Annual Review of Driving Record: FMCSA § 391.25 MVR and Certification

The annual review of driving record required by 49 CFR § 391.25 has two deliverables: a copy of the driver’s motor vehicle record (MVR) from every state where the driver held a commercial license or permit in the past twelve months, and a dated note in the driver qualification (DQ) file naming the person who reviewed it. The review itself is the substantive part. Pulling the MVR without evaluating it against the disqualification standards in § 391.15 does not satisfy the rule.¹

Which Drivers the Review Covers

The requirement reaches every driver a motor carrier employs — full-time, part-time, or seasonal. The regulation uses “each” without qualification, so no driver on the payroll is automatically outside the twelve-month cycle.¹

Three narrow exemptions sit in Subpart G of Part 391. Multiple-employer drivers, meaning people who drive for more than one carrier at the same time, are exempt under § 391.63. Farm vehicle drivers of articulated commercial vehicles (§ 391.67) and private motor carriers of passengers operating for nonbusiness purposes (§ 391.68) are also exempt from the file-maintenance duties that include the annual review.² Everyone else stays on the clock.

Pulling the MVR From Each Licensing State

Request an MVR from every state where the driver held a commercial motor vehicle license or permit during the preceding twelve months.¹ Most drivers hold one CDL in one state, so one request does it. If a driver transferred licenses mid-year or held permits in more than one state, you need a record from each.

State motor vehicle agencies sell driving records directly, most through online business accounts, with fees typically running from a few dollars up to around twenty dollars. Turnaround ranges from instant electronic delivery to a couple of weeks by mail. Third-party services can pull records from all fifty states through a single portal, which helps when drivers are licensed in multiple jurisdictions. Whatever you use, the response from the state agency is the document that goes into the DQ file.

The Driver’s Annual Violation Certification

Separately, 49 CFR § 391.27 requires each driver to submit a written list every twelve months of all traffic violations (other than parking) the driver was convicted of, or forfeited bond on, during the prior year. A driver with no violations still signs a certification stating that.³ Compare that certification against the state MVR. A mismatch is worth investigating: drivers sometimes forget out-of-state citations or assume a deferred adjudication means no conviction.

FMCSA guidance instructs carriers to consider “all known violations, whether or not they are part of an official record maintained by a State,” so cast a wide net.⁴

What “Review” Actually Means

Section 391.25 splits the annual obligation into two parts: obtaining the record under § 391.25(a) and reviewing it under § 391.25(b). Pulling the MVR is not enough. The reviewer must evaluate what the record says and decide whether the driver still meets the minimum safety requirements or is disqualified under § 391.15.⁵

The regulation directs the reviewer to weigh two categories of evidence. First, any evidence the driver violated Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations or Hazardous Materials Regulations. Second, the driver’s accident history and any state motor vehicle law violations, with heavy weight on speeding, reckless driving, and impaired driving — anything showing disregard for public safety.

FMCSA expects carriers to consider “as much information about the driver’s experience as is reasonably available,” which reaches past the MVR itself. Internal accident records, customer complaints, dashcam footage, and prior warnings all factor in.⁴

Disqualifying Offenses Under § 391.15

If the review turns up any of the following, the driver is disqualified and cannot operate a commercial vehicle until the disqualification is resolved:

A suspended, revoked, withdrawn, or denied license, for the full duration of the suspension or revocation.
Operating a CMV at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.04 percent or higher, or under the influence of a Schedule I controlled substance, amphetamine, or narcotic.
Leaving the scene of an accident while operating a CMV.
Commission of a felony involving the use of a commercial motor vehicle.
Driving after being placed out of service.
Convictions for texting while driving a CMV or using a handheld mobile phone while driving.

Each offense carries its own disqualification period spelled out in the regulation.⁶ A driver who turns up disqualified has to come off driving duties immediately. Letting them keep driving once you have the information is a separate, more serious violation.

The Review Note That Goes in the File

After the review, the regulation requires one specific piece of documentation: a note that includes the name of the person who performed the review and the date it was done.¹ That is what the rule actually demands. FMCSA publishes a sample form through its safety planner, and compliance vendors sell their own, but a handwritten note stapled to the MVR would technically satisfy the requirement.

