Check a moving company's license and insurance (free FMCSA lookup)

What this check is

A moving company that crosses a state line has to be on the federal register kept by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. This page reads that register: operating authority, the household-goods flag, insurance on file, and revocations. It does not rank movers, it does not take a booking, and a result here is not a recommendation. The numbers are read when the page loads. They are filings, and a filing can be current while the business is a bad one to hire, or out of date while the business is trading.

A carrier and a broker are different filings

A carrier is the company whose trucks do the move. They hold operating authority, and they file the liability insurance FMCSA can see. A broker arranges a move and hires a carrier. A broker's filing is a bond, not trucks, and it does not authorize anyone to haul your furniture. When a quote comes from a broker, ask for the carrier who will load the truck and check that name here. The name on the estimate and the name on the authority are often not the same company.

What a USDOT number does, and what it does not

Every interstate carrier is issued a USDOT number. It is an identifier, the way a license number identifies a driver: it tells you which filing you are looking at. It does not say the company is careful, solvent, or easy to deal with. A company can hold a USDOT number and still have inactive authority, no insurance on file, or a revocation under way. Those are separate lines on the filing, and this check reads them separately. If a mover will not give you the number, search the legal name. Names on the register are often the legal name, not the name painted on the truck.

The MC number, which FMCSA files as a docket, is the operating-authority record. The USDOT number identifies the company. The docket says what they are allowed to do. One company can hold more than one docket, for example a carrier arm and a freight arm. The company page shows the docket this check used. Household-goods authority is the flag that matters for a home. A company registered only for general freight is not registered to move the contents of a house, whatever the website says.

Interstate moves and local moves

FMCSA regulates moves that cross a state line. A move that stays inside one state is licensed by that state, and the office is different everywhere: a utilities commission in one state, a transportation department in another. This page does not list those offices. A list of fifty agencies copied from memory goes stale, and a wrong number is worse than none. For an interstate move, the federal filing shown here is the one that applies. For a local move, ask which state license they hold and check it with that state. FMCSA's own consumer page for the interstate rules is Protect Your Move.

What "cleared" means on this site

Cleared means three things were true in the filing at the moment the page was read: operating authority was active, liability insurance was on file, and no revocation was pending. Cargo insurance and the date of the last MCS-150 update are shown, and they are not part of that line. Plenty of working movers are late with the two-year update, so a stale date is reported without failing them. A cleared result is not a safety rating, not a review, and not a statement that nobody has complained. FMCSA's consumer complaint database is closed to us, so complaints are invisible here. Insurance on file is the amount in the filing, which is recorded in thousands of dollars. It is not a certificate in your hand. Ask to see the certificate before you pay a deposit, and compare the name on it with the name on this page.

Each city page lists the companies registered to move household goods out of that city, and how many of them are cleared today. The ratio is the reason the page exists. In a lot of cities it is closer to one in six than to all of them. Companies that pass are listed first. Open any one for the filing itself. If you are checking a bus, a limo or a charter instead, that is a different authority: the passenger check.