How to Get Freight Factoring Clients From New Carriers

Find new for-hire carriers in FMCSA data, time outreach to authority grants, and handle notices, UCC liens and state factoring disclosures.

Published Oct 29, 2026 · 33 min read · by Lead Mining Company

A carrier that registered with the FMCSA last month and hauls for hire will send an invoice for every load it moves. Until its customer pays that invoice, the carrier covers fuel, the truck payment and the insurance premium out of its own pocket. That gap is what freight factoring sells into, and a new carrier meets it in its first weeks of business.

This guide is for freight factoring companies, their sales reps, and the brokers and ISOs who place factoring deals. It covers which carriers in the public FMCSA data are real prospects, when to reach them, what the law says about notices, liens and state disclosures, how to write an offer without quoting numbers you can't stand behind, what to collect at onboarding, and the mistakes that waste a sales team's month.

Counts come from the FMCSA Company Census File as of October 28, 2026, for active carriers registered from October 1, 2025. Where we ran our own counts against FMCSA's free public datasets, the section says so and shows the filter. Estimates are labeled as estimates, with the arithmetic shown.

Why a new for-hire carrier is a factoring prospect

A for-hire carrier moves other people's freight and bills for it. A private carrier moves its own goods and has no freight invoice to sell. That one field, the for-hire class on the registration, separates prospects from non-prospects before any other filter. Of the 178,190 active carriers registered since October 1, 2025, 130,839 are authorized for hire. That is 73.4% of the file.

The second field is operation. Federal law lets a carrier provide transportation under FMCSA's interstate jurisdiction only once it is registered for that authority (49 U.S.C. 13901(a)). The census file marks 102,308 of the new carriers, 57.4%, as interstate. An interstate for-hire carrier with one to five trucks is the center of the freight factoring market: it bills brokers and shippers it has just met, it has no payment history of its own, and its costs start before its first invoice is paid.

Payment terms are set load by load in the rate confirmation, or in the carrier's agreement with a broker or shipper. No official source publishes typical terms for new carriers, so this guide doesn't quote any, and your sales copy shouldn't either. What matters for the pitch is the structure. The carrier hauls, invoices and waits for the account debtor to pay on the terms it agreed to. A factor buys the invoice, pays the carrier at assignment, and collects from the account debtor.

New York's required factoring disclosure describes the deal in plain terms. The business is selling an invoice, and it owes the factor nothing more unless its customer fails to pay and the business broke its warranty, for example by not delivering what it invoiced (23 NYCRR 600.12(e)). That structure is why a factor can work with a carrier that is weeks old. Much of the credit question moves to the account debtor, the broker or shipper who owes the invoice. The carrier question becomes: was the load hauled, delivered and billed correctly, and does anyone else already have a claim on this invoice? Both can be checked for a new carrier. Neither needs three years of tax returns.

The new carrier also has a timing problem that an older carrier has solved. It has no cash cushion built from past loads, and it is setting up insurance, fuel, maintenance and load sources at the same time. A factoring offer that arrives while the owner is booking the first loads is useful. The same offer three months later competes with whatever the carrier already set up.

Recourse, non-recourse and reserves

Every factoring offer uses these words, and a new owner-operator has no past deal to compare them with. Explaining them clearly is one of the few ways a factor can stand out without promising anything.

Recourse factoring

In a recourse agreement, the carrier carries the risk that the account debtor never pays. If an invoice goes unpaid past the point set in the contract, the contract says how the carrier makes it good: buying it back, replacing it with another invoice, or letting the factor take the amount from the reserve or from future advances. The contract names the trigger, such as a number of days after purchase. Tell the carrier exactly what that number is in your agreement and what happens on day one after it.

