The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has temporarily suspended its biennial update requirement for trucking companies and carriers, a move that appears to confirm ongoing problems with Motus, the agency's new registration portal. The suspension applies to all entities that haven't completed their required biennial update since June 1, according to an announcement disclosed this week by FMCSA. The agency's decision signals that technical difficulties with the system, which fully launched on May 14, are still affecting carriers' ability to access basic registration functions.
Under normal circumstances, the biennial update mandate requires individuals and companies to provide updates every two years "even if your company has not changed its information, has ceased interstate operations since the last update, or is no longer in business and you did not notify FMCSA," according to FMCSA's website. Companies that have passed their due date since June 1 "should not worry about inactivation resulting from Motus-related access or system issues," the agency said. FMCSA added that further guidance will be released "as recovery and stabilization efforts continue." The notice wasn't released as a newsroom item on the agency's home page but was instead published under its registration page.
P. Sean Garney, co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting, said "the good news is that FMCSA has acknowledged that 'recovery and stabilization' is a thing that absolutely needs to happen." His firm has been working with clients who have struggled with FMCSA access via Motus since its release. Some carriers are "gingerly moving through the process, getting hung up along the way, but passing through gates," Garney said, though "it's just taking a while." Other clients are running into "conflicting information in various government systems that is absolutely resulting in carriers being unnecessarily unable to operate." FMCSA administrator Derek Barrs released a statement earlier this month describing the rollout as "an extraordinary feat of heavy lifting that involved transferring more than three decades of data across multiple legacy systems" while referring to technical problems as "minor technical issues."
The registration freeze matters because carriers depend on their USDOT status for everyday business operations, including authority checks, onboarding, insurance, factoring, broker setup, and customer verification. If the system can't process updates properly, inactivating carriers during the transition "could create a mess for people who are trying to stay current but cannot get the system to work right," according to a post on the OwnerOperators subreddit. The problems have been significant enough to spur the creation of a dedicated website called Stuck in Motus, founded by Mathieu Vag of HaulClaim to help carriers share issues and find solutions. Vag said most of his clients "were stuck, and they could not do anything," prompting him to create a community resource. The site includes dropdowns addressing common problems like "I can't claim my company account" and "My new authority application is frozen mid-process."
FMCSA hasn't provided a timeline for when the biennial update requirement will be reinstated or when the Motus system will be fully stabilized. The suspension gives carriers breathing room to avoid losing their operating authority while the agency works through what it calls "recovery and stabilization efforts." For now, trucking companies facing registration deadlines can operate without fear of inactivation, but the ongoing technical issues mean basic administrative tasks that once took minutes can stretch into lengthy, frustrating processes with no clear end in sight.