Most carriers use a structured form that also captures the carrier’s name, the driver’s name and license information, a summary of violations found, and the reviewer’s conclusion about ongoing qualification. That format makes audits smoother and shows what the reviewer actually considered. The person doing the review should be someone the carrier has authorized to make safety determinations, such as a safety director, fleet manager, or compliance officer.

A common mistake is treating the form as pure paperwork and filling it in without reading the MVR. Auditors can tell when a batch of review notes was stamped on the same day MVRs were bulk-ordered for a dozen drivers, with identical language and no sign anyone looked at the underlying data. The point of the regulation is the evaluation, not the piece of paper.

Filing and Retention

Two items go into the driver’s qualification file after every annual cycle: the MVR (or MVRs, for drivers licensed in multiple states) and the review note.¹ They join the other DQ documents: the employment application, road test certificate, medical examiner’s certificate, and the driver’s annual violation certification under § 391.27.⁷

The DQ file must be maintained for as long as the driver works for the carrier and for three years after the driver leaves.⁷ The most recent annual review, and every prior one from the driver’s employment, stays on file through that three-year post-separation window. Physical folders or digital compliance systems both work, provided the records can be retrieved quickly during an unannounced DOT inspection.

Penalties for Missing or Faking the Review

Missing or incomplete annual reviews sit in FMCSA’s recordkeeping penalty tier. A carrier that fails to prepare or maintain a required record faces a civil penalty of up to $1,584 for each day the violation continues, capped at $15,846 per violation.⁸ Those amounts are inflation-adjusted periodically, so check the current Appendix B figures. Knowingly falsifying a review record moves the penalty into the general violation tier, up to $10,000 per offense under the base statute and also subject to inflation adjustments.

Beyond the dollar amounts, a pattern of missing annual reviews during a compliance review can pull down the carrier’s overall safety rating. A proposed unsatisfactory rating puts the carrier on notice that FMCSA considers it unfit to operate in interstate commerce, and a shutdown order can follow within 45 to 60 days if the problems are not fixed.⁹ These consequences come from systematic neglect, not from a single review that runs a week late.

Scheduling the Twelve-Month Cycle

The regulation says “at least once every 12 months,” which leaves scheduling to the carrier. Some peg the cycle to each driver’s hire anniversary. Others pick a single date each year and review the entire fleet at once, which simplifies tracking but creates a crunch. Either works, as long as no driver goes more than twelve months between reviews.

The easiest way to blow a deadline is to lose track of it. Compliance management software that flags upcoming review dates helps once the fleet grows past a handful of drivers, but a shared spreadsheet with driver names, last review dates, and next-due dates beats memory. The cost of a tracking system is trivial next to the cost of explaining a missing file to a DOT auditor.

A Related but Separate Annual Task: The Clearinghouse Query

Since January 2020, carriers have had a separate annual duty under 49 CFR Part 382: querying the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse for every driver subject to controlled substance and alcohol testing. That query has to happen at least once a year, and many carriers schedule it alongside the § 391.25 review to keep both on the same cycle.¹⁰ The Clearinghouse query is not part of the § 391.25 annual review — it lives under a different part of the regulations — but rolling both into a single yearly process keeps you from missing either deadline.

1
eCFR. 49 CFR 391.25 – Annual Inquiry and Review of Driving Record
2
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 391 Subpart G – Limited Exemptions
3
Government Publishing Office. 49 CFR 391.27 – Record of Violations
4
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. To What Extent Must a Motor Carrier Review a Driver’s Overall Driving Record to Comply With the Requirements of 391.25
5
eCFR. 49 CFR 391.25 – Annual Inquiry and Review of Driving Record
6
eCFR. 49 CFR 391.15 – Disqualification of Drivers
7
eCFR. 49 CFR 391.51 – General Requirements for Driver Qualification Files
8
Cornell Law Institute. 49 CFR Appendix B to Part 386 – Penalty Schedule
9
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Conditional and Unsatisfactory Safety Ratings
10
eCFR. 49 CFR 382.701 – Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse