USDOT numbers and operating authority for NEMT: when federal rules apply

A company running sedans and minivans on in-state Medicaid trips often has no federal registration duty at all. One standing order for a dialysis patient whose clinic sits across the state line can change that overnight. Whether you need a “DOT number” comes down to three things: where your paid trips go, how your vehicles are rated and built, and what your own state requires.

What people mean by a “DOT number”

The phrase covers three separate registrations, and a NEMT company can need any mix of them, or none.

• USDOT number. The identifier FMCSA uses for your company’s safety history. Audits, roadside inspections, and crash reports all attach to it.
• Operating authority, also called the MC or docket number. Federal permission to carry paying passengers from one state to another. It is its own application, with its own fee and insurance filing.
• State credentials. A state number or certificate, such as a TxDMV number in Texas or a special transportation service (STS) certificate in Minnesota. Some states require a USDOT number before they will issue theirs.

Question 1: does any paid trip cross a state line?

Federal motor carrier rules cover interstate commerce. 49 CFR 390.5T counts three kinds of trips as interstate:

1. A trip from your state into another state.
2. A trip between two points in your state that passes through another state.
3. The in-state leg of a journey that starts or ends outside your state.

As an example, a Kansas City, Missouri provider taking a member to a clinic in Kansas City, Kansas is on an interstate trip. So is a provider whose best route between two towns in its own state dips through a neighboring state.

The trip also has to be for hire. Appendix A to part 390, FMCSA’s 2022 interpretive rule, calls compensation the primary factor that makes passenger transportation for hire, and it says a nonprofit is still for hire when it is paid for the ride. Medicaid, broker, facility, and private-pay trips all count.

Once both conditions are true, two consequences follow from the same appendix:

• Authority for any vehicle. For-hire interstate passenger carriers need operating authority “no matter how small or light the vehicle(s) used, unless exempted.” A sedan is enough to trigger it.
• A four-month tail. A single interstate trip keeps FMCSA’s reach over the company, its drivers, and its vehicles for 4 months afterward, and records the rules require must be kept for their full retention period even if that runs longer.

One statutory exemption matters to sedan and minivan fleets. 49 U.S.C. 13506(a)(2) takes taxicab service out of FMCSA’s operating authority rules. Federal law defines taxicab service as rides in a vehicle seating 8 or fewer counting the driver, not run on a regular route or between fixed points, that is either licensed as a taxicab by a state or local government or offered as local service for a fare based mainly on distance by a company that does not mainly serve airports (49 U.S.C. 13102). A NEMT operation built on scheduled broker trips may not fit that description, so get FMCSA’s view in writing before you rely on it.

Question 2: how is each vehicle rated and built?

Operating authority depends on the trip. The federal safety rules for drivers and maintenance depend on whether the vehicle is a commercial motor vehicle (CMV). On interstate trips, a passenger vehicle is a CMV when its gross vehicle weight rating is 10,001 pounds or more, when it is designed or used for more than 8 people counting the driver and carries them for pay, or when it is built or used to carry at least 16, whether or not anyone pays.

Read the numbers off the vehicle itself. 49 CFR 567.4 requires a certification label next to the driver’s seat, on the hinge pillar, the door-latch post, or the matching door edge, showing the GVWR and the month and year the vehicle was built.

The difference between the second and third rows is the form of payment. FMCSA defines direct compensation as payment to the carrier by the passengers, or by someone acting for them, for the transportation itself, and not part of a total package charge. Treat a per-trip Medicaid or broker payment as direct unless FMCSA tells you otherwise in writing. A day program that bundles rides into its daily rate may fall in the third row, so ask FMCSA before choosing which rules you follow.

Question 3: what does your state require?

For purely in-state work, federal registration does not apply unless you haul hazardous materials. State law takes over. FMCSA lists 38 states plus Puerto Rico where at least some intrastate commercial vehicle operators must hold a USDOT number, and each state chooses which vehicles that reaches. Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Louisiana are among those missing from the list, which does not mean they leave passenger carriers alone.

Your state guide and the license requirements guide cover each state’s passenger carrier license, which is often a separate filing from any DOT number.

If you cross state lines: the registration package

Registering as an interstate for-hire passenger carrier sets off a series of obligations.

• Where to apply. Motus, FMCSA’s new registration system, is replacing the older systems for new USDOT numbers, operating authority, and later updates. Each user profile belongs to one person, and sign-in runs through Login.gov identity checks.
• Fees and timing. FMCSA charges $300 for each type of authority requested and refunds nothing for a mistaken application. Its authority page puts new applications at 20 to 25 business days, and 8 more weeks or longer if the application is pulled for further review.
• Insurance on file. Your insurer files proof of coverage with FMCSA on Form BMC-91X or BMC-91, or a surety files a BMC-82 bond instead. The federal floor is $1.5 million when every vehicle seats 15 or fewer counting the driver, rising to $5 million once a single vehicle has 16 or more seats including the driver’s (49 CFR 387.33T). If the filing has not arrived 20 days after your application is published in the FMCSA Register, FMCSA serves a decision warning that the application will be dismissed unless you comply within 60 days.
• Process agents. You also file Form BOC-3, naming agents who can accept legal papers for you, within the same 20 days (49 CFR 365.109T).
• Matching names. FMCSA cautions that the business name and address in your Secretary of State filings must match the authority application exactly, or the grant is delayed. The LLC guide covers keeping one legal name across every filing.
• Biennial updates. Every carrier files an update before it starts operating and every 24 months after. Your filing month comes from the final digit of your USDOT number, and whether you file in odd or even years comes from the digit before it. Skip an update and FMCSA can deactivate the number (49 CFR 390.19T). While carriers move into Motus, FMCSA has paused that penalty: registrants whose update came due on or after June 1, 2026 get extra time and will not have their number inactivated for missing it. File on schedule anyway.
• A yearly UCR fee. Interstate carriers pay the Unified Carrier Registration fee by fleet size, counting vehicles rated 10,001 pounds or more or designed for more than 10 passengers including the driver. A fleet of 0 to 2 counted vehicles pays $46 for 2026 and $55 for the 2027 registration year.

