The short answer: Discontinued Revocation is not a punishment. It is a disposition: FMCSA opened a revocation proceeding against one of your authorities, you fixed whatever caused it, and the agency closed the file. The authority never went Inactive. What remains is a dated line in your Authority History that every underwriter and every broker onboarding desk can read for years. Nobody sends you a letter that says "congratulations, we discontinued it." You find out by opening the record. If you are here because you want the proceeding never to start, the whole prevention playbook is in our guide on how to prevent authority revocation.
The second half of this article is the phrase that sends the most people looking: the 60-day notice of revocation. There are three different federal 60-day objects and only one of them is called that in ordinary speech. Confusing them is how carriers lose an authority while believing they had two months. Everything below is sourced to the rule text on 49 CFR Part 387, Part 385 Subpart D and Part 366, to 49 U.S.C. 13905, and to FMCSA's own published pages. This is a walk-through of the rules, not individual legal advice.
A revocation proceeding was started against that authority and then closed without the authority being taken away. In FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance carrier search help, the Authority History block is described as showing "the authority type, the date and action taken of the original activity and the disposition date and action, if applicable." Discontinued Revocation is the entry in that disposition column. The proceeding existed. It ended. You kept the authority.
Cross-read it against the Authorities block on the same page. FMCSA defines Active as currently registered and in compliance with applicable insurance regulations, Inactive as the authority having been revoked with for-hire interstate operations illegal, and None as never registered for that type. If your Common, Contract or Broker line still says Active, the Discontinued Revocation line is history, not a live problem. If it says Inactive, you are looking at a different, later event.
Most often this is the new entrant notice. Under 49 CFR 385.319(c), when a safety audit shows inadequate basic safety management controls FMCSA sends written notice, not later than 45 days after the audit, that the USDOT new entrant registration will be revoked and operations placed out of service unless the carrier takes the actions specified. Paragraph (c)(1) gives 60 days from the date of the notice. Under 385.325(b)(1), revocation and the out-of-service order take effect on Day 61.
Three records, three different answers. Licensing and Insurance carries the Authorities block, the Revocation Pending flag, Active and Pending Insurance with any cancellation date, and the Authority History. SAFER carries the census snapshot and whether the USDOT Number itself is active. Motus carries your company account. FMCSA's registration modernization FAQs state that registration options in the FMCSA Portal are no longer available beginning Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 8:00 PM ET, and that Motus launched to all users in May 2026. FMCSA also states that in Motus the operating authority status names have not changed but the system now "adds the specific reason behind a status."
The same event in formal wording. FMCSA opens a revocation proceeding, the carrier cures whatever triggered it, and the agency discontinues the proceeding. Discontinued Revocation is how the disposition column of Authority History renders that; discontinuance of a revocation proceeding is how it reads in correspondence and in older Federal Register notices. There is no second status hiding behind the longer phrase and no separate paperwork. 49 U.S.C. 13905(d)(2) gives FMCSA the power to revoke a registration after notice and an opportunity to cure. Discontinuance is what the record says when the cure lands in time.
No, and the difference is the whole point of reading the record properly. Revocation Pending is a live flag in the Licensing and Insurance record: the proceeding is open right now and a clock is running against you. Discontinued Revocation is a closed disposition in Authority History: the clock stopped and the authority survived. Pending is something to act on this week. Discontinued is something to explain later to an underwriter. If what you are actually looking at says Pending, work through how to prevent authority revocation today and read the history sections below afterwards.
Indefinitely, as far as anything FMCSA publishes. Authority History is a ledger of administrative actions, not a scoring system with a rolling window. CSA violations drop out of the Safety Measurement System after 24 months; a disposition line in Licensing and Insurance has no published expiry and no published deletion procedure. DataQs is not the door either: it reviews federal and state crash, inspection and violation data, not the licensing record. Plan on the line being readable for the life of the authority, and plan on being able to explain the gap between the two dates.
Not automatically, and not the way an actual revocation does. Your authority reads Active, so automated onboarding checks that look at the Authorities block pass without comment. The line matters where a human reads the history: an underwriter pricing a renewal, a shipper assembling a carrier packet by hand, a broker whose compliance vendor flags authority events rather than just current status. What they take from it is not "this carrier was punished", it is "this carrier let a filing lapse once". One line from four years ago is noise. Three lines in two years is a pattern, and a pattern is what moves a rate.
