book, 5 monitored. Changes on every carrier in your book show in your account. Changes on monitored carriers also come in one nightly email.
The public federal record: FMCSA’s published datasets covering registration, operating authority, insurance filings, roadside inspections, crashes, and safety ratings.
No. fleetfax reports what the record shows and links the evidence. There is no score and no recommendation. The call is yours.
No. Every flag, caution, and ranking is computed from the federal record by fixed rules. Ask about the same carrier twice and you get the same answer, and it changes only when the record changes.
It means the public federal record shows no blockers or cautions. The record cannot show fraud that has not surfaced yet. A clean report is a strong data point inside your process, not a substitute for it.
No. FMCSA stopped publishing the official percentiles in 2015. fleetfax computes its own from the same public records, comparing each carrier with similar carriers. Every number is labeled as a fleetfax estimate.
Every carrier with a USDOT number has a report, active or inactive: for-hire and private trucking, hazmat, household goods, auto transport, bus and passenger operators, brokers and freight forwarders. Operators registered only with a state, with no USDOT number, are not covered.
fleetfax reads FMCSA’s published files nightly. When you open a report whose authority and insurance reading is more than a day old, fleetfax checks FMCSA’s live system first. FMCSA publishes safety measurement data monthly, so safety percentiles can trail by several weeks.
Pull any carrier’s record.
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