Vetting how-to
Is FMCSA Down? What to Do When SAFER or QCMobile Isn't Working
By The Draylo Team · July 18, 2026
The short answer
FMCSA's public carrier systems — the SAFER website and the QCMobile API most vetting tools rely on — go down or slow to a crawl with no advance notice, and FMCSA publishes no official status page. Our unofficial live status board at draylo.us/tools/fmcsa-status probes all three federal surfaces and shows what each is returning right now. When FMCSA is down, don't tender blind — vet against the last verified record you have and re-check the live record once FMCSA is back.
The short answer
If SAFER won't load or your carrier-vetting tool is hanging on an FMCSA lookup, the outage is almost always on FMCSA's side, not yours. FMCSA's public carrier data is served through the SAFER website and the QCMobile API, and both go down or slow to a crawl periodically — sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours — usually with no announcement. FMCSA does not run an official public status page for these systems — so we built an unofficial one: our live FMCSA status board probes all three surfaces (SAFER, QCMobile, and the L&I data feed) continuously and shows what each returned, with timestamps. The manual check: open safer.fmcsa.dot.gov directly in a browser and look up any USDOT number — or run any USDOT through our free carrier check, which reads QCMobile live and says plainly when FMCSA is unavailable instead of hanging. A verdict means FMCSA is up; an "unavailable" notice means the outage is real — and every tool that depends on the federal record is affected at once.
This matters because the person under pressure when FMCSA is down is the broker who still has a load to cover. You can't verify a carrier's authority the normal way, and the temptation is to tender anyway. The rest of this explains how to tell a real outage from a local problem, and how to keep vetting responsibly until the federal record is back.
How to tell if it's FMCSA — or just you
A few quick checks separate an FMCSA-wide outage from a problem on your end:
- ›Check the live status board — it shows which of the three federal surfaces is responding right now, so you can tell a SAFER problem from an API problem in one glance.
- ›Open SAFER directly (safer.fmcsa.dot.gov) and look up a USDOT. If SAFER itself hangs or errors, it's FMCSA — not your tool and not your connection.
- ›Try a second carrier number. A single "not found" can be a bad number; multiple lookups timing out points to an outage.
- ›Check whether other federal sites load. If SAFER is down but the rest of the web is fine, the issue is isolated to FMCSA's systems.
- ›Watchers to know the difference: an outage returns timeouts or 500-class errors on everything; a genuinely deactivated or never-registered carrier returns a clean "no record found." Those are not the same thing — don't read an outage as a carrier problem.
Why FMCSA outages happen (and why there's no status page)
FMCSA's carrier data lives in federal systems that were not built as high-availability commercial APIs. QCMobile — the interface most vetting software queries for authority, safety, and insurance status — is a government service subject to maintenance windows, migrations, and load spikes, and it can return gateway timeouts when it's under strain. There is no committed uptime and no official public status dashboard for it, which is exactly why an outage feels so opaque: nothing tells you it's down, your tools just stop returning answers. That opacity is why we run our own status board — independent probes of each surface, timestamped, so at least the observation is public even when the announcement isn't.
This is also why vetting tools disagree during an outage. A tool that reads FMCSA live will surface the outage; a tool that quietly serves you a cached copy may look like it's "working" while actually showing you yesterday's data. Neither is wrong, but you need to know which one you're looking at — a stale "active" is not the same as a live "active."
How to vet a carrier while FMCSA is down
You are not stuck, but you are working with less. The responsible move is to vet against the best verified information you already have, and to be explicit that the live record is temporarily unavailable:
- ›Use the last verified record. If you (or your tool) checked this carrier recently, the most recent confirmed authority/insurance status is your best available evidence — and note the date you last verified it.
- ›Try FMCSA's other surfaces. SAFER, QCMobile, and the Licensing & Insurance (L&I) system don't always fail together. If SAFER is timing out, L&I (li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov) may still return operating-authority and insurance details — though during a broad outage it can be down too, since these systems share a backend.