People go looking for Discontinued Revocation in the wrong place. It is not a current status. It never appears in the Authorities block next to Common or Contract. It appears one screen deeper, in Authority History, which is a ledger of paired events: an original action with its date, then a disposition action with its date.
An FMCSA filing posted to the public regulatory docket contains a screenshot of exactly this table for a carrier holding common authority. The row reads: original action INVOLUNTARY REVOCATION dated 07/14/2000, disposition action DISCONTINUED REVOCATION dated 08/10/2000. Twenty-seven days between the two dates. That is the shape of the thing: a short window in which something was wrong and then was not. The same printout carries the sequel, and it is worth reading: that carrier's broker authority was revoked on 03/13/2001, its common authority on 07/27/2001, and a reinstatement follows on 09/07/2001. A discontinued proceeding is a reprieve, not an all-clear.
Two practical consequences follow from the ledger structure.
Insurance is the single most common reason a small carrier ever sees the word revocation. And here is the trap: the number printed on the paperwork is not the number that governs your life.
A word on which citation to use, because it matters if you go check. Section 387.313 carries an eCFR Effective Date Note: it was suspended effective January 14, 2017 at 82 FR 5308, briefly restored and amended at 84 FR 51434 on September 30, 2019, and suspended again indefinitely in that same document. The operative text is 49 CFR 387.313T(d), and it says certificates of insurance and surety bonds "shall not be cancelled or withdrawn until 30 days after written notice has been submitted" to FMCSA on the prescribed form: Form BMC-35 for policies of insurance, Form BMC-36 for surety bonds. In the T version the thirty days run "from the date such notice on the prescribed form is actually received by the FMCSA." Separately, 49 CFR 387.7(b)(1) gives the insurer and the insured 35 days' notice in writing to each other, running from the date the notice was transmitted.
Now the part that is not in the CFR. FMCSA's public notice on the Licensing and Insurance site describes the operational procedure the agency actually runs, and calls it a 33-day process:
FMCSA states the design allows a carrier "to only hold operating authority without insurance reflected on the Licensing & Insurance database for up to three (3) days." That is the whole philosophy in one sentence: the agency is not trying to give you breathing room, it is trying to shrink the uninsured window.
Lay the two clocks on top of each other and the real squeeze appears. The policy dies on day 30, counted from the filing. Your compliance window closes on day 33, counted from a notice that went out on day 3. Those last three days are not a grace period: they are days on which your authority still reads Active while you have no coverage behind it. Anything that happens on the road in that gap happens uninsured.
The other filing that keeps an authority alive is the process agent designation, and almost nobody thinks about it after year one because it is a one-time form that appears to sit there forever.
FMCSA's Insurance Filing Requirements page states it in a single line: "Once operating authority is granted, entities are required to maintain proof of insurance and designation of agents for process on file with FMCSA to avoid revocation proceedings." The Licensing and Insurance help page adds the mechanics: in the compliance block, a No in the BOC-3 field means the entity "either does not have an active authority, or is not in compliance and may be subject to revocation proceedings."
Under 49 CFR 366.2T only one completed current BOC-3 may be on file and it must cover all required states, with a copy kept at the principal place of business. Under 366.4T(a) a motor carrier designates an agent for each state where it is authorized to operate and each state traversed during those operations. Under 366.6T a designation can be cancelled only by making a new one, except where the carrier has ceased to be subject to the requirement for a year.
The realistic failure mode is not that you cancel it. It is that your blanket agent goes out of business, or drops you for nonpayment of an annual fee you forgot existed, and files the cancellation. Your insurance is perfect. Your authority still enters a proceeding.
This is the distinction that saves people a panicked phone call. A missed MCS-150 does not revoke your MC number. It kills your USDOT Number, which is a different record with a different penalty.
49 CFR 390.19T(b)(2) sets the month: the update is due every 24 months, by the last day of the month keyed to the last digit of your USDOT Number (1 means January, 2 February, and so on to 0 for October). The year sits one paragraph further down, in 390.19T(b)(3): if the next-to-last digit is odd you file in every odd-numbered calendar year, if it is even, in every even-numbered calendar year. Open (b)(2) alone and you will not find a word there about odd and even years. Paragraph (b)(4) states that a person who fails to complete the updates "is subject to the penalties prescribed in 49 U.S.C. 521(b)(2)(B) or 49 U.S.C. 14901(a), as appropriate, and deactivation of its USDOT Number."
