Getting paid in 2026: what to check before you haul.

You hauled the load. You delivered on time. Now the broker won't answer the phone, and the money you're owed is sitting behind an authority that just got suspended.

Three things changed in 2026, and together they reset how a carrier protects a load. On January 16, a new FMCSA rule made it much faster for a broker to lose their operating authority when the money isn't there. On May 14, FMCSA retired the systems carriers used to verify a broker's bond, and the same day the Supreme Court made brokers legally responsible for the carriers they hire.

So the checks you ran last year are partly out of date, the tool you ran them with is partly retired, and your own safety record now decides more than it used to. Here is how each piece works and what to do about it.

How do I know a freight broker will pay me?

You can't know for certain, but you can check three things in about ten minutes, and carriers who skip them are the ones left chasing money.

1. Their operating authority is active, and specifically their broker authority.
2. Their bond or trust is on file at the full $75,000.
3. Their payment history is clean. This is the one most carriers skip, and it is the best predictor of the three.

Authority status is public and free on FMCSA's SAFER system. Verifying the bond got harder in May 2026, and the next two sections explain why and what to do instead. The payment history comes from broker credit and days-to-pay reports, which most factoring companies and services like Carrier411, Ansonia, or Compass provide.

A broker who runs out of money can go dark while still owing you for loads you already delivered. If their authority gets pulled after you've hauled, you're chasing a company that may not exist much longer. Look before you commit, not after.

What changed on January 16, 2026 for broker bonds?

FMCSA's Broker and Freight Forwarder Financial Responsibility rule reached its full compliance date on January 16, 2026. The rule was published on November 16, 2023, and the compliance date was pushed back a year so the agency's new registration system could handle the filings. It now sits in 49 CFR 387.307.

The dollar amount did not change. Brokers and freight forwarders still have to maintain $75,000 in financial security, either a BMC-84 surety bond or a BMC-85 trust fund, and that figure has been in place since MAP-21 took effect in October 2013.

What changed is how fast a broker loses their authority when the money isn't there.

Suspension moves in days, not a month. If a broker's available financial security drops below $75,000, FMCSA sends notice and the broker has 7 business days to replenish it. If they don't, FMCSA issues a notice of suspension of their operating authority. The old 30-day grace period is gone.

Trust assets have to be real and liquid. A BMC-85 trust now has to hold assets that can be liquidated to cash within 7 calendar days, and the list of what counts is short: cash, irrevocable letters of credit from a federally insured depository institution, and Treasury bonds. Trusts previously backed by illiquid assets no longer qualify.

Fewer companies can hold a trust. Loan and finance companies are no longer eligible trust providers. A broker relying on a provider that got disqualified had 30 days to file a replacement from a qualified provider or face suspension.

The surety has to tell FMCSA when a broker is going under. If a surety or trustee becomes aware of a broker's financial failure or insolvency, it must notify FMCSA and start cancellation of the bond or trust.

Put those together and the practical takeaway is this: a broker's authority can go from clean to suspended in about a week and a half, and 2026 knocked a lot of brokers off non-compliant trusts. A broker you checked in March is not a broker you have checked. Verify close to when you haul.

How do I check a broker's authority and bond before I haul?

Start with SAFER, and know that the bond half of this got harder in May 2026.

For authority, use SAFER at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov. Run the broker's legal name, MC number, or DOT number through Company Snapshot. What you're looking for:

• Authority is active, not pending, revoked, or suspended.
• Broker authority specifically. A company can hold carrier authority and not broker authority. Check the broker line, because carrier authority tells you nothing about their ability to broker your load legally.

For the bond, the old method no longer works. For years the answer was to look up the BMC-84 or BMC-85 filing in FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance system at li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov. That site still loads, which is exactly the problem. FMCSA retired the legacy registration systems on May 14, 2026 and moved everything to Motus, its new registration system. Per FMCSA's own guidance, L&I is now available only for reviewing historical records, and Motus filings do not appear in L&I at all. A bond filed or updated after mid-May will not show up there.

Motus, at motus.dot.gov, is where those filings live now. It requires a Login.gov account with identity verification, and as of August 2026 FMCSA has not published a public bond lookup that replaces what L&I used to do for carriers vetting a broker.