Non-recourse factoring

In a non-recourse agreement, the factor carries some risk of non-payment. The word only means something once you read which risks. Before a carrier compares two non-recourse offers, it should get written answers to these questions:

Which events are covered: the account debtor's insolvency, payment that never arrives for credit reasons, or both?
Are disputes excluded? Claims for damage, shortage or late delivery concern the carrier's own performance, so ask how the contract treats them.
Which account debtors qualify? Ask whether the factor approves brokers one by one, and what happens to an invoice from a broker it has not approved.
Is the fee different from the recourse fee, and is there a cap on how much non-recourse exposure the factor takes per debtor?

Advances, reserves and the fee

New York's rule gives clean definitions that work in any state. The purchase price is what the factor agrees to pay for an invoice. The original advance is what it pays when it receives the invoice. In a reserve factoring transaction, the difference is held back to protect the factor if this invoice, or another invoice from the same carrier, goes unpaid. The factoring fee is any processing fee plus the difference between the invoice's face value and the purchase price (23 NYCRR 600.1).

The same rule defines the finance charge for a factoring deal as the face value minus the amount paid directly to the business at assignment, including the factoring fee. The reserve is subtracted from that figure only if the factor reasonably expects to return all of it (23 NYCRR 600.2). That is a useful discipline even outside New York. If your reserve is often kept to cover other invoices, say so in the offer.

How to explain the two structures to a new carrier
Question the carrier asks	Recourse	Non-recourse
Who absorbs a customer that never pays?	The carrier, after the period in the contract	The factor, for the risks the contract names
Who absorbs a dispute about the load?	The carrier	Depends on the exclusions; ask
What does the carrier warrant?	The load was delivered and the invoice is valid	The same
What changes in the price?	Your fee schedule	Your fee schedule, plus any debtor approval limits
What must it sign?	Agreement, notices, any state disclosure	The same

Fill the table in with your own terms and give it to every carrier before the first call ends. A carrier that understands the structure in five minutes can compare your offer on the terms that matter, not only on the headline advance.

Notice of assignment and the account debtor's duty to pay the factor

Freight factoring depends on one rule in Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Under UCC 9-406(a), an account debtor may pay the carrier until it receives a notification, authenticated by the carrier or the factor, that the amount due has been assigned and that payment is to go to the factor. After it receives that notice, it can discharge the debt only by paying the factor. Paying the carrier no longer counts.

Three other parts of the same section shape how you write and send the notice:

It must identify what was assigned. A notice is ineffective if it does not reasonably identify the rights assigned (9-406(b)(1)). Name the carrier's legal name, any DBA, the USDOT number and the docket number, and say whether the notice covers all invoices or listed ones.
The broker can ask for proof. If the account debtor asks, the factor must seasonably furnish reasonable proof that the assignment was made. If it doesn't, the account debtor can keep paying the carrier even after receiving the notice (9-406(c)). Keep a signed copy of the agreement's assignment page ready to send.
Anti-assignment clauses are generally ineffective. A term in the agreement between the account debtor and the carrier that prohibits or restricts the assignment, or requires the account debtor's consent, is ineffective to the extent stated in 9-406(d), subject to exceptions in that section and in 9-407. If a broker-carrier agreement contains such a clause, read the exceptions before you rely on the rule.

Each state enacts Article 9 with its own changes, and the state that governs a question depends on the facts. Nothing in this guide is legal advice. Have counsel review your notice form, your agreement and the state rules that apply to your book.

What the notice does in practice

For a new carrier, the notice goes to each broker or shipper before the first factored invoice. The practical sequence:

The carrier signs the factoring agreement and a notice addressed to each account debtor it works with.
You send the notice to the account debtor's payables contact, with remittance instructions, and keep proof of delivery.
You ask the account debtor to confirm it has changed the carrier's remit-to address. A written confirmation is better than a phone note.
Every invoice you buy carries your remittance address, matching the notice.
When the carrier starts with a new broker, a new notice goes out before the first invoice from that broker is funded.

A carrier switching from another factor brings a complication: the broker already holds a notice telling it to pay someone else. Get a written release from the previous factor and send it with your notice, or the broker may keep paying the old factor or hold payment until the conflict is sorted out.