The two records are wired together anyway. FMCSA's reinstatement guidance is explicit that you must have an active, up-to-date USDOT record, or include an updated MCS-150 with the request, before an operating authority reinstatement will go through. If the USDOT Number itself is what you are untangling, start with our explainer on what a USDOT Number is and what keeps it active.
If you searched "60 day notice of revocation" and you are inside your first 18 months, this is almost certainly your notice. It has nothing to do with insurance filings and everything to do with the audit.
Under 49 CFR 385.321(a), a lack of basic safety management controls or a violation of one of 16 listed regulations "will result in a notice to a new entrant that its USDOT new entrant registration will be revoked." The 16 automatic-failure items in 385.321(b) include a single occurrence of 387.7(a), operating without the required minimum levels of financial responsibility.
Then the clock. Here is the sequence in full.
| Step | Rule | Time | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice of failure | 385.319(c) | Not later than 45 days after the audit | Written notice that new entrant registration will be revoked and operations placed out of service unless the carrier acts |
| Corrective action, standard track | 385.319(c)(1) | 60 days from the date of the notice | All new entrants except those in (c)(2) must take the specified actions |
| Corrective action, short track | 385.319(c)(2) | 45 days from the date of the notice | Carriers of 9 to 15 passengers for direct compensation, carriers of more than 15 passengers, and hazmat carriers under paragraph (4) of the CMV definition in 390.5 |
| Extension, standard track | 385.323(a) | Up to an additional 60 days | Granted if FMCSA determines the new entrant is making a good faith effort |
| Extension, short track | 385.323(b) | Up to an additional 10 days | Only where evidence was submitted and the agency needs time to assess it |
| Corrective action accepted | 385.325(a) | Within the period or extension | Written notification that registration will not be revoked and operations may continue |
| Corrective action not accepted | 385.325(b) | Day 61, or Day 46 on the short track | Registration revoked and an out-of-service order issued, effective that day |
| Administrative review | 385.327(c)(1) | Within 90 days of the notice if no corrective action evidence was submitted | Request to the Field Administrator of the FMCSA Service Center, stating the error alleged |
| Administrative review, to beat the out-of-service date | 385.327(d) | No later than 15 days from the date of the notice | Only a request filed inside that window assures a written decision before the 385.325(c) prohibitions take effect. Later, and revocation plus the out-of-service order can land before the review is finished |
Read the extension line twice, because it is the second federal 60-day object in this article. 385.323(a) can double the standard window to 120 days, but only "provided FMCSA determines the new entrant is making a good faith effort to remedy its safety management practices," so it is granted, not owed. Good faith is demonstrated with documents you have already started producing, not with a phone call on Day 58. And if you are counting on administrative review instead of corrective action, read 385.327(d) first: only a request filed no later than 15 days from the date of the notice assures a written decision before the out-of-service prohibitions take effect. Our checklist for the new entrant compliance file is the material an extension request is built from.
A third 60-day object catches applicants rather than operating carriers, and it is worth naming because the letter looks similar enough to be misfiled.
FMCSA's Insurance Filing Requirements page describes it: once an entity applies for operating authority, a financial responsibility provider must file the appropriate insurance forms on its behalf, and "if the entity fails to comply within 20 days from the date of publication in the FMCSA Register, an FMCSA decision will be served notifying the entity that their application will be dismissed unless they comply with the requirements within 60 days."
Dismissed is not revoked. Nothing is taken away, because nothing was granted. But the money is gone: the application fee under 49 CFR 360.3T item 1 is $300, and a dismissed application means filing again and paying it again. The same page carries a warning worth pinning above the desk: the business name and address in your pre-registration filings, such as with the secretary of state, must match exactly what you put on the authority application, because "any deviation results in the delay of granting of the authority."
These four get used interchangeably in dispatch group chats and they are not interchangeable at all.
| Term | Where it appears | Who started it | Is the authority gone? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revocation Pending | A Yes/No field in the Authorities block | FMCSA | No, but a pending action is running that will affect the authority | FMCSA L&I help page |
| Discontinued Revocation | Disposition column of the Authority History | FMCSA opened it, the carrier cured it | No. The proceeding closed | FMCSA L&I help page; FMCSA docket filing |
| Involuntary revocation | Authority History, and the Authorities block flips to Inactive | FMCSA, on complaint or its own initiative | Yes. For-hire interstate operations become illegal | 49 U.S.C. 13905(d)(2), (e); FMCSA L&I help page |
| Voluntary revocation | Authority History, status goes Inactive by request | The carrier, on Form OCE-46 | Yes, but by choice, and reversible | FMCSA Voluntary Revocation Q&A |
The statutory backbone under involuntary revocation is worth knowing because it explains why FMCSA sends notices at all. 49 U.S.C. 13905(d)(2)(A) permits suspension, amendment or revocation "after notice and an opportunity for a proceeding" for willful failure to comply with the statute, an applicable regulation or order, or a condition of the registration. Subsection (e) goes further: outside the registrant's own application and the cases where the registrant failed to disclose a material fact in its application, FMCSA may revoke only after it has issued an order under section 14701 requiring compliance and the registrant willfully fails to comply with that order for 30 days.
