Frequently asked questions

fleetfax is a carrier intelligence platform: it combines the federal record on a carrier and makes it readable in one report.

Two ways to use it: here on the website, or as a Chrome extension that brings the same check wherever you find carriers. Carrier reports are free, with a daily limit. A free account checks any carrier you open against the default rules and keeps a book of the carriers you work with. Up to 15 carriers in your book, 5 monitored. Changes on every carrier in your book show in your account. fleetfax Pro, for vetting at scale, adds carrier history, email alerts, bulk vetting & exports, connections explorer and custom vetting rules, with no daily limit on reports.

There is no catch. Carrier reports are free, with a daily limit: no trial, no card, and no sign-up for your first 3 reports a day. A free fleetfax account gives you 10 a day and shows the phone and email on file. It also checks any carrier you open against the default rules, rule by rule, finds carriers by lane or area, and keeps a book of the carriers you work with. Up to 15 carriers in your book, 5 monitored. Changes on every carrier in your book show in your account. Past the limit you still see FMCSA's record and insurance filings for the carrier, without contact details.

Pro is $69/month. Pro is monthly, cancel anytime. Carrier reports stay free, with a daily limit, either way.

From the public federal record: FMCSA's published datasets covering carrier registration, operating authority, insurance filings, roadside inspections, crashes, and safety ratings.

fleetfax reads FMCSA's published datasets daily. FMCSA updates each dataset on its own schedule, and the site status page shows when carrier records were last refreshed and operating authority last checked.

USDOT number, MC number or company name, and, with a free account, phone number or email address. The name search suggests matches as you type. An MC number opens the carrier's USDOT report.

Named risk signals computed from the public record: things like an active out-of-service order, no insurance on file, an out-of-service rate above the national average, or ties to a carrier whose authority was revoked. Each flag states what the data shows and links to the underlying records.

No. fleetfax reports what the public record shows ("blocking issues found", "3 cautions found", "no blockers or cautions found") with the evidence beside it. It gives no overall score. The call is yours.

It means the public federal record shows no blockers or cautions. The record can't see yesterday's hiring decision, an unreported incident, or fraud that hasn't surfaced yet, and absence of evidence isn't proof. A clean report is a good data point inside your process, not a substitute for it.

In FMCSA's 2021 data, about 94% of rating-eligible interstate freight carriers had never received a safety rating (the agency lacks audit capacity to review more than a fraction of the industry). So "Not Rated" tells you almost nothing, and a vetting process that relies on the rating field alone is blind for most of the market. The underlying data (inspections, out-of-service rates, crashes, authority and insurance history) exists for every carrier, rated or not, and that's what fleetfax reads. The fleetfax analysis: what the data shows for unrated carriers.

No. FMCSA stopped publishing the official CSA percentiles for freight carriers in 2015, so the real scores are not visible to anyone outside the carrier and enforcement. What fleetfax shows is its own estimate, built from the same public inspection and crash records. Each measure has its own peer group of similar carriers. Crash rate is per million miles. It is a useful read on where a carrier stands, but it is a fleetfax estimate, labeled as one, never presented as CSA or an official FMCSA score.

Every report has its own permanent address, and the link always reopens that carrier's current report.

Not at the moment. If you need API access, write to support@fleetfax.com.

No and no. Your first 3 carrier reports a day need no account, a fleetfax account is free when you want one, fleetfax sells no data, and carriers are not notified of lookups. The website uses ordinary analytics to understand aggregate usage. A report you run without an account is not tied to your name or email, because fleetfax doesn't have them.

No. fleetfax reads public FMCSA data and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to FMCSA or the U.S. Department of Transportation. A fleetfax report is information, not legal advice or a compliance certification.