UCC-1 filings and checking for existing liens

Article 9 applies to a sale of accounts, not only to loans secured by them (UCC 9-109(a)(3)). Its general rule is that a financing statement must be filed to perfect a security interest, with listed exceptions (UCC 9-310). So a factor buying a carrier's invoices normally files a UCC-1 financing statement, and searches for other filings against the same carrier before it funds.

Where to search and file

The filing office follows the debtor's location, and UCC 9-307 sets that location:

A debtor who is an individual, which includes a sole-proprietor owner-operator, is located at the individual's principal residence.
A registered organization, such as an LLC or corporation, organized under a state's law is located in that state.
An unregistered organization with one place of business is located there; with more than one, at its chief executive office.

This catches out sales teams that search by the address on the census record. The census shows a physical address and a mailing address, not the state of organization. A carrier with a Texas yard may be an LLC formed in Wyoming or Delaware, which puts its filings in that state. An owner-operator registered as an individual is searched where he or she lives, which is often, but not always, the physical address on the registration. Ask for the formation document at intake and search the right state before funding.

What to look for in the results

A prior factor. A filing that covers accounts means someone else may already own or hold a claim on the invoices. You need a termination or a release before you buy.
A blanket lien. A lender or a merchant cash advance provider may have filed on all assets, including accounts. Ask for a payoff letter, a subordination, or a carve-out for the invoices you buy.
An equipment lender. A truck or trailer lender's filing may describe only the equipment. Read the collateral description rather than assuming.
Nothing at all. Expected for a carrier registered weeks ago, but not guaranteed. Search again right before the first funding, because filings made after your first search still count.

An invoice sold to two factors is a known fraud risk, and a new carrier with no history is where it is hardest to spot. The lien search, the notice, and a call to the broker to confirm the load exist for that reason. Don't skip them because the first invoice is small.

State commercial financing disclosure laws that cover factoring

Several states require a provider of commercial financing to give the business a standard disclosure before the deal closes, and some of these laws reach factoring. Three that we checked against official text are California, New York and Florida. Other states may have similar laws, and more have been proposed; before you sell in a new state, read its statute and check whether its definitions reach invoice purchases. This is a summary for planning, not legal advice.

California

California's disclosure rules came from SB 1235 and are carried out by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation in Title 10 of the California Code of Regulations. The factoring disclosure is a table of six rows and three columns: Funding Provided, Estimated Annual Percentage Rate, Finance Charge, Payment, Estimated Term and Repurchase Costs (10 CCR 912). The section became operative on December 9, 2022.

The rules apply to offers of $500,000 or less. For factoring, the provider may use the approved advance limit to decide whether an offer is above that line only if the limit exceeds $500,000 and the parties agree in writing that more than $500,000 is reasonably expected to be advanced and outstanding at some point. If those conditions are not all met, the offer is treated as $500,000 or less (10 CCR 921). Unless your agreement with a small carrier sets an advance limit above $500,000 and meets those conditions, the disclosure rules apply.

New York

New York's Commercial Finance Disclosure Law is Article 8 of the Financial Services Law, and the Department of Financial Services rule is 23 NYCRR Part 600, adopted in 2023 (23 NYCRR 600). It reaches offers of up to $2,500,000. For factoring, the provider may use the approved advance limit only under conditions like California's, at the $2,500,000 level (600.19(c)).

The factoring table has eight rows. It adds Collateral Requirements and Avoidable Fees and Charges to the six rows California uses (600.12).
To estimate the APR on a single invoice, the provider assumes it will be paid in full on the date it becomes due (600.13).
The provider must get the recipient's signature on the disclosures before the deal is consummated. An electronic signature works (600.18).
The rule applies when the recipient's business is principally directed or managed from New York, or when the recipient is a natural person who is a legal resident of New York (600.24).
A broker who receives a financer's disclosures must pass them to the recipient unaltered before communicating a specific offer, and give the financer evidence of when it sent them. The financer keeps that evidence for at least four years (600.21).