On the voluntary side, FMCSA's published Q&A settles two myths at once. It says voluntary revocation does not place a company on a special compliance monitoring list and is common, especially for seasonal operators. And it confirms you can revoke one authority type while keeping others Active, by naming the specific type on the reason line of Form OCE-46. Compare that with involuntary revocation, where nothing about the outcome is yours to shape.
Here is the same 33-day process laid on a calendar, because the difference between Discontinued Revocation and Inactive is usually about six working days of attention.
| Day | Event | What you should already be doing |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Insurer files the cancellation with FMCSA on Form BMC-35 | Nothing visible to you yet. This is why the L&I record beats waiting for mail |
| Day 3 | FMCSA's first notice goes out. It says: prove full compliance within 30 days | Bind replacement coverage. The producer, not you, files the form |
| Days 3 to 30 | Revocation Pending shows Yes. Authority is still Active | Confirm the filing landed. A rejected filing counts as no filing |
| Day 30 | Original policy cancellation becomes effective under 387.313T(d) | The replacement filing must already be on file, not in the mail |
| Day 33 | Compliant: proceeding closes, Authority History records a disposition. Not compliant: final decision revoking the authority | Pull the L&I record and read the Authority History line yourself |
| After | If revoked: cure the cause, then file for reinstatement | $80 under 360.3T item 52, plus BOC-3 and insurance back on file first |
The reason this label matters commercially has nothing to do with FMCSA. It has to do with the three parties who pull your record before they do business with you.
A broker onboarding desk is checking one thing: is the authority Active today, and is the insurance on file at the required level. FMCSA's filing chart sets those levels: $750,000 BIPD for a for-hire non-hazardous property carrier at 10,001 lbs GVWR or above, $300,000 below 10,001 lbs, $1,000,000 for certain hazardous materials and $5,000,000 for the top hazmat band, which covers bulk explosives, Hazard Zone A poison gas, highway route controlled quantities of Class 7 radioactive material and several other commodities carried in bulk, and $75,000 in bond or trust for a property broker or a freight forwarder of property, with freight forwarders of household goods also carrying $5,000 in cargo coverage. A Discontinued Revocation line from eight months ago does not fail that check.
An underwriter is doing something different. They are pricing the probability that you will lapse again. Two or three discontinued proceedings inside twenty-four months reads as a pattern of unpaid or late premium, and it moves a quote before anybody discusses your loss runs. See our breakdown of what actually drives a commercial truck insurance quote.
A shipper's risk department, especially in food, pharma and high-value freight, often runs a third-party carrier report drawn from the same public record. Those reports do not interpret. They surface the line and let the reader decide.
FMCSA announced Motus, its new registration system, in a Federal Register notice published April 29, 2026, after a Phase I release on December 8, 2025 that let supporting companies create accounts. The handover date is on FMCSA's registration modernization FAQs page: registration options in the FMCSA Portal are no longer available beginning Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 8:00 PM ET, the Unified Registration System is permanently offline after that date, and Motus opened to all users in May 2026 following a migration pause of about four days.
For this topic, four points from FMCSA's own registration changes page matter.
One item is still open: FMCSA lists changes to the BOC-3 filing process as under consideration, to be put out for public comment in a proposed rulemaking. Until that happens, Part 366 governs. If you are still finding your way around the new system, start with our guide to Motus registration.
The following are illustrative composites assembled from the pattern of calls this office takes, not accounts of identified individuals. The rules and figures in them are real.