- ›Call FMCSA as a last resort. FMCSA's information line, 1-800-832-5660, can look up a carrier by phone if you only need a name, USDOT/MC number, and authority or insurance status. Expect a phone tree and hold times — it's a fallback, not a fast path.
- ›Reach the carrier out-of-band. An outage doesn't stop you from confirming the deal through the carrier's FMCSA-registered phone/email (from a prior verified record), which is the step that catches identity fraud regardless of whether SAFER is up.
- ›Raise your bar on anything you can't verify. If it's a new carrier you have no prior record for, and the federal record is unreachable, that's a strong reason to wait rather than tender a high-value load blind.
- ›Re-check the live record the moment FMCSA is back. Treat the outage-window decision as provisional and confirm against fresh federal data as soon as it returns — and keep a dated note of what you saw and when.
What Draylo does when FMCSA is down
Draylo reads the live FMCSA record on every check — so when QCMobile is timing out, we tell you that plainly instead of hanging or pretending. On an outage, the check fails fast with a clear "FMCSA temporarily unavailable" state rather than spinning, and where we have a last-known record for that carrier we show it, labeled as cached with the date it was last verified — so you can make a provisional call without mistaking old data for a live confirmation. The daily monitoring keeps retrying in the background and updates the record automatically once FMCSA recovers.
You can run the free FMCSA carrier check any time to see the current state — when it returns a red/yellow/green verdict instead of an "unavailable" notice, FMCSA is back up and it's safe to re-verify. If you want the deeper reason a tool's status can disagree with what you expect, see our explainer on when the federal record and a vetting tool diverge.
Frequently asked questions
Is FMCSA down right now?
FMCSA doesn't publish an official status page. The fastest check is our unofficial live status board at draylo.us/tools/fmcsa-status, which probes all three federal surfaces — the SAFER website, the QCMobile API, and the L&I data feed — and shows what each returned, with timestamps. The manual alternative: open safer.fmcsa.dot.gov in a browser and look up any USDOT number; if SAFER itself times out on multiple lookups, FMCSA's systems are down. Note the surfaces fail independently — SAFER can work while the API vetting tools use is timing out.
Why does SAFER or QCMobile go down?
FMCSA's public carrier data runs on federal systems that aren't built as high-availability commercial APIs. QCMobile — the interface most vetting tools query — is subject to maintenance, migrations, and load spikes, and can return gateway timeouts. There's no committed uptime and no official status dashboard, so outages usually happen without warning.
Can I vet a carrier while FMCSA is down?
Yes, but with less certainty. Use the most recent verified record you have (and note its date), confirm the deal by reaching the carrier through its FMCSA-registered contact out-of-band, raise your bar on any carrier you can't verify, and re-check the live federal record as soon as FMCSA is back. Avoid tendering a high-value load to an unverifiable new carrier during an outage.
Does a vetting tool still work when FMCSA is down?
It depends on the tool. One that reads FMCSA live will surface the outage; one that serves a cached copy may appear to work while showing older data. Both can be reasonable, but you need to know which you're seeing — a stale "active" status is not the same as a live confirmation. A good tool labels cached results and the date they were last verified.
What are the alternatives to SAFER when it's down?
FMCSA's Licensing & Insurance (L&I) system at li-public.fmcsa.dot.gov can return operating-authority and insurance details and doesn't always fail at the same time as SAFER, though during a broad outage it may also be down. FMCSA's information line, 1-800-832-5660, can look up a carrier by phone as a last resort. Beyond FMCSA, your best evidence is the most recent verified record you already have, plus confirming the carrier out-of-band through its FMCSA-registered contact.
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Keep reading
- ›when the federal record and a vetting tool disagree — the Motus transition, explained
- ›the field-by-field FMCSA record walkthrough — what to verify before you tender
- ›the full carrier-verification method — how to check if a carrier is legit
- ›checking insurance status when the certificate isn't proof — the carrier insurance lapse check