Keelway
Sign in Book a demo Get Keelway free
Carrier
M01Carrier TMS M02Invoice & Collections Agent M03Track & Trace M04Email Agent M05Voice Agent
Broker
M01Broker TMS M02Fraud AI · CarrierVet M03Track & Trace M04Email Agent M05Voice Agent
Integrations PricingSign in
Free tool · No signup

Free FMCSA MC & DOT number lookup.

Paste an MC or DOT number. We'll pull the live operating authority status, power units, safety rating, and out-of-service status straight from the FMCSA QCMobile feed. No email, no signup, no ads — just the data brokers and shippers actually need to verify a carrier before booking a load.

Free · No email required · Live FMCSA QCMobile data
Live
FMCSA QCMobile data
No cache older than 1 hour
$0
Free, no account, no ads
Tool, not a lead form
All loads
Same check inside Keelway
Auto-run on every carrier email

What this tool shows

Every response is a direct read of the FMCSA QCMobile API — the same public source the agency exposes for the broker-side carrier verification flow. For any MC or DOT we can resolve, you get:

  • Operating authority status — Active, Inactive, or Revoked. The single most important signal: don't book a load to a carrier with revoked authority.
  • Legal name & DBA — useful for catching email-signature mismatches (a common chameleon-carrier tell).
  • USDOT number — pair with the MC for cross-reference against SAFER and the SMS BASICs.
  • Fleet size — power units and drivers as reported on the carrier's MCS-150. Helps sanity-check capacity claims.
  • Safety rating — Satisfactory, Conditional, Unsatisfactory, or Not Rated. Unsatisfactory means the carrier isn't allowed to operate; Conditional is a warning.
  • Out-of-service status — surfaces an OOS date if the carrier has been ordered off the road.
  • Physical address & phone — for matching against the email signature on a quote.

What this tool does not show: insurance certificate details (BMC-91 for carriers, BMC-84 broker bond for brokers), full SMS BASIC scores, crash counts by year, and the chameleon-carrier reincorporation pattern. Those live in adjacent FMCSA datasets and outside-FMCSA sources. Inside Keelway's broker product the full panel runs on every inbound carrier email automatically — that's the productized version of this one-off check.

How to read the result

The honest order of operations a broker should use, every load:

  1. Confirm authority is Active. Revoked or Inactive is a hard stop. Most fraud lives here.
  2. Match the legal name to the email sender. If the quote came from dispatch@bigtruckco.com but the FMCSA legal name is "Joe's Trucking LLC," ask why. It's often innocent (a dispatch service); it's sometimes a stolen-MC attempt.
  3. Sanity-check capacity. A 1-truck carrier quoting on three loads pickup-tomorrow is either booking something they can't cover or planning to re-broker. Power units number lives in this lookup.
  4. Spot the new-entrant pattern. A brand-new MC with zero prior loads on your book deserves a closer look. The FMCSA QCMobile feed doesn't show MC issuance date directly — but a missing safety rating + zero crash history is a useful proxy for "very new."
  5. Pull the insurance cert separately. Insurance is the #1 thing forged in carrier-onboarding fraud. Don't trust a PDF the carrier emailed you — pull it from the FMCSA L&I database or your CSP's certificate-of-insurance tracker.

Related guides

More on how to read FMCSA data and use it in carrier vetting:

Why we built this

The FMCSA publishes carrier data, but the surfaces brokers actually land on (SAFER, QCMobile, L&I) are slow, ugly, and built for internal-government use. Most brokers we talked to do this lookup twenty times a day. So we wrapped the public API in something fast, free, and shareable — no email gate, no ads. Inside our product the same check runs on every inbound carrier email automatically, alongside insurance and double-broker detection. If that's useful, book a demo. If it's not, the free tool stands on its own.

Frequently asked questions

What is an MC number?+
MC (Motor Carrier) is the operating-authority identifier the FMCSA assigns to freight brokers, freight forwarders, and for-hire motor carriers under 49 CFR Parts 365 and 387. The number itself is a 5-to-7-digit value prefixed 'MC'. Without active MC authority, a US for-hire carrier or broker can't legally arrange or move interstate freight.
What's the difference between MC and DOT (USDOT) number?+
USDOT is the carrier-identifier number assigned to any commercial motor vehicle operator that crosses state lines or hauls hazmat — it ties to the company's safety record, BASIC scores, and inspections. MC number is the separate operating-authority number assigned to for-hire carriers, brokers, and freight forwarders. A pure intrastate fleet has a DOT but no MC. A freight broker has an MC but no DOT.
Is this lookup free? Do I need an account?+
Free. No email required. No account. We hit the FMCSA QCMobile public API and render the response. We don't store your lookups or harvest the data.
Why does my MC number return 'no record'?+
Two common reasons. First, you may be searching for a freight broker — the FMCSA QCMobile database is carrier-centric and some pure-broker MCs return partial or no data there (their authority lives in the Licensing & Insurance database instead). Second, the MC was recently issued or revoked and hasn't propagated through QCMobile's index. If the L&I record exists but QCMobile doesn't, search at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov directly.
What does 'authority status' actually mean?+
Active means the carrier or broker holds current operating authority and is allowed to operate. Inactive means authority is in good standing but the entity isn't currently operating (often voluntary). Revoked means the authority has been pulled — most commonly because insurance lapsed (BMC-91 for carriers, BMC-84 broker bond for brokers) or the entity failed a safety determination. Never book a load to a carrier with revoked authority.
Does an active authority mean the carrier is safe?+
No — it just means they're legally allowed to operate. The other signals you should check on every load: insurance certificate on file (current expiration date, correct cargo/liability limits), safety rating (Satisfactory / Conditional / Unsatisfactory / Not Rated), recent BASIC scores from the SMS (Safety Measurement System), out-of-service rate, and crash history. Keelway runs the full panel on every inbound carrier email automatically.
Can I look up a freight broker?+
Sometimes. Brokers have MC numbers but live primarily in the FMCSA Licensing & Insurance (L&I) database, not the carrier-centric QCMobile feed this tool queries. Many brokers will return partial data or 'no record' here. We're working on a broker-side lookup that queries L&I directly — until then, search safer.fmcsa.dot.gov.
What does Keelway do with this data?+
On the public lookup page: nothing. We don't store your queries. Inside Keelway's product, the same FMCSA QCMobile call runs on every inbound carrier email so brokers see authority status + insurance + safety signals on the load card without alt-tabbing to SAFER. That's the productized version of this free tool.
Optional · Unsubscribe anytime
Want this on every carrier reply, not one at a time?

Subscribing starts the intro series: five emails over two weeks. The first one hands you the rest of the kit — the red-flags checklist and CarrierVet, our free extension that vets carriers straight from Gmail. After that, no fixed schedule: you'll hear from us when we see a fraud pattern worth passing on.

Want this check on every carrier email automatically?

Keelway runs FMCSA + insurance + fraud signals per reply.

See how it works

Related

Carrier trust scoring →

The full per-email panel — authority, insurance, double-broker, chameleon detection.

How to vet a carrier →

The 60-second flow brokers actually use, step by step.

Anatomy of a fraudulent carrier email →

Seven signals that separate a legit carrier quote from a stolen-MC attempt.