FMCSA Data
220,000 'Active Carriers' in the FMCSA Database Have One Truck or Fewer
Eagle Express Lines had 2,152 trucks in 2022. They have 1 today. FMCSA still calls them active. Walking the database surfaces a population of ~220K shell carriers whose DOTs are alive on paper only — and the reasons they don't die matter.
The Eagle Express problem
In February 2022, Eagle Express Lines Inc (USDOT 649914, Illinois) ran 2,152 trucks. They were a real LTL carrier — 2,000+ power units, hundreds of drivers, a recognizable name in the Midwest.
Today, FMCSA still lists them as STATUS='A' — Active. They have 1 truck.
They filed an MCS-150 form in April 2025, which kept them in the “active” rolls. They have no current broker authority. No current carrier authority. One truck on the books, biennial paperwork filed, and a STATUS code that any analyst reading the FMCSA database would interpret as “yes, this carrier is operational.”
This is not a glitch. It’s a pattern. And it’s huge.
How many DOTs are doing this
Pull the FMCSA database today and ask: how many DOTs flagged STATUS='A' have one truck or fewer? The answer:
| Bucket | Count |
|---|---|
| DOTs with 1 truck, STATUS=‘A’ | ~494,000 |
| DOTs with 0 trucks, STATUS=‘A’ | ~114,000 |
| Total active “carriers” with ≤1 truck | ~220,000 |
There are roughly 2.2 million active carriers in FMCSA today. One in ten of them is a ghost — one truck or zero, no real freight operation, just a DOT registration kept alive by a biennial form.
The wind-down population (2022 → 2026)
Restrict to companies that had real fleets in February 2022 — at least 5 trucks with plausible driver counts — and see how many shrunk to 1 truck while staying STATUS=‘A’:
| 2022 fleet size | Shrank to ≤1 truck by 2026 |
|---|---|
| 5–9 trucks | 677 |
| 10–49 trucks | 360 |
| 50–99 trucks | 32 |
| 100+ trucks | 26 |
Twenty-six companies that had triple-digit fleets in 2022 are now operating one truck or zero — and all of them are still listed as active carriers. That’s not a couple of niche cases. That’s a population.
Some of the most dramatic individual examples:
| Carrier | State | 2022 | 2026 | Last filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle Express Lines | IL | 2,152 | 1 | 2025-04 |
| Abilene Motor Express | VA | 520 | 1 | 2026-04 |
| Erb International | (HQ withheld) | 317 | 1 | 2025-02 |
| FEC Highway Services | FL | 296 | 1 | 2025-09 |
| National Distributors | IN | 275 | 0 | 2024-10 |
| Amerifreight | IL | 220 | 1 | 2026-04 |
| Simons Petroleum | TX | 192 | 1 | 2025-06 |
| Frontier Transportation | CA | 146 | 1 | 2024-01 |
In every case, the carrier filed their MCS-150 form recently enough to stay STATUS='A'. The system is working as designed. The system is just measuring something different than what most people assume “active carrier” means.
Why DOTs don’t die
There are five reasons (that we can see in the data or infer reasonably) that operators keep a DOT alive after winding down the fleet:
1. The carrier-to-broker pivot. This is the big one, and the data shows it directly. Look at the wind-down examples above:
- FEC Highway Services: 296 → 1 truck. Still has broker authority active.
- National Distributors: 275 → 0 trucks. Still has broker authority active.
- DT Freight: 172 → 1. Still has broker authority.
- Frontier Transportation: 146 → 1. Still has broker authority.
- US Cargo Link: 100 → 1. Still has broker authority.
These companies didn’t close. They converted from carrier to broker, using the same DOT, MC docket, insurance bond, and corporate structure. From the outside they look like a wind-down. They’re actually a pivot. They run loads now instead of trucks. (See the COVID-broker-survival piece for what happened to broker survival rates — these survivors are the lucky ones.)
2. Aged-DOT resale value. There is an active market for “established” DOTs. A buyer who wants to start a trucking company can either (a) apply as a new entrant and undergo FMCSA’s 18-month safety review process, or (b) buy an existing aged DOT with a clean record and skip the review entirely. Industry pricing for these has been reported in the $3,000–$15,000 range depending on safety rating and history. Keeping the DOT alive at 1 truck preserves the resale option.
3. Insurance and claims continuity. A DOT in active status keeps its insurance policy continuity intact. Carriers winding down often have pending cargo claims, accident claims, or workers’-comp cases that resolve over months or years. Dissolving the DOT while claims are open creates legal complications. Easier to keep it alive at 1 truck.
4. Pending litigation. Similar — corporations under active suit can’t easily dissolve their FMCSA registration without procedural complications.
5. Operator inertia. The biennial MCS-150 form takes 15 minutes to file and costs nothing. The default action is to file it.
What this means for anyone reading FMCSA carrier counts
Three implications:
-
“Number of active carriers” is an inflated metric. When trade press or government reports say “there are 2.2 million active motor carriers in the US,” ~220K of those are shells filing paperwork to keep an option alive. The real-operating-fleet count is closer to 2 million.
-
Carrier attrition is undercounted, broker conversion is undercounted. Many “active carriers” are actually brokers. Many “wind-downs” are actually pivots. The headline numbers don’t capture either.
-
The aged-DOT market is a real shadow economy. Some of these 220K shells will end up on resale markets, bought by new entrants who want to skip FMCSA’s safety review. That’s a regulatory gap worth talking about, especially in combination with the chameleon-broker findings.
The Eagle Express question
Whether Eagle Express Lines is still in business in any meaningful sense, we can’t tell from the data alone. The DOT is alive. The MCS-150 is current. The fleet is one truck. That’s all the database says.
Someone could check the address. Someone could call the phone number. Someone could pull state corporate filings to see if the LLC is in good standing. The FMCSA data tells you the shell is maintained; it doesn’t tell you whether there’s anything inside it.
For an industry built on knowing which carriers are real, that’s a useful thing to surface.
Receipts: Wind-down counts derived from joining the 2022 SAFER snapshot (SaferSnapshot.PowerUnits >= 5 AND OperatingStatus LIKE 'AUTHORIZED%') with current CompanyCensus.POWER_UNITS <= 1 and STATUS_CODE = 'A'. Broker/carrier authority pivot detection uses Carrier.BROKER_STAT / COMMON_STAT / CONTRACT_STAT. Plausibility filter TOTAL_DRIVERS >= POWER_UNITS / 3 applied to the 2022 side.