How Long Should a Carrier Be in Business Before You Use Them?

Published March 2026 · 4 min read

It is one of the most common questions in freight brokerage: is this carrier too new to trust? A carrier contacts you with a competitive rate, their authority is active, their insurance checks out — but they have only been operating for two months. Do you use them? Most experienced brokers have a clear answer, and understanding the reasoning behind it will help you manage risk when evaluating new carrier freight broker requirements.

The 6-Month Rule

The industry standard is six months. Most experienced brokers and many shipper contracts require that a carrier have at least six months of active operating authority before they will be considered for a load. This is not an FMCSA regulation — it is a risk management practice developed by brokers who have learned from experience.

The reasoning is straightforward. New carriers have no track record to evaluate. There is no inspection history, no crash data, no OOS rates to compare against national averages. You are working entirely on trust, with no independent data to verify the carrier's claims about their operation. Additionally, FMCSA data shows that newer carriers are disproportionately represented in fraud cases, double brokering incidents, and cargo theft. The six-month threshold filters out the majority of these bad actors.

What to Look for in a Carrier Under 6 Months

The six-month rule is not absolute. Some new carriers are legitimate operations started by experienced people — a driver with 20 years of experience who decides to start their own company, or an established carrier that forms a new entity for a specific operation. Dismissing every new carrier automatically means you may miss good capacity.

But using a carrier under six months requires significantly more scrutiny. You need to understand who is behind the operation. What is the principal's background in the industry? Do they have a verifiable history as a driver or in carrier management? Does their fleet size, equipment type, and operating area make sense for the loads they are pursuing? A new authority with 3 trucks pursuing local flatbed work is a different risk profile than a new authority with 50 claimed trucks pursuing cross-country reefer loads.

What FMCSA Data Tells You About a New Carrier

For a carrier under six months, FMCSA data is limited but still useful. You can confirm when their authority was granted, verify their insurance is active and meets minimum thresholds, check how many power units and drivers they report, and confirm their physical address and contact information.

What you typically will not have is inspection data. A carrier that has been operating for two months may have zero or very few roadside inspections on record. This is normal — it does not mean they are unsafe. But it means you cannot use OOS rates or inspection outcomes as a data point in your decision. You are working with less information, which means the other checks become more important.

Additional Checks for Newer Carriers

When FMCSA data is thin, you compensate with other checks. Run a thorough web intelligence search on the carrier name, DBA, and principals. Verify the carrier's physical address — does it correspond to a real trucking operation or a virtual office? Cross-reference the phone number and email address against the information on file with FMCSA.

Check whether the principals have been associated with other carriers that were shut down or had their authority revoked. In many fraud cases, the same individuals appear repeatedly under different company names. Screen against SAM.gov and OFAC sanctions lists. For a new carrier with limited FMCSA data, sanctions screening and adverse news searches carry even more weight than usual.

Document Your Decision Either Way

Whether you decide to use a newer carrier or pass, document the decision and the reasoning. If you use them, you need a record showing that you were aware of their limited history and performed additional checks to compensate. If something goes wrong, that documentation is what demonstrates you exercised reasonable care despite the carrier being new.

If you pass on a carrier because they are too new, a record of that decision is useful too — it demonstrates that your process has standards and you apply them consistently. Consistency is what makes a vetting process defensible.