FMCSA New-Registration Radar: Pre-Authority Carrier Alerts

FMCSA New-Registration Radar watches the FMCSA Company Census for newly-registered motor carriers in the state(s) and operation type you choose, and delivers each one as a deduplicated business-development row with the fields the carrier filed: legal name, DBA, phone, email, address, operation type and fleet size. You name a territory once and put the actor on a daily Apify Schedule; each run diffs the census, delivers only carriers you have not seen before, and never re-shows one you already got. It runs inside your own Apify account, so you get API access, scheduling, integrations and monitoring for free, with nothing to log into and no key to manage. It is also callable as an MCP tool, so an agent can pull fresh carriers into a prospecting loop.

It detects new census registrations (the roughly 21-day pre-authority window before a carrier's operating authority activates), not operating-authority activation itself. See "Terminology, plainly" below.

What does FMCSA New-Registration Radar do?

The FMCSA Company Census File is the US-DOT open-data record of registered motor carriers, updated daily (Socrata metadata Update Frequency R/P1D; rowsUpdatedAt 2026-07-05). New carrier registrations arrive in a steady stream: roughly 380 per day nationally (11,421 carriers registered in the trailing 30 days, self-probed 2026-07-06), split 6,091 interstate to 5,321 intrastate over the same window (measured 2026-07-06). A newly-registered carrier is a new trucking company that, over the next few weeks, sets up insurance, files its BOC-3, and lines up freight factoring, so it is the moment freight-factoring and trucking-insurance desks want to reach it.

This actor turns that census into a standing, territory-filtered watch. You define a filter once, put it on a schedule, and each run:

1. Queries the census for carriers whose add_date (registration date) falls in a rolling look-back window for your states and operation type.
2. Aggregates the feed by dot_number, so a carrier that filed several addresses is one alert, not several.
3. Compares the result against your filter's memory and delivers only the newly-registered carriers you have not seen before.
4. Optionally POSTs the new alerts to a webhook you choose.

Every delivered row carries the phone and email the carrier filed with FMCSA. About 99.7% of new registrations carry both (11,392 of 11,421 in the trailing 30 days, measured 2026-07-06), so a delivered row is contactable straight from the source, without skip-tracing.

Why use FMCSA New-Registration Radar?

• First contact in the pre-authority window. Reach a new entrant carrier in the days after it registers, while it is still choosing an insurer and a factor, not after its authority is active and the competition has already called.
• Only your territory, deduplicated. You watch one or a few states, get alerted once per DOT number from the day you start, and never see the historical back-catalog or a repeat.
• Contact-ready rows. Each row is a business-development payload with the carrier's own filed phone and email, not a raw record you have to enrich.
• Verifiable. Every alert row carries a SAFER carrier-snapshot link keyed on its DOT number, so you can confirm any carrier against FMCSA before you act on it.
• Self-serve and agent-native. It runs in your own Apify account and is callable as an MCP tool, a form factor the email-list vendors of motor carrier alerts do not offer.

How to use FMCSA New-Registration Radar

1. Open the Input tab and choose your states (2-letter USPS codes) and carrier operation (interstate, intrastate, or all). Interstate is the default and roughly halves the volume.
2. Optionally narrow with minimum power units or fleet-size bands to drop no-truck registrants, and leave require contact fields on so every delivered row is contactable.
3. Set a filter name (for example tx-interstate). This names the watch so its deduplication memory persists across scheduled runs.
4. Run it once. The first run establishes an uncharged baseline of the carriers already in scope and watches forward from that moment. It does not bill you for the back-catalog.
5. Put it on a daily Schedule. The census updates daily, so the honest latency is "within about a day of FMCSA posting it."
6. Set the run's max total charge per run high enough to cover the monthly watch fee (see Pricing). If it is too low, the run delivers nothing and tells you to raise it.