Skipping registration is expensive. For passenger transportation without the required registration, federal law sets a civil penalty of no less than $25,000 per violation (49 U.S.C. 14901).

If a van counts as a commercial motor vehicle

Running CMVs across state lines puts a new carrier under 18 months of new entrant monitoring. For passenger carriers, the safety audit must happen within 120 days after the carrier receives its USDOT number (49 CFR 385.3). Day to day, the rules land in three places.

Drivers. Each one needs a qualification file and a medical exam and certificate at least every 24 months (49 CFR 391.45). Passenger-carrying CMV drivers also have daily and weekly limits (49 CFR 395.5). After 8 hours off in a row, a driver gets at most 10 hours behind the wheel and may not drive at all once 15 hours on duty have passed. Across the week, driving stops at 60 on-duty hours across 7 days, or 70 across 8 days if the company operates vehicles seven days a week.

Vehicles. Part 396 requires records of inspections, repairs, and maintenance. Show your legal name or single trade name and “USDOT” with your number on both sides of each CMV, in lettering that contrasts sharply with the background and is readable from 50 feet in daylight (49 CFR 390.21T).

The company. Keep an accident register. Brokers often ask for more than the federal floor. MTM’s standard agreement, for one, calls for pre-employment, post-accident, reasonable suspicion, and random drug and alcohol testing of drivers and attendants, and the driver requirements guide covers other common broker checks.

Part 382 drug and alcohol testing reaches only drivers who must hold a CDL, and the exceptions in 390.3T(f) do not remove it for them (49 CFR 382.103).

The CDL rule reaches in-state trips too

Commercial driver’s license rules are the one federal piece that applies inside a single state. Under 49 CFR 390.3T(b), part 383 covers anyone driving a CMV as that part defines it, in interstate and intrastate commerce alike. That definition catches vehicles designed to seat at least 16 including the driver, and single vehicles with a weight rating of 26,001 pounds or higher (49 CFR 383.5). A minivan, or a wheelchair van built for fewer than 16 and rated under 26,001 pounds, is below both thresholds. The CDL guide covers the details.

Four assumptions that get NEMT companies in trouble

“Our riders are sick, so the rules do not apply.” 49 CFR 390.3T(f)(4) excludes “the transportation of human corpses or sick and injured persons” from the rules in that subchapter, but only ride by ride. Writing to one carrier on April 19, 2024 (docket FMCSA-2024-0113), FMCSA’s Western Service Center said the exception applies when the person on board is going for medical evaluation or treatment, and not when the same person is driven somewhere else, such as a grocery store after the visit. The letter adds that the exception has no effect on operating authority or insurance. Separately, 49 CFR 382.103 keeps part 382 testing in place for CDL drivers. That letter settled one company’s facts, not yours, so ask FMCSA to answer in writing for your own trips before you stop keeping medical cards, driving-time records, or maintenance files.

“We are a nonprofit, so we are not for hire.” Appendix A to part 390 says a nonprofit that receives compensation for passenger transportation is engaged in for-hire transportation.

“Our metro area spans two states, so our trips are local.” Carriers working only inside a federally designated commercial zone do not need interstate operating authority, and FMCSA’s example is a metro area reaching into Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. For a passenger route that crosses a state line, though, the statute keeps that exemption only if you also hold lawful in-state passenger authority in every state along the route (49 U.S.C. 13506(b)(1)).

“Our 12-passenger van is not paid per trip, so nothing applies.” Without direct compensation, a 9 to 15 seat van skips most safety rules. The carrier must still register and mark its vehicles, log crashes in an accident register, and obey the bans on texting and hand-held phones (49 CFR 390.3T(f)(6)).

Before accepting a trip across a state line

1. Confirm the trip is paid and truly leaves the state, including routes that cut through a neighboring state.
2. Read each vehicle’s certification label for its weight rating and designed seating.
3. Apply in Motus for a USDOT number and passenger operating authority well ahead of the ride, and have your insurer make its federal filing.
4. File the BOC-3, then wait for the grant. Hand trips back until it arrives.
5. For any CMV, set up driver files, medical certificates, hours records, maintenance records, and vehicle markings.
6. If any vehicle seats 16 or more by design, use CDL drivers enrolled in drug and alcohol testing.
7. Find out from each broker which state and federal documents belong in your credentialing file. The out-of-state trips guide covers authorizations and billing for the ride itself.

Keeping registrations from lapsing

After the registrations come the renewals, alongside insurance and vehicle paperwork. HealthRide keeps every expiration date for drivers and vehicles in one place, from licenses to vehicle insurance and registration, and sends reminders before each one lapses. Anything expired is flagged when dispatch assigns a trip, so it never slips into the schedule. See fleet management.