On September 15, 2012, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) eliminated the Registrant designation as an online option in the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) number registration and update process. These actions will improve FMCSA’s ability to track and monitor the safety performance of motor carriers that may previously have avoided monitoring through misuse of the Registrant designation. Those with Registrant numbers, such as owner-operators that are always leased on to another motor carrier responsible for safety and leasing companies that never operate as motor carriers, will not need to take any action.

FMCSA previously published Federal Register notices (in 2010 and 2011) related to this procedural change to the Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) program. There are approximately 250,000 Registrant USDOT numbers in the FMCSA databases and, in addition to eliminating the Registrant option for future users, this change will also make nearly all current Registrant USDOT numbers inactive in FMCSA databases on or about December 1, 2012. FMCSA has been sending letters to all current Registrants that include a pre-populated Form MCS-150 for companies to use to update their status, if appropriate.

To be properly registered, former Registrants that are actually operating as motor carriers will need to file a Form MCS-150 updating their designation to motor carrier, either interstate or intrastate. Former Registrants that change their designation to interstate carrier, and that had registered with USDOT on or after March 1, 2011, will automatically enter the New Entrant Safety Assurance Program. All other former Registrants that change their designation to interstate carrier will be monitored through the Agency’s safety compliance and enforcement programs. In September, letters also were sent to a small subset of the Registrant population stating that, on or about October 13, 2012, FMCSA will change to interstate carriers those Registrants that data shows to have obvious indications of operating as motor carriers.