So until that gap closes, verify the bond a different way:

• Ask the broker directly for their surety company name and bond number, then call the surety to confirm the bond is in force. A legitimate broker will hand this over without friction. Hesitation is information.
• Use a third-party vetting service. Carrier411, SaferWatch, and MyCarrierPackets pull broker authority and bond data, and many factoring companies check bond status as part of funding a load. If you factor, ask whether yours does.
• Weight payment history more heavily than usual. With bond verification harder to do yourself, days-to-pay data is carrying more of the load in that decision than it did last year.

One habit worth building either way: write down the surety company's name whenever you get it. If that broker stops paying you six weeks from now, the surety is who you file against.

Can I trust what the public systems show right now?

Not completely, and this cuts in both directions. It is worth two minutes of your attention.

When FMCSA cut over to Motus on May 14, 2026, the public data split in two. The legacy datasets froze that day and new Motus-native feeds started publishing. In July 2026, carriers and vetting platforms found that the new feeds can leave out entire companies with no error and no flag, and FMCSA's own QCMobile data showed the same gap. Insurance and bond filings also did not all carry over cleanly during the migration.

Two practical consequences:

A missing filing is not proof of a missing filing. A broker showing no bond, or a carrier showing no insurance, may be a migration artifact rather than a real lapse. Absence of a record right now is not evidence that the record does not exist. Confirm with the surety or the insurer before you conclude anything.

Your own record may be wrong, and you would not know. This is the part carriers are getting hurt by. If your insurance filing did not carry over to Motus correctly, you can read as uninsured on every public surface a broker vets with, while your certificate sits valid in your insurer's file. You lose loads and nobody tells you why. Log into Motus, confirm your authority and your financial responsibility filings appear correctly, and if they don't, get your insurer or surety to refile.

Is the $75,000 bond enough to protect me?

Usually not on its own, and this is the part carriers find out too late.

The $75,000 is the total pool available across every claimant, not a guarantee per carrier. If total valid claims exceed the bond, the surety divides it proportionally. A broker who defaults owing $200,000 across eight carriers leaves a carrier owed $50,000 recovering roughly $18,750 from the bond.

So a verified bond tells you the broker is legally allowed to operate. It does not tell you that you'll be made whole. Treat the bond as a backstop and treat the broker's payment history as the actual protection. Days-to-pay and credit reports show you which brokers pay in 30 days and which ones stretch to 90 before they stop answering. That is the check that keeps you out of the claim process in the first place.

What do I do if a broker doesn't pay me?

File on the bond, and file early. The process is straightforward and most carriers handle it without an attorney.

1. Send a written payment demand to the broker with the invoice attached. This shows a good-faith attempt to collect, and sureties look for it.
2. Find the surety. For a load that moved before May 2026, the L&I system at li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov still holds the historical filing, and historical lookup is the one job it is still good for. For a recent load, get the surety from your rate confirmation or broker packet, from a vetting service, or by asking the broker. If you cannot identify the surety, call the FMCSA contact center at 1-800-832-5660.
3. Request their claim form. Most sureties publish one. Submit it by a verifiable method, certified mail or email with confirmation.
4. Send the full documentation package: signed rate confirmation, bill of lading and proof of delivery with the receiver's signature and dates, the invoice showing terms, your demand letter, and a log of your collection attempts. Incomplete claims are the most common reason a claim gets denied.
5. Expect 30 to 60 days for a straightforward claim. Follow up on a schedule and keep your confirmations.

A few things worth knowing:

• File immediately. Because the pool is divided proportionally and other carriers are filing at the same time, waiting only shrinks your share.
• Bankruptcy does not stop you. The bond is not part of the broker's bankruptcy estate, so the automatic stay does not block a bond claim.
• Revoked authority does not erase your claim. The bond covers claims that arose while the broker held active authority. Look up the surety that was on file when your load moved.
• After the bond runs out, your options are freight collections, civil action, or arbitration if your contract requires it.
• File an FMCSA complaint too, at nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov. That is a separate process from the money claim. It doesn't pay you, but it builds the record on that broker for the next carrier.

Why does my CSA score decide whether I get freight?

Because as of May 14, 2026, brokers are legally on the hook for who they hire.

