FMCSA's New Registration System Suspends Legitimate Carriers and Activates Fraudulent Ones

When you look up a moving company on FMCSA's SAFER database, the most important field is 'Operating Authority Status.' If it says 'Authorized,' the company is legal. If it says 'Revoked' or 'Suspended,' it is not. Consumers, brokers, journalists, and the U.S. military all rely on this status to determine whether a carrier can legally transport goods.

The system that produces this status is broken.

In May 2026, FMCSA launched Motus (Motor Carrier Operating Authority and Registration System), replacing the legacy registration system. The transition was the largest system change in FMCSA's history.

FMCSA sent 2.2 million letters to registered users ahead of the transition. Approximately 18% (396,000) came back undeliverable. Nearly 400,000 registered entities in the federal transportation database cannot receive mail at the address on file.

The transition has been plagued with technical problems. One industry publication called it 'one of the worst software releases I've ever witnessed.' Users reported login failures, missing data, incorrect authority displays, and system timeouts.

On August 28, Overdrive reported that a legitimate carrier (A&J Transport and Recovery) was marked with an 'Involuntary suspension' in Motus. The stated reason: 'No active insurance meeting minimum coverage on file.'

The carrier's own Motus profile shows an active insurance policy meeting the minimum coverage requirement. The policy is visible on the same screen as the suspension notice. The system suspended a carrier for not having insurance while simultaneously displaying the active insurance.

The carrier had recently updated his insurance with a new agent. The new policy was filed and shows as active. Motus suspended him anyway.

For a small carrier putting a second truck on the road, this suspension means he cannot legally accept freight. Brokers and shippers who check his authority see 'Suspended' and move on. The business impact is immediate and potentially devastating.

The same carrier's Motus profile shows a second error in the opposite direction. A&J Transport is displayed with 'active' broker authority, including an active status badge. The carrier has not maintained broker authority for years. No bond is on file. The Motus profile shows no active bond, yet the authority status reads 'active.'

This means any shipper or carrier checking Motus would see A&J Transport as an authorized broker. It is not. The system is displaying authorization for a brokerage that does not exist.

When a consumer checks a mover on SAFER (which draws from Motus), they are trusting the system to tell them whether the company is legally authorized to transport their belongings. If Motus can simultaneously:

Suspend a carrier that has valid insurance (false negative), and Show active authority for a broker with no bond (false positive),

then the system's output cannot be trusted as a definitive answer.

A consumer who sees 'Authorized' may be looking at a company with no insurance and no bond. A consumer who sees 'Suspended' may be looking at a legitimate carrier caught in a system glitch. Neither consumer can know which scenario applies without calling FMCSA directly.

The military faces the same problem. The Department of War's Transportation Command (Transcom) uses FMCSA's system to determine carrier eligibility. Transcom stated in August 2026: 'GFM is designed to prevent freight awards if the FMCSA lists a carrier's status as inactive or revoked; however, if a carrier maintains an Active operating authority status on the FMCSA SAFER system, GFM recognizes them as eligible.' If Motus shows 'active' for entities that should be suspended, military freight flows to unauthorized carriers.

Motus is the latest chapter in FMCSA's data infrastructure failures:

The SAFER database blocks automated access with CAPTCHAs, violating the Paperwork Reduction Act's requirement for machine-readable public data.

The NCCDB complaint database publishes complaint counts but locks complaint narratives behind FOIA requests with a 6,256-request backlog.

OP-1 registration applications showing company officers and disclosed affiliations are not published online.

FMCSA's FOIA office receives more requests than any other DOT component (9,647 in FY 2025) and processes them with the largest backlog.

Motus was supposed to improve this infrastructure. It adds biometric identity verification for new registrants, which is a genuine improvement for detecting chameleon carriers at the point of registration. But if the system cannot correctly match an insurance policy that is visible on its own screen, the biometric verification is built on a foundation that does not work.

FMCSA has the statutory authority, the budget, and the personnel to build a functioning registration system. The system it built suspends legitimate carriers and authorizes nonexistent brokers.

Update (September 2, 2026): Commercial Carrier Journal published an analysis of the Motus data on August 31, confirming the scale of the problem. Of 18,000 pending authority applications in the Motus dataset, 16,606 (92.3%) lack required proof of financial responsibility (BMC-91 or BMC-91X). Of those, 11,216 also have no BOC-3 process agent filing. Only 1,394 pending applications have an active liability insurance filing. The $750,000 minimum liability requirement under 49 CFR 387.9 has not been updated since January 1, 1985. The median pending application is 36 days old. 627 are already past FMCSA's own 90-day dismissal window. FMCSA has also paused USDOT number deactivations as data migration issues continue. The headline figure of 18,000 pending applications suggests a wave of new capacity. The reality: fewer than 1,400 are anywhere close to putting a truck on the road.