Compliance
Nothing here is complicated on its own. The difficulty is that the obligations come from different agencies on different calendars, and missing one is expensive in a way that is entirely avoidable.
The recurring calendar
A small interstate carrier is generally dealing with the following. Amounts and exact dates are in our federal fee reference.
| Obligation | Cadence | Administered by |
|---|---|---|
| Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) | Annual | Participating states, under FMCSA rules |
| Heavy Vehicle Use Tax, Form 2290 | Annual, tax period July–June | IRS |
| IFTA fuel tax return | Quarterly | Your base jurisdiction |
| IRP apportioned plates | Annual | Your base jurisdiction |
| MCS-150 biennial update | Every two years | FMCSA |
| Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse query | Annual per driver, plus pre-employment | FMCSA |
| Random drug and alcohol testing | Ongoing, via a consortium | FMCSA rates |
| Annual vehicle inspection | Annual per vehicle | Qualified inspector |
The records that get examined
Compliance is not only about paying things on time. In a new entrant safety audit or a compliance review, what gets checked is whether the paperwork exists and is complete:
- Driver qualification files — application, MVR, road test or equivalent, medical certificate, previous employer checks.
- Hours-of-service records — ELD data and supporting documents, retained for the required period.
- Vehicle maintenance records — systematic inspection, repair and maintenance history, plus annual inspection reports.
- Drug and alcohol testing program — enrolment, random selection records, Clearinghouse queries.
- Accident register — maintained whether or not you have had one.
The point worth internalising: these are systems, not documents you produce when asked. A carrier that has been running eight months without driver qualification files cannot create them the week before an audit.
Articles in this section
- UCR fees for 2027: new rates, deadline and who must register Fees rise about 20 percent effective October 1, 2026. The full table by fleet size, how fleet size is counted, and how to file it yourself for the actual fee.
- The new entrant safety audit: what is checked, and what fails you automatically The 18-month monitoring period, the six areas examined, the sixteen violations that fail you outright, and how long you get to put it right.
- Hours of service, explained properly Five clocks running at once: the 11 and the 14, the 30-minute break, the sleeper berth split with a worked example, and where the fines actually come from.
- The driver qualification file, item by item All eight required documents with their regulation, how long each is kept, and the annual review note that carriers forget to write.
- ELD exemptions: who really qualifies The four situations in the regulation that allow paper logs, why an old engine is not one of them, and the short-haul exception people confuse them with.
- Clearinghouse queries: full, limited and annual Which query when, the 24-hour rule after a positive limited query, and what an owner-operator has to do differently.
- IFTA, explained without the jargon Why the return can bill you although you paid tax at the pump, which vehicles qualify, the four quarterly deadlines, and the records behind them.
- CSA scores and the BASICs The seven categories, why 100 is the worst score, and why a single inspection swings a small carrier so violently.
- Drug and alcohol testing: what a programme needs The random rates in the regulation, what "spread reasonably through the year" means, and how a one-truck carrier complies.
- The annual vehicle inspection Every twelve months, every unit of the combination, with the documentation carried on the vehicle.
- Driver vehicle inspection reports The eleven components, and the exemption for carriers running a single vehicle that almost nobody knows about.
- The MCS-150 biennial update A free filing that deactivates your USDOT number when missed. How your filing month is set by your number.
- IRP apportioned plates: who needs them, and how the fee is built The weight and axle thresholds, why one plate covers 59 jurisdictions, and why your bill is built from last year’s mileage.
- Roadside inspection levels I through VIII What each CVSA level covers, which ones put an inspector under the truck, and why clean inspections are worth having.
- Out-of-service orders: what stops you, and what happens next Vehicle orders against driver orders, why the sticker cannot come off, and the 15-day certification after every inspection.
- Cargo securement: the arithmetic nobody explains Half the cargo weight in aggregate working load limit, the minimum tiedown count, and the routing rule that decides whether a strap counts once or twice.
- Federal weight limits and the bridge formula 80,000 gross, 20,000 on a single axle, 34,000 on a tandem — and the formula that can override all three.
- The accident register: what counts, and what you must keep The federal definition is narrower than you think and has nothing to do with fault. The six fields and the three-year retention.
Watch
Our Roads, Our Safety Overview Video — FMCSA. The video loads from YouTube only when you press play.