Worked example

Input (also the store default), a Texas interstate watch:

{ "mode": "watch", "states": ["TX"], "carrierOperation": "interstate", "minPowerUnits": 1, "filterName": "tx-interstate", "maxAlertsPerRun": 50 }

The first run returns a single uncharged baseline row (BD fields null, the count is illustrative):

{ "event_type": "baseline", "filterName": "tx-interstate", "billing": "uncharged",
  "add_date": null, "legal_name": null, "phone": null, "email_address": null,
  "source_url": "https://data.transportation.gov/resource/az4n-8mr2.json",
  "note": "Baseline established: 41 carrier(s) currently in scope are on file for this filter; watching forward for newly-registered carriers from today." }

A later run, once a new interstate carrier registers in Texas, returns one alert row (values illustrative, field names exact):

{ "dot_number": "4213908", "legal_name": "LONE STAR HAULING LLC", "dba_name": null,
  "phone": "2145550137", "email_address": "dispatch@lonestarhauling.example",
  "phy_street": "1420 INDUSTRIAL BLVD", "phy_city": "DALLAS", "phy_state": "TX", "phy_zip": "75207",
  "carrier_mailing_state": "TX", "carrier_operation": "Interstate",
  "power_units": 2, "total_drivers": 2, "fleetsize": "A", "status_code": "A",
  "add_date": "2026-07-03",
  "source_url": "https://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/query.asp?searchtype=ANY&query_type=queryCarrierSnapshot&query_param=USDOT&query_string=4213908",
  "checked_at": "2026-07-04T09:12:00.000Z", "filterName": "tx-interstate",
  "event_type": "new-carrier", "billing": "included-tier", "note": null }

You can download the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML.

Demo dataset

A real report-mode output from this actor is public, so you can see actual delivered rows before you run anything: 799 interstate carriers that registered in Texas in June 2026 (one flat row per carrier, exact field names as above), plus one cohort-summary row. No login or API token needed:

• Browse it: https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/cs8PupeaEpICmFbaW/items?format=html
• Raw JSON: https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/cs8PupeaEpICmFbaW/items?format=json

Output data

Each new-carrier alert row carries these fields, mapped straight from the census with no enrichment:

Field	Meaning
dot_number	USDOT number: the carrier identity and the dedupe key.
legal_name, dba_name	Legal name and trade name.
phone, email_address	The phone and email the carrier filed with FMCSA (see "Contacts, plainly").
phy_street, phy_city, phy_state, phy_zip	Physical address.
carrier_mailing_state	Mailing state.
carrier_operation	Decoded label: Interstate, Intrastate Non-Hazmat, or Intrastate Hazmat.
power_units, total_drivers	Trucks and drivers the carrier reported at registration.
fleetsize, status_code	Census fleet-size band code and status code.
add_date	Registration date, normalized to ISO YYYY-MM-DD.
source_url	SAFER carrier-snapshot link keyed on the DOT number, to re-verify the carrier.
checked_at	When this run read the census.
filterName	The named watch that produced the row.
event_type	new-carrier for an alert; also baseline, digest-no-new, truncation-marker, billing-blocked for uncharged status rows, and report-carrier / cohort-report-summary in report mode.
billing	How the row was billed: included-tier, volume-tier, dry-run, uncharged, or cohort-report.
note	A human message on status rows; null on alert rows.

Status rows (baseline, digest-no-new, truncation-marker, billing-blocked) carry null BD fields and an explanatory note, and are never charged. A digest-no-new row is returned when a run finds nothing new; a truncation-marker names how many alerts a cap withheld; a billing-blocked row explains that the run's max charge was below the watch fee.

Report mode returns one flat row per carrier (event_type report-carrier), each carrying the same BD fields and field names as an alert row, followed by exactly one summary row (event_type cohort-report-summary). The summary row has null BD fields and carries the cohort header: filterDescription, period, a summary (total count, counts by state, counts by operation), the sources, and a human note. Every report row is billing cohort-report, and the whole report is billed once at $15. Because each carrier is its own row, a report downloads cleanly to CSV/Excel and renders one carrier per line in the Output table.

Modes

• watch (default): the standing, deduplicated filter-watch described above.
• report: a one-off cohort of every carrier registered in your state(s) and operation type over an add_date period (period as YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM..YYYY-MM), billed once at $15. Use it for the recent back-catalog or a forwardable territory snapshot.
• unwatch: forget a saved filter's memory. No charge.
• list-events: replay a filter's delivered-alert history. No charge.
• dryRun (any mode): fetch and diff but return at most 5 preview rows, charge nothing, and touch no memory. Use it to sanity-check a filter before scheduling.

Pricing

This actor is pay-per-event. Actor start is free.