That day the Supreme Court decided Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Barrett. The Court held that a negligent-hiring claim against a freight broker is not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act, because the FAAAA's safety exception saves it. States keep the authority to require a broker to exercise ordinary care in selecting a carrier. The preemption defense brokers had relied on since the Seventh Circuit's 2023 decision in Ye v. GlobalTranz is gone.

Two details matter for you.

The standard is ordinary care. In a concurrence joined by Justice Alito, Justice Kavanaugh made the point that this is not automatic liability: brokers who act reasonably and select reputable carriers should still be able to defend these suits. That is exactly why brokers now check. Documenting that they reviewed your safety record before tendering the load is their defense.

It reaches past brokers. The reasoning applies to anyone who selects a carrier and has access to public safety data showing elevated risk. Freight forwarders, 3PLs, and digital freight platforms are in the same position, and shippers who pick carriers directly were never preempted to begin with.

So before a broker hands you a load, expect them to pull your CSA profile in the Safety Measurement System and verify your insurance. Clean BASIC scores, no pattern of out-of-service violations, and current coverage above what the contract requires make you an easy yes. Alerts in your BASICs, a lapsed certificate, or a rough inspection history make you the carrier they tender around, and they will rarely tell you that's why.

This is what people mean when they say compliance is worth money, and in 2026 it is literal. Your safety record is now part of someone else's legal exposure, which makes it one of the first things a broker looks at and one of the reasons you're in the running for a load or you aren't.

What's the short version?

Before you haul. Check broker authority on SAFER. Confirm the bond with the surety directly or through a vetting service, because L&I no longer shows current filings. Check days-to-pay on a credit report.

If you're not getting paid. Demand in writing. File on the bond through the surety, with full documentation, right away. File an NCCDB complaint separately at nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov.

This month, once. Log into Motus and confirm your authority and insurance filings migrated correctly, so you aren't reading as uninsured to every broker pulling your record.

Always. Watch your own CSA scores and your insurance dates, because those decide what gets offered to you before you ever see a rate confirmation.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a BMC-84 and a BMC-85? A BMC-84 is a surety bond backed by a licensed surety company, which pays valid claims and then seeks reimbursement from the broker. A BMC-85 is a trust fund holding the broker's own money. BMC-84 filings are generally better for carriers, because a third party stands behind the obligation. Since January 16, 2026, BMC-85 trusts have to hold cash, Treasury bonds, or irrevocable letters of credit that can be liquidated within 7 calendar days.

Does the bond cover cargo damage or a freight claim? No. The bond covers a broker's failure to pay what they owe, such as unpaid freight charges. Cargo loss and damage run through your cargo insurance and the claim process in your contract.

How long do I have to file a bond claim? Sureties set their own filing requirements and state law sets the outer limit on collecting the debt, so there is no single national deadline. Since the $75,000 is divided proportionally among claimants, the practical deadline is as soon as you know you aren't getting paid.

Why can't I find a broker's bond in L&I anymore? Because FMCSA retired the legacy registration systems on May 14, 2026 and moved filings to Motus. FMCSA's guidance states that L&I is now available only for reviewing historical records and that Motus filings are not reflected there. The site still loads, so it is easy to look at a stale record and think it is current. Use it for historical lookups only, and confirm current bonds with the surety.

Can I file if the broker's authority was already revoked? Yes. The bond stays in effect for claims that arose while the broker held active authority. Look up which surety was on file for the period when your load moved.

The bottom line

Getting paid isn't luck, and steady freight isn't either. Both run on the same track now. A broker who is financially sound and authorized on the day you haul, and a carrier whose record makes them easy for that broker to trust.

The rules tightened on both sides of the load this year, and that is not a bad thing for carriers who run a clean operation. For the first time, the safety record you already work for is an asset a broker can see. The carriers who treat compliance as part of the business, instead of paperwork that happens to them, are the ones who get paid on time and keep the trucks loaded.

Dotra tracks your authority, your insurance dates, and your CSA profile in one place, and watches for the changes that cost carriers loads and money. Checking a broker is still a manual job, and now you know how to do it. Keeping your own side clean is the part we handle. Start your free trial, book a demo, or learn more about how we handle compliance.

This article explains public FMCSA requirements and is not legal advice. For a specific unpaid claim, talk to a transportation attorney or a freight collections firm.