---
title: "USDOT PIN"
url: https://carrierkyc.com/glossary/usdot-pin
description: "A USDOT PIN is the personal identification number FMCSA issued to registered companies for accessing and updating their registration records online, such as MCS-150 updates."
---

# USDOT PIN

**Definition:** A USDOT PIN is the personal identification number FMCSA issued to registered companies for accessing and updating their registration records online, such as MCS-150 updates.

Also called: DOT PIN, FMCSA PIN. Category: FMCSA & freight.

Whoever holds a carrier's PIN could change its registration, including the phone and email that brokers and factors call to verify it. That made the PIN a phishing target. In 2024, FMCSA warned about fake emails carrying MCS-150 and MCSA-5889 forms that asked carriers for their Social Security number and USDOT PIN, and OOIDA told members that FMCSA will never ask for a PIN on a manual form.

FMCSA's 2026 Motus notice lists the selling of personal identification numbers, alongside hijacked carrier accounts, among the fraud it is working to reduce. In Motus, access runs through a [Login.gov](https://carrierkyc.com/glossary/login-gov) account tied to the company official, with identity verification when users first sign in.

For a factor, the trail of a phished PIN is a recent MCS-150 update with new contact details on an otherwise established carrier. If the carrier's owner, reached at a long-standing number, says nothing changed, treat the record as compromised.

> **Red flag: Red flags** Contact details changed shortly before a factoring application. Any request, from anyone, for a carrier's PIN or Login.gov credentials. See [carrier identity theft](https://carrierkyc.com/guides/carrier-identity-theft).

## Related

- [Login.gov](https://carrierkyc.com/glossary/login-gov)
- [Account takeover (ATO)](https://carrierkyc.com/glossary/account-takeover)
- [MCS-150](https://carrierkyc.com/glossary/mcs-150)
- [Carrier identity theft in 2026: takeovers, PIN phishing and Motus](https://carrierkyc.com/guides/carrier-identity-theft)
- [Carrier risk check](https://carrierkyc.com/tools/carrier-check)

## Sources

- [Land Line: FMCSA warns truckers about phishing email scam](https://landline.media/fmcsa-warns-truckers-about-phishing-email-scam/) (2024-08-07)
- [Federal Register: Availability of Motus, FMCSA's New Registration System](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/04/29/2026-08334/availability-of-motus-fmcsas-new-registration-system) (FMCSA notice, 2026-04-29)
- [DAT: FMCSA registration modernization, what to know about Motus](https://www.dat.com/blog/fmcsa-registration-modernization-what-to-know-about-the-new-motus-system) (DAT blog, May 2026)