The FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse is the federal database of CDL drug and alcohol violations. Every employer of CDL drivers has duties there — including owner-operators who employ themselves. Miss a query and you’re running a driver illegally without knowing it.
Here’s the whole system, step by step.
Step 1: Register your company in the Clearinghouse
Registration happens at clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov through a Login.gov account. FMCSA requires the employer to create the account. A service provider can’t do this part for you. Once you’re in, you can designate a consortium/third-party administrator (C/TPA) to act on your behalf.
For owner-operators, that designation isn’t optional. FMCSA requires anyone who employs themselves as a driver to designate a C/TPA for their own violation reporting (49 CFR §382.705(b)(6)). You can’t report a violation against yourself, so someone else has to do it for you.
Step 2: Run a full query before a new driver’s first dispatch
Before any driver performs safety-sensitive work for you, run a full query with the driver’s consent (49 CFR §382.701(a)). A full query releases the driver’s actual record. The driver gives consent electronically inside the Clearinghouse — which means the driver needs their own account.
Hiring yourself under your own new authority? The pre-employment query applies to you too.
Step 3: Query every driver at least once a year
The annual query is the one small carriers most often miss. Two ways to satisfy it:
- Limited query — tells you only whether a record exists. Needs driver consent, which can cover multiple years at once.
- Full query — releases the record itself, with per-query electronic consent.
Most carriers run limited queries annually. But if a limited query comes back with a hit, you have 24 hours to run a full query. Until you do, the driver can’t perform safety-sensitive work.
Queries cost $1.25 each, purchased in bundles from FMCSA. A C/TPA can run them for you — our consortium handles pre-employment and annual queries as part of enrollment.
Step 4: Report violations within three business days
The employer or their designated C/TPA must report positive tests, refusals, and actual-knowledge violations into the Clearinghouse. Most reports are due by the close of the third business day after you learn of the violation (49 CFR §382.705(b)).
What happens to a driver with a violation
A driver with an unresolved violation sits in “prohibited” status. They can’t perform safety-sensitive work until they complete the return-to-duty process. Their state must downgrade their CDL within 60 days of notification (49 CFR §383.73(q)). This isn’t theoretical — the Clearinghouse catches drivers who used to slip through by changing employers.
The short version
Register through Login.gov. Designate a C/TPA (mandatory for owner-operators). Full query before first dispatch. Query everyone annually. Report violations fast. If that’s more Clearinghouse administration than you want to own, Consultran’s DOT consortium walks you through registration and handles the designations, consents, queries, and reporting from there — call (651) 482-1124.