Methods and standards

• Public records only

  Every figure starts from a public government dataset. For each pull we record the dataset, its ID, its address, the exact query and when it ran, and we keep the dated snapshot, so every published number can be re-run from the same records with the same scripts.

• Proof before a site counts

  A website counts as a company's only when the page proves it. At least one of these must be true:

  • the domain matches the email address the company registered with FMCSA;
  • the page shows the company's own MC or USDOT number;
  • the page shows the phone number or street address on its FMCSA registration.

  A search result that only shares a company's name is not proof. A match we can't prove is marked unverified and doesn't count.

• We say what we tried

  When we can't find something, we say what we tried and when: "we could not find a working website using [method] on [date]", never "they have no website". Search engines miss pages, brand-new sites most of all, so a miss is a fact about our search, not about the company.

• Checked before publishing

  A random sample of every automated result is re-checked before publishing: by a person for website findings, at least 50 results or 10% of them, whichever is larger, and against a fresh pull of FMCSA's live records for authority dates. The error rate the check found is published with the research. If the check finds errors, we fix the rule and run everything again before publishing.

• Totals, never names

  We publish percentages and counts only. No company, person, docket number or email address is named, and no company is scored or ranked. The working files hold names and registration emails exactly as FMCSA publishes them, and they never leave the working files.

• Dated and corrected in public

  Every number carries the date its data were retrieved. A published version never changes: an update is a new, dated version, and a correction says what changed, when and why, on the page and in the corrections log.

Property broker

A company with FMCSA operating authority to arrange truck transport of other people's freight for pay: authority type "Broker of Property (Except Household Goods)". Household-goods brokers and freight forwarders are not included.

Year granted

The year of a docket's earliest grant of that authority. Each docket counts once, in that year.

Loss of authority

The first time FMCSA records show the authority ended after the grant: almost always an involuntary or voluntary revocation, plus a few out-of-service orders and administrative inactivations. Transfers and renumberings don't count. A lost authority is not always a closed business.

Lost within 6, 12 or 24 months

Counted only for brokers whose whole window closed by 15 May 2026, when FMCSA moved to a new records system that has recorded far fewer revocations since. A year where only some brokers' windows closed is marked as a partial year.

Regained authority

A broker whose authority was later reinstated after a loss, as a share of the brokers that lost it.

Bond or trust cancellation

A BMC-84 surety bond or BMC-85 trust-fund cancellation that took effect shortly before an involuntary revocation. FMCSA's older records don't state why an authority was revoked, so this reason is inferred; the statistics page gives the exact window.

Registration email type

The email address on the broker's FMCSA registration, sorted into free providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook, and the broker's own domain. It is the address on file in October 2026, not necessarily the one used at approval.

Approval time

Calendar days from the first "Initial Status" entry in FMCSA's Authority History, the application, to the grant. It includes the broker's own filings (the BMC-84 bond or BMC-85 trust and the BOC-3 process agent) and the protest period, not only FMCSA's review.

How the freight broker statistics are compiled