December, 2025

FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY ADMINISTRATION – FMCSA

DOT safety audits are conducted without prior notice to the trucking company. The auditor may arrive unannounced at the office or perform an online review of safety documents. If your company has any alerts in the CSA safety ratings, ensure that your driver qualification files, drug and alcohol testing records, hours-of-service logs, and vehicle maintenance records are current. Please reach out to our office for assistance with any safety issues.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is continuing to update its Safety Measurement System (SMS), which helps pinpoint high-risk motor carriers for inspections and enforcement measures. The revised system will be introduced in the next few months.

Here are the key changes:

• Renaming and Reorganizing the SMS Categories: The SMS categories, previously known as BASICs (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories), will now be called "Compliance Categories." These categories will be reorganized to better reflect the root cause of safety issues.

  
  

• Consolidating Violations into Groups: The FMCSA is consolidating the existing 959 roadside violations into 116 violation groups. This is designed to make the system easier for carriers and other stakeholders to understand and improve consistency in enforcement.

  
  

• Simplifying Violation Severity Weights: Up until now, violations in the SMS have been assigned weights ranging from 1 to 10, based on severity. The FMCSA now plans to use a simplified scale of 1 or 2, with higher weights for out-of-service violations and severe infractions.

  
  

• Segmenting Driver Fitness and HazMat by Carrier Type: The FMCSA plans to segment the Driver Fitness category based on whether motor carriers operate primarily straight trucks or combination vehicles. Similarly, the Hazardous Materials category will be segmented by whether carriers operate tankers or not.

  
  

• Moving to Proportionate Percentiles: The "safety event groups" that have been used in the SMS to try to group similar carriers are being replaced with a calculation that determines "proportional percentiles." This is intended to prevent carriers from being unfairly penalized by past mistakes, especially smaller fleets.

  
  

• Greater Focus on Recent Violations: The FMCSA will calculate percentiles only for carriers with cited violations in the past 12 months, allowing enforcement efforts to focus on carriers with more recent safety issues.

These changes are intended to improve the accuracy and fairness of the SMS. The FMCSA is encouraging motor carriers to familiarize themselves with the new methodology and evaluate their safety practices in light of the planned changes.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is proposing new regulations to increase transparency in brokered freight transactions. This proposal comes after petitions from the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) and the Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) requesting stricter regulations on broker transparency.

The proposed regulations would:

• Require brokers to keep records in electronic format.

  
  

• Revise the required contents of brokers' records to better align with transparency goals.

  
  

• Require brokers to provide records upon request within 48 hours.

  
  

The FMCSA believes these changes will make it easier for motor carriers to access information about their transactions with brokers and improve overall transparency in the industry.

The most immediate and impactful change taking effect on January 16, 2026, is the strict enforcement of the financial responsibility rules for freight brokers and forwarders. 

• Stricter Financial Requirements: The existing $75,000 financial security (BMC-84 surety bond or BMC-85 trust fund) must be fully maintained with liquid assets only, specifically cash, U.S. Treasury securities, or irrevocable letters of credit from FDIC-insured banks.

  
  

• Ineligible Trustees: Loan and finance companies are no longer eligible to serve as BMC-85 trustees. Up to 90% of current trustees may become non-compliant.

  
  

• Immediate Suspension Authority: Surety providers and trustees must notify the FMCSA if a broker's available financial security drops below the $75,000 threshold. The broker then has only seven days to replenish the funds before their operating authority is immediately suspended.

  
  

• Purpose: These changes are designed to safeguard motor carriers and shippers by ensuring sufficient funds are readily available to cover unpaid freight charges, which is expected to cause a "shakeout" in the brokerage industry, eliminating financially unstable operators. 

U.S. CUSTOMS

It is time to renew your U.S. Customs Transponders. Carriers with vehicles that travel regularly in and out of Canada must obtain new transponders or renew them from the U.S. Customs Service for the 2026 calendar year. Those who purchased transponders in past years should have received renewal notices.

This year's transponder fee will again cover the U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual entry fee. Each transponder costs $942.53 and satisfies the user fee for all crossings throughout the calendar year for the designated vehicle. Vehicles without transponders can pay individual trip fees at border crossings—the per-trip fee for U.S. Customs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is $20.80 per entry into the U.S. This entry fee is utilized to detect illegal products entering the U.S.

CONNECTICUT

The mileage tax in the state was implemented on January 1, 2023. Carriers are required to register for this tax and acquire a Highway Use Fee Permit. Vehicles traveling to the state must carry copies of this permit.

Monthly tax filings will range from 6.54 cents per mile for 26,000 GVW vehicles to 17.5 cents per mile for vehicles over 80,000 GVW. An 80,000 GVW vehicle will pay 10 cents per mile.

If you have not contacted us about establishing an account in Connecticut and obtaining a Highway Use Fee Permit, do so as soon as possible.

OREGON

Oregon no longer requires a weight receipt for trucks and has abolished the $8.50 per unit fee. All vehicles operating in Oregon need to be registered with the state before entering. The vehicle list must be updated annually by the end of the year with the state. Motor carriers will not be sent a renewal application; all updates must be done online.

December 31, 2025 Permit Extensions

• UCR - 2026 Unified Carrier Registration will be enforced on January 1, 2026.

• IFTA Fuel Tax Decals & Licenses are extended until February 28, 2026.

• New Mexico has not granted an extension at this time.

  
  

• New York Highway Use tax decals 25th Series will be valid until December 31, 2027.

We want to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas

and a prosperous New Year!