For moving a household

A proper introduction before moving day

Moving a household across state lines with a company you found online — you’ll do this once. One free lookup tells you what the federal government has on file about them.

What the file shows you

Whether they are registered to do this — the USDOT and MC numbers, the operating authority and whether it is active today, with the date it last changed.
Whether insurance is on file — the liability amount FMCSA shows against the minimum required, plus cargo insurance filings where the company has them.
Their safety record — roadside inspections, out-of-service results and crashes over the last two years, as FMCSA publishes them.
Prior-revocation fields and shared-address records — FMCSA's own prior-revocation field, and any other registration at the same street and ZIP with a recent involuntary revocation. A shared address does not establish common ownership.

How it fits your day

Find the number. For an interstate move, ask for the moving company's USDOT number; it is on the truck, on the estimate, or one question away. If they won't give it, that is your answer. Requirements for purely in-state moves vary by state.
Pull the file. Type the number into the search box. The full federal file opens, free, no signup, in seconds.
Keep it. If you want a copy of what the record showed before your move, track the company with your email for the days around your move and request the dated record afterwards.

What the record covers — and what it doesn't

The record is a dated PDF of what the federal sources showed for the company while you tracked it — registration, authority, insurance filings, safety data — with the source on every line. A record shows both the date of what it describes and the date it was generated, carries a reference number and a tamper-evident hash, and can be checked by anyone you hand it to at carrierarchive.com/verify. It covers only the days the carrier was under watch: a check that never ran cannot be written up afterwards, which is exactly why the watch is worth setting up before the load moves.

Questions moving a household ask

The company I booked through is a broker, not the truck. Whose number do I check?

Both, if you can. Brokers have their own MC number, and the file shows whether their authority is active. The company actually moving your belongings has a separate USDOT number; ask for it once the pickup is assigned and check that one too.

What does "Not rated" mean?

FMCSA has not completed the kind of review that produces a safety rating for that company, which is true for roughly 99% of carriers. It is not a bad sign and not a good one. The inspection and crash counts below it are the useful part.

Is this a review site?

No. The carrier facts come from cited federal records and say which one and when; the indicators are our disclosed calculations and address-matching rules on those records, not reviews. If a company disputes something in its federal record, the correction goes to FMCSA; if it disputes what we show, it can write to us. The page explains both.

Pull a file now

Free. No signup. Type an MC or USDOT number, or a company name.

Also for: Freight brokers · Shippers · Forwarders & 3PLs · Factoring companies · Carriers and owner-operators

Carrier Archive is an independent, privately operated service and is not affiliated with FMCSA or any government agency. Every fact on a carrier file is cited to its federal source and date; indicators describe documented record patterns and are not accusations about any carrier. The decision to use a carrier is yours; we do not select or recommend carriers. Nothing on this page is legal advice. Federal files checked daily.