FreshAuthority / How the file is built
Every number on this site comes out of a pipeline we run ourselves, every morning, from FMCSA's public records. This page is the whole method — sources, calculations, quality checks, and the places where the data can honestly miss — so you can judge the file before you ever pay for it.
Two public datasets published by the U.S. Department of Transportation: FMCSA's Licensing & Insurance file (every carrier's liability insurance filings, effective dates and cancellations) and the motor carrier census (the carrier's own filed address, phone, email, fleet size and cargo). Nothing is scraped from private sources, and no contact on any row is invented or appended from a third-party database — the phone and email on a row are the ones the carrier itself filed with the federal government.
The pipeline runs every delivery morning (Monday–Saturday) before the 6:00 AM ET send. It downloads the freshest FMCSA release, rebuilds all three files from scratch — no recycled rows — deduplicates to one row per carrier, and applies the product scope: for-hire property, household-goods, passenger and enterprise carrier authorities. Brokers and freight forwarders are excluded; they don't buy the policy. Measured output of the October 29, 2026 file (the run behind this site's current numbers): 6,193 new grants across 56 jurisdictions, 6,069 renewals due in the next 60 days, 2,069 lapsed-liability carriers.
Carriers whose operating authority was granted in the trailing 30 days, newest first. The grant date is the date on the federal record — the row exists because the grant happened.
Established carriers whose liability policy anniversary falls within the next 60 days, with the current insurer named. Built by the anniversary method — see its limits below, stated plainly.
Carriers whose liability (BIPD) filing was cancelled within the last 30 days with no replacement filing on record — the fact pattern that puts an authority on the path to revocation.
FMCSA does not publish policy expiration dates, and any seller who claims to have them is guessing quietly. We use the industry-standard method: a policy renews on the anniversary of its liability filing's effective date. The renewals file lists carriers whose anniversary falls within the next 60 days, filtered to policies at least 300 days old (younger policies are usually still in their first term, not approaching a shopping moment).
The limits, honestly: a carrier can renew early, rewrite mid-term, or switch insurers without the anniversary moving; an anniversary is a strong timing signal, not a certainty that the carrier is shopping that week. What the method never does is invent a date — every renewal row's date is arithmetic on a real federal filing, and the filing's effective date ships on the row so you can check the math yourself.
Each row's phone_type field says cell when the filed phone number matches the carrier's census cell-phone field, and business/unknown when it matches only the business phone field (or neither can be distinguished). We flag what we can verify and label the rest — we do not guess which numbers are mobile.
Every run is checked before anything is delivered: file schema and field formats, row counts reconciled against the source release, deduplication verified, and contact coverage measured. From the October 29, 2026 build run (6,193 grant rows):
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Rows with a phone number on file | 6,191 of 6,193 (99.97%) |
| Rows with an email address on file | 6,191 of 6,193 (99.97%) |
| Rows with a phone or an email | 6,193 of 6,193 (100.00%) |
| Rows flagged cell by the census match | 1,937 |
Coverage is measured per run; if a delivered file ever falls below 95% of rows with a working phone or email, that month is free — that's the guarantee, and it's why we publish the measurement.
Some carriers file through a compliance or insurance-filing service, and occasionally the phone or email on a row belongs to that service rather than the carrier. We're building a contact_type flag that marks contacts appearing across many unrelated carriers as likely filing-agent contacts. It is in development and not in the file yet — we'd rather say that here than let you discover it on a call.
See it on real rows — get the free sample Or start the free 7-day trial →