When Is My MCS-150 Due?

Your MCS-150 biennial update is due in a month set by your own USDOT number: the last digit picks the month, and the next-to-last digit decides whether it lands in odd or even years. It is due every 24 months even if absolutely nothing about your operation changed.

How to read your own number

Take the last digit of your USDOT number — 1 is January, 2 is February, and so on through 9 for September, with 0 meaning October. Then look at the digit before it: odd means you file in odd-numbered years, even means even-numbered years.

It is not the anniversary of your authority, which is what most people assume, and it is not a date anyone mails you. That combination is why this is the filing carriers lose their number to.

What happens if you miss it

FMCSA deactivates the USDOT number. Deactivated means you are not operating legally, and getting it back is paperwork you do while parked. Most people who lose their number lose it right here, to a filing they never knew was coming.

It is due even when nothing changed

The biennial update is not a change form. If your address, your fleet and your driver count are all exactly the same as two years ago, you still file it, and you file it on time.

Worth checking while you are in there: your power-unit count. It is what sets your UCR fee bracket for the year, so a stale number costs money in a second place.

You can work your month out from the rule above for free, and plenty of people do. Or put your DOT number into nrbcarriergroup.com/checkup and it computes your date along with everything else due in the next 90 days. No signup, and the number never leaves your browser.