FMCSA Carrier Verify — USDOT & MC carrier check API for brokers, shippers & AI agents

By SourceWire — clean, agent-ready data tools.

Verify any US motor carrier or freight broker in about a second. You get operating authority status, insurance on file vs. required, out-of-service orders, safety rating, authority age, revocations, and a PASS_BASIC_CHECKS / REVIEW / FAIL verdict with plain-English reasons.

Data comes only from official FMCSA open datasets on data.transportation.gov (US federal public data, updated daily). No login, no scraping of SAFER pages.

Why use it

• Fraud screening before you tender a load. Double brokering and identity theft usually show up as brand-new authority, a missing BIPD filing, a pending revocation, or an inactive USDOT number. Each of these becomes a flag.
• Bulk carrier onboarding and monitoring. Run up to 10,000 USDOT or MC numbers on a schedule and alert on any carrier whose verdict changes.
• Agent-ready output. One flat JSON object per carrier with a stable schema and a deterministic verdict, so an LLM agent can act on it without parsing HTML.

Use cases

• Freight brokers & 3PLs: vet a carrier before tendering a load; catch double-brokering red flags (new authority, missing insurance, pending revocation).
• Shippers & procurement: bulk-verify your carrier list and re-run on a schedule to catch changes.
• Factoring, insurance & fintech: KYB-style checks on trucking companies at onboarding.
• AI agents & MCP: give a ChatGPT/Claude/LangChain agent a reliable verify_carrier tool that returns a verdict instead of a web page.
• Developers: drop-in carrier-check endpoint for TMS, load boards and Zapier/Make/n8n workflows.

Input

Field	Type	Example	Notes
dotNumbers	string[]	["63585"]	USDOT numbers
mcNumbers	string[]	["MC311233"]	MC/FF/MX dockets; bare digits mean MC
includeHistory	bool	true	Adds the first-authority-granted date and revocation history
maxCarriers	int	500	Cost safety cap

{ "dotNumbers": ["63585", "4522887"], "mcNumbers": ["MC1820027"], "includeHistory": true }

Output (one dataset item per carrier)

Key fields: dotNumber, legalName, dbaName, usdotStatus, operation, entityType, location{city,state,zip}, powerUnits, drivers, hazmat, safetyRating, mcs150Date, dockets[], authority[]{docket, common, contract, broker, revocationPending, bipdRequiredUsd, bipdOnFileUsd, cargoOnFile, bondOnFile}, insuranceFilings[]{type, insurer, effectiveDate, policyNumber, form}, firstAuthorityGrantedDate, authorityAgeDays, revocations[], outOfServiceOrders[], flags[], verdict, sourceUrls[], checkedAt.

Shortened example:

{"dotNumber":"4522887","legalName":"DIAMOND J TRUCKING LLC","usdotStatus":"ACTIVE","verdict":"FAIL",
 "flags":["Active out-of-service order: New Entrant Revoked - Refusal of Audit/No Contact",
          "For-hire interstate carrier with no ACTIVE operating authority"]}

Verdict rules

• FAIL: USDOT inactive; active out-of-service order; UNSATISFACTORY rating; authority revocation pending; BIPD on file below the required minimum; broker bond missing; a for-hire carrier with no active authority.
• REVIEW: CONDITIONAL rating; authority under 180 days old; application pending; cargo insurance required but missing; MCS-150 not updated in over 2 years.
• PASS_BASIC_CHECKS: none of the above. This is not an endorsement. Always confirm on SAFER before tendering.

For AI agents (LLM usage notes)

• MCP: add https://mcp.apify.com/?actors=SourceWire/fmcsa-carrier-verify to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.) and the agent gets a carrier-verification tool.
• Call this actor via the Apify MCP server (mcp.apify.com) or the Apify API with {"dotNumbers": [...]}. Read verdict first, then flags.
• NOT_FOUND means FMCSA has no record. Treat it as high risk, not as an error.
• Insurance amounts are in USD. coverageUsd is often null, because FMCSA publishes many filings, such as surety bonds, with a 0 amount.
• A cargo filing can be on file when not required. That is fine.

Privacy

By design, this actor does not return phone numbers, fax, email addresses, company officer names, or street addresses, even though some of them appear in the source data. It returns business-level compliance data only.

Limitations

• Source datasets refresh daily, so changes made on SAFER today may appear tomorrow.
• These are basic compliance checks, not a full identity or fraud investigation (no VIN, ELD, or contact verification).
• Not legal advice.

Data sources

FMCSA Company Census (az4n-8mr2), L&I Carrier (6eyk-hxee), Active Insurance (ypjt-5ydn), Authority History (9mw4-x3tu), Revocations (sa6p-acbp), and Out-of-Service Orders (p2mt-9ige), all on https://data.transportation.gov. Set the optional env var SOCRATA_APP_TOKEN for higher rate limits.

How to call it via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/SourceWire~fmcsa-carrier-verify/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"dotNumbers":["63585"]}'

About SourceWire

SourceWire builds small, reliable data tools for AI agents and automation — official public data, stable JSON schemas, no fluff. Questions or feature requests? Open an issue on this Actor's Issues tab.