Scenario one: Ildar, two trucks out of Edison, New Jersey. His premium finance draft bounces in February on a card he had replaced. The insurer files the cancellation. Three days later FMCSA's notice goes out to the address on the MCS-150, which is his old apartment. He learns nothing. On day nineteen a broker's onboarding portal rejects him with "insurance not on file" and he finally opens his Licensing and Insurance record: Revocation Pending: Yes, authority still Active, a cancellation date sitting in the Active and Pending Insurance block. He pays the arrears, the producer refiles the BMC-91X, and the proceeding closes. Authority History picks up a Discontinued Revocation dated twenty-six days after the original action. Cost to him: eleven days of no loads, and a line his renewal underwriter will read next year.
Scenario two: Zemfira, office manager for a five-truck reefer operation. Their blanket process agent stops filing after an unpaid annual invoice buried in a shared inbox. Insurance is spotless. The BOC-3 field in the compliance block goes to No, which FMCSA's help page describes as not in compliance and potentially subject to revocation proceedings. She catches it because she checks the record on the first Monday of every month, files a fresh designation naming a new blanket agent under 366.2T, and the field returns to Yes before any notice matures. Nothing appears in Authority History at all. That is what prevention looks like: no line, no story.
Scenario three: Kamil, new entrant, first safety audit. The audit finds no random testing program in place, an automatic failure under 385.321(b) item 5, which cites 382.305. The notice arrives 38 days after the audit and gives him 60 days under 385.319(c)(1). He joins a consortium in week two, produces the policy, the pre-employment results and the random selection list, and submits everything on day 41. FMCSA accepts it and sends the written notification under 385.325(a) that the registration will not be revoked. Had he waited, Day 61 would have brought revocation plus an out-of-service order under 385.325(b)(1), and 385.325(c) forbids operating in interstate commerce on or after that effective date.
| Item | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Reinstatement of a revoked operating authority | $80 | 49 CFR 360.3T, item 52 |
| New application for motor carrier operating authority | $300 | 49 CFR 360.3T, item 1 |
| Minimum BIPD, for-hire non-hazardous property, GVWR 10,001 lbs and above | $750,000 | 49 CFR 387.9; FMCSA filing chart |
| Minimum BIPD, for-hire non-hazardous property, GVWR under 10,001 lbs | $300,000 | FMCSA Insurance Filing Requirements chart |
| Surety bond or trust, property broker or freight forwarder | $75,000 | 49 CFR 387.307; forms BMC-84 or BMC-85 |
| Cargo insurance where required, household goods | $5,000 per vehicle, $10,000 per occurrence | FMCSA L&I help page; forms BMC-34 or BMC-83 |
| Time from payment to authority active again after a voluntary revocation, credit card | Usually no later than the 4th business day | FMCSA Voluntary Revocation Q&A, question 4 |
Two conditions sit in front of that $80 and neither is negotiable. FMCSA's reinstatement guidance requires the minimum financial responsibility and the BOC-3 to be on file first, and for motor carriers an active USDOT Number with current contact information: the agency states plainly that its systems will not allow a reinstatement request while the USDOT Number is Inactive or Out of Service. And two doors are shut entirely: you cannot request reinstatement if you were placed out of service as an imminent hazard or on a final unsatisfactory safety rating. Where reinstatement is available, authority is typically active within a week of receipt and valid payment. A paper submission on Form MCSA-5889 is slower: FMCSA's April 2026 Federal Register notice on Motus tells customers to expect a minimum of eight business days for the initial review alone, and any extra vetting comes on top of that. One caution for 2026: check what Motus actually offers against your number before you pay, because reinstating a suspended authority and reapplying after a revocation are two different transactions with two different prices.
The federal fees are the small number. The expensive part is the freight you cannot legally haul while the authority is Inactive, plus the reality that a lapse in continuous coverage repriced at renewal costs more than the reinstatement fee many times over. For the mechanics of getting back, see our timelines for MC reinstatement and reinstating a revoked authority.
Nobody calls you when a BMC-35 lands. The whole difference between Discontinued Revocation and Inactive is somebody opening your record on a schedule and reading the Revocation Pending flag before the notice does. That is a monitored calendar item, not a heroic rescue. Safety Compliance from $99/mo covers the deadline calendar, filings and document file. Want to see what an auditor would pull first? Mock DOT Audit, $399. Opening a company from scratch? Authority Bundle, $499. Russian and English.
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It means a revocation proceeding against that authority was opened and then closed without the authority being revoked. In FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance system the Authority History table shows, per the agency's own help page, the authority type, the date and action of the original activity, and the disposition date and action. Discontinued Revocation sits in the disposition column. In an FMCSA filing posted to the public docket, one carrier's history shows a common authority entry opened as INVOLUNTARY REVOCATION on July 14, 2000 and disposed of on August 10, 2000 as DISCONTINUED REVOCATION, a window of 27 days. Read together with the Authorities block: if Common, Contract or Broker still reads Active, the paperwork was cured in time and nothing was taken away.