• Filter watch-month, $19.00 per named filter per calendar month, charged on the first run of the month that completes a successful query on a fresh feed. Your account's first calendar month is free (alerts still bill during it). Baseline and re-baseline runs are never charged, and the fee is deferred while the feed is stale.
• New-carrier alert, $0.00001 for the first 300 delivered per filter-month (Apify's required event minimum, displayed as $0.01 / 1,000 and effectively included in the watch fee), then $0.03 each beyond the 300th. The row is pushed before it is charged.
• Cohort report, $15.00 per report-mode run; a failed query charges nothing.

What a real state costs

The 300 effectively included alerts cover a narrowed filter but are exceeded by the largest single-state interstate filters. The Apify event floor adds at most $0.003 across those first 300 alerts, so it does not change the buyer math. Texas interstate ran about 670 new registrations in 30 days (measured 2026-07-06), so a Texas interstate watch is the $19 watch fee plus roughly 370 alerts beyond the tier at $0.03, about $11, for roughly $30 per month all-in. Across the biggest single states the all-in lands roughly $20 to $30 per month: Illinois (322 registrations in 30 days) and Georgia (319) sit just under $20, Florida (421) about $23, California (610) about $28, Texas (670) about $30, all measured 2026-07-06. A one- or two-state filter is the intended use; a national filter is deliberately not the wedge here and would accrue far more volume, so two monthly guards (maxAlertRowsPerMonth, default 1000, and maxMonthlySpendUsd, default $50) stop charging and switch to uncharged marker rows before a broad filter can surprise-bill.

Set your per-run max charge correctly

The $19 watch fee lands on a single run, so you must set that run's "max total charge per run" high enough to cover it. With maxAlertsPerRun at its default of 50, a single run bills at most $19 plus 50 alerts at $0.03 ($1.50), so $20.50; set the run's max total charge to at least $21, and $25 leaves headroom. If you set it below $19, the actor does not silently under-deliver: the run delivers nothing, advances no memory, and pushes one uncharged billing-blocked row telling you to raise the cap and rerun. You then receive that month's alerts on the rerun once the fee bills.

Baseline-forward behavior

Alerts begin from the day you start watching a filter. The first run seeds the carriers already in scope (uncharged) and watches forward, so you are never billed for the historical back-catalog. If you widen a saved filter under the same name (add a state, drop the power-unit floor), the actor re-baselines it, again with no back-catalog charge. For the recent back-catalog, use report mode.

Terminology, plainly

This actor reads the FMCSA Company Census registration delta. It detects newly-registered carriers in the roughly 21-day pre-authority window, and does not read operating-authority status, which lives in FMCSA's L&I system and is a possible future enrichment. The copy here says "newly registered" and "pre-authority" throughout; it does not claim to detect an operating-authority grant.

Contacts, plainly

The phone and email_address on each row are the phone and email the carrier filed with FMCSA, taken straight from the public census row. About 99.7% of new registrations carry both (measured 2026-07-06); a 3,000-row sample found phones about 99.8% well-formed 10-digit numbers, emails near-unique per carrier (0.3% shared across more than one carrier), and about 73% on free-mail domains consistent with owner-operators (probes/contact-quality.md, 2026-07-06). FMCSA carries no role field, so these are the carrier's own filed contacts, not verified "owner" contacts.

Compliance

Rows are public FMCSA registration records; any outreach you send using them must comply with the TCPA and CAN-SPAM. That compliance duty is yours as the sender, and is standard for any lead product.

FAQ and support

• Where does the data come from? The FMCSA Company Census File on the US-DOT open-data portal (data.transportation.gov/resource/az4n-8mr2). It is a public carrier record; the actor reads it keyless, with no login.
• What is the latency? The census updates daily, so the honest promise is "within about a day of FMCSA posting a registration," not real-time.
• Is this the same as authority data? No. People searching for "new authority leads" usually mean this pre-authority registration moment, but the actor reads census registrations, not L&I authority grants. Reaching a carrier at registration is earlier than reaching it once authority is active.
• Is it legal and compliant? It reads a public government record and redistributes public registration facts. It is registry information, not advice; your outreach compliance is described under Compliance above.
• Can I watch more states or get authority status? Up to 10 states per filter today. An L&I operating-authority join is a possible future enrichment. Use the Issues tab to request one or report a problem.