Is My DOT Number Active?

For any moving company and every commercial driver moving goods, to know your Department of Transportation number and its activity status is an essential requirement. This is the legal license that connects your commercial vehicle to a public road, permitting you to drive on it only-while giving the public confidence that you are in compliance with all necessary Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration . Below is an article guide briefing you on how to check for your DOT number activity status and keep your DOT number active.

Verifying Your DOT Number Status

First and foremost, you are going to want to start by checking with the FMCSA Registration itself. There are a couple of different ways to do this, but perhaps the quickest and most direct way is through the FMCSA's online registration retrieval program. Once there, you would simply enter your DOT number, click "continue," and the system would retrieve real-time details on your DOT number about your registration activation status, expiration date with inspection selection identification. This information is critical for making sure your DOT number remains active and in good standing and that you are not subject to any penalties or potential disruptions of your operations.

Maintaining an Active DOT Number

Once activated, the responsibility for maintaining an Active DOT number is placed upon the responsible company to ensure that the following practices are kept up.

• Biennial Updates: You need to update your registration information every two years regardless whether everything has remained the same over that time period or not. This updated is required to be updated every two years by federal mandate.
  
  
• Compliance Reviews: Ensure that you are undergoing regular compliance audits and reviews so as to ensure compliance with all federal and state regulations. Non-compliance with an audit can be cause for the revocation or deactivation of your DOT number.
  
  
• Safety & Maintenance records: Keeping organized up to date safety records and vehicle maintenance logs are not only good business practices they are the federal requirement, both of which will be necessary should your organization receive a compliance audit.
  
  
• Address Changes: changing your address or other business contact information, then doing anything other than updating your contact address in the FMCSA Registration database could easily lead to things becoming lost in translation and your DOT number being revoked.
  
  
• Financial Responsibility: Have in place adequate liability insurance coverage at all times as required by the FMSCA. One of the things that could cause the FMCSA to want to immediately review and potentially cancel your registration status is the proof of your insurance.

Keeping up to date on making sure that your DOT number remains active and in good standing through the FMCSA website is just as useful as beginning the process of transitioning from Motor Carrier Permit Program to the Unified Registration System, take the proactive approach. In addition to staying in front of potential setbacks that could occur should your business's transportation services become disrupted due to the deactivation of your DOT number, maintaining your company’s DOT number means that you and your company are remaining in compliance with all federal transportation regulations.