By itself it is the good outcome, not the bad one. The bad outcome is an Inactive status, which FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance help page defines as the operating authority having been revoked, with for-hire interstate operations illegal. Discontinued Revocation is the opposite: the proceeding stopped. What it does do is leave a permanent dated line that underwriters and broker onboarding desks read. Two or three such lines within a couple of years read as a pattern of lapsed filings, and that pattern shows up in commercial truck insurance pricing long before anybody says the word revocation out loud.
There is more than one, which is exactly why the phrase confuses people. The best known is the new entrant one: under 49 CFR 385.319(c) FMCSA sends written notice not later than 45 days after a failed safety audit stating the USDOT new entrant registration will be revoked and operations placed out of service unless the carrier acts, and 385.319(c)(1) gives most carriers 60 days from the date of the notice to take the specified corrective action. Under 385.325(b) revocation and an out-of-service order become effective on Day 61. The second 60-day object is the extension: under 385.323(a) FMCSA may add up to another 60 days when the new entrant is making a good faith effort. The third one catches applicants: an applicant that has not put its insurance on file gets an FMCSA decision saying the application will be dismissed unless it complies within 60 days. None of the three is the insurance cancellation clock, which runs 30 days.
Pending Revocation is a live field, Discontinued Revocation is a closed history line. FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance help page explains that a Yes in the Application Pending and Revocation Pending fields indicates a pending action that will affect the current authority. That Yes is the alarm: something is running and has not resolved. Discontinued Revocation is what appears afterward in the Authority History if the carrier cured the problem and FMCSA dropped the proceeding. If the carrier did not cure it, what appears instead is a revocation, and the authority status flips to Inactive.
Who started it. Involuntary revocation is FMCSA acting on its own initiative or on complaint. Under 49 U.S.C. 13905(d)(2) the Secretary may suspend, amend or revoke registration after notice and an opportunity for a proceeding, and 13905(e) requires, outside the registrant's own application and the cases of a failure to disclose a material fact, that an order under section 14701 be issued first and that the registrant willfully fail to comply with it for 30 days. Voluntary revocation is the carrier asking, on Form OCE-46. FMCSA's published Q&A states plainly that voluntary revocation does not place a company on a special compliance monitoring list and that it is common, especially for seasonal operators.
Faster than the paperwork suggests. Under 49 CFR 387.313T(d), the operative text since 387.313 was suspended, a certificate of insurance is not cancelled until 30 days after FMCSA actually receives the insurer's written notice on Form BMC-35, and 49 CFR 387.7(b)(1) requires 35 days' written notice between the insurer and the insured. But FMCSA's own notice on the Licensing and Insurance site describes a 33-day process in which the first notice goes out three days after FMCSA receives the cancellation, the carrier then has 30 days to show full compliance, and a final decision revoking the authority issues if it has not. The agency states the design lets a carrier hold authority without insurance on the database for up to three days.
No, it deactivates your USDOT Number, which is a different penalty on a different record. Under 49 CFR 390.19T(b)(2) the MCS-150 is filed every 24 months, with the month set by the last digit of your USDOT Number, and a separate paragraph, 390.19T(b)(3), sets the year: an odd next-to-last digit files in odd-numbered calendar years, an even one in even-numbered calendar years. Paragraph (b)(4) says a person who fails to complete biennial updates is subject to the penalties in 49 U.S.C. 521(b)(2)(B) or 14901(a) and deactivation of its USDOT Number. In practice the two records are wired together: FMCSA's reinstatement guidance requires an active, up-to-date USDOT record before an operating authority reinstatement request will be processed.
Check three places, because each shows something the others do not. The Licensing and Insurance record shows the Authorities block with Active, Inactive or None, the Application Pending and Revocation Pending flags, Active and Pending Insurance including any pending cancellation date, and the Authority History with its disposition column. SAFER shows the census snapshot, including whether the USDOT Number is active. Motus, which took over from the legacy registration tools in May 2026 after the FMCSA Portal's registration options went dark at 8:00 PM ET on May 14, 2026, adds the company account view: FMCSA states the status names themselves have not changed but that Motus now gives the specific reason behind a status, and that the account stays accessible regardless of registration status.