← Back to Blog
Published: May 21, 2026 | Reading time: 3 minutes
MOTUS is live, and almost nobody, including us, can tell what's working yet. It seems that even the FMCSA can't process its own work right now. Carriers, third-party compliance services, and the rest of the industry are in the dark about almost all aspects of how to properly use MOTUS. Which features work vs are broken is a game of whack-a-mole.
If you've been trying to get something done in MOTUS and it isn't working, you're not behind. The system is.
Based on what we're seeing, most of FMCSA's registration work is on hold.
One thing that's painfully obvious is that identity verification isn't working as expected. That's better than yesterday, when it didn't work at all.
- Trouble claiming your USDOT number in MOTUS.
- FMCSA chat or call center pointing you to MOTUS — when MOTUS itself won't let you complete the work.
- A wrong or long-departed Company Official still owns the account.
- Your USDOT PIN doesn't work, or you never received one.
- Login.gov or identity verification failures.
- MCS-150 data that didn't carry over cleanly from the old portal.
- Authority records (MC, MX, FF) not showing up.
- Hours-long FMCSA call center waits.
If your situation matches one of these, the answer right now is often: wait. Sorting out which problems can be worked around and which can't is exactly what we can help with.
The list of questions we have on how MOTUS is going to work is long right now. An honest list of open questions:
- Licensing & Insurance. Carriers, brokers, and insurance services are all asking what's happening with L&I right now. We don't have a clean answer yet. Our previous understanding was that it would continue, but there are reasons to doubt that.
- When MOTUS will be functional enough that FMCSA staff can resume processing work normally.
- What work will we be able to do in MOTUS once it's fully migrated and operational? In the past, a lot of work had to be done with FMCSA via paper forms and filing an incident. Which of those are built into MOTUS at launch, and what still needs to be built for the future?
A few changes baked into MOTUS will affect how carriers operate from here on:
- New USDOT numbers will be assigned randomly. URS applications will no longer produce sequential DOT numbers. After decades of sequential numbering, this is a real shift for anyone who tracks carrier vintage by DOT number.
- Only two officers can be listed under a company ID in MOTUS.
- Adding users is self-serve. Once a carrier claims their DOT number, they go to "Add a User" and invite people — staff or third-party services — to access the account.
We've been an early MOTUS test user, and we've spent countless hours in the FMCSA Portal on behalf of carriers nationwide. We work very closely with FMCSA, so we hear what's actually working before most people do.
Right now, we're in a holding pattern on much of our work — same as everyone else. But we can talk through your situation, tell you whether it can move forward today or has to wait, and act the moment the system supports it.
Call Don Norman Associates at 703-821-0000. DNA is our sister company and handles FMCSA authority work. We're paying close attention to MOTUS every day. When something changes, you'll hear it from us first.
For background on how we got here, see our earlier posts: FMCSA's warning to carriers and our MOTUS preparation guide.
← Back to Blog