Florida

Florida's Commercial Financing Disclosure Law is Part XIII of Chapter 559 of the Florida Statutes (sections 559.961 to 559.9615). Its definition of a commercial financing transaction includes an accounts receivable purchase transaction, meaning a business selling all or part of its accounts at a discount to their expected value (559.9611). It applies to transactions consummated on or after January 1, 2024, and it exempts transactions of more than $500,000 and providers that consummate no more than five commercial financing transactions in Florida in a 12-month period (559.9612).

Florida's disclosure lists dollar amounts rather than an APR: the total amount provided, the amount disbursed if less, the total repayment, the total dollar cost, the manner, frequency and amount of payments, and any prepayment costs or discounts (559.9613). A factoring deal has no fixed payment schedule, so describe how the account debtor's payment settles the advance and what the carrier owes if it doesn't.

Three state disclosure laws that reach factoring
Item	California	New York	Florida
Where the rules are	Fin. Code 22800 and following; 10 CCR 900 and following	Fin. Serv. Law Article 8; 23 NYCRR 600	Fla. Stat. 559.961 to 559.9615
Offers covered	$500,000 or less	Up to $2,500,000	$500,000 or less
Factoring format	Six-row table	Eight-row table	Itemized dollar disclosures
Estimated APR	Yes	Yes	Not listed in 559.9613
In force	Operative December 9, 2022	Rule adopted in 2023	Transactions from January 1, 2024

What this means for the lead file

As of October 28, 2026, the census file holds 19,061 new carriers in California, 8,122 in New York and 14,906 in Florida. That is 42,089 carriers, or 23.6% of the 178,190 in the file. Of the 71,307 carriers with an MC, MX or FF docket, 14,208 are in those three states (6,902 + 1,607 + 5,699), which is 19.9%. Roughly one in five docketed new carriers is in a state where your factoring offer comes with a regulated disclosure.

Tag every lead with its state when you import it and route California, New York and Florida leads to the reps and paperwork built for them. New York goes by where the business is directed from, or where an individual lives, so treat the census address as a starting point and confirm it at intake. Our state pages for California, New York and Florida show the current counts.

The factoring segment in the census file

The segment this guide targets is a carrier with an MC docket, for-hire status, interstate operation and one to five trucks. Here are the totals for active carriers registered from October 1, 2025 through October 28, 2026:

New carriers in the census file, as of October 28, 2026
Measure	Carriers	Share of file
Active carriers registered since October 1, 2025	178,190	100%
Authorized for hire	130,839	73.4%
Interstate operation	102,308	57.4%
MC, MX or FF docket in the record	71,307	40.0%
One power unit or none	122,643	68.8%
Two to five power units	46,926	26.3%
Six to 20 power units	7,079	4.0%
21 or more power units	1,542	0.9%
Registered in the last 30 days	11,218	6.3%
Registered in the last 90 days	39,891	22.4%

Estimating the segment from the totals

The totals don't give the overlap directly, so start with bounds. The segment can't be larger than its smallest part, the 71,307 docketed carriers. Carriers with zero to five power units number 122,643 + 46,926 = 169,569, or 95.2% of the file. Since only 178,190 − 169,569 = 8,621 carriers run six or more, at least 71,307 − 8,621 = 62,686 docketed carriers must run five or fewer. If fleet size were spread the same way among docketed carriers as in the whole file, the estimate would be 71,307 × 95.2% = about 67,857. The estimate says the segment sits between roughly 62,700 and 71,300 carriers.

Counting it exactly

The census file is public, so the estimate can be checked. We counted active carriers added from October 1, 2025 through October 28, 2026 with an MC, MX or FF docket, interstate operation, a for-hire class and zero to five power units, using FMCSA's free API on October 29, 2026. The count was 65,800, inside the estimated range. Of those, 59,083 report one to five power units and 6,717 report none. The file doesn't say why a for-hire carrier reports zero power units, so ask before you rule one out.

Dropping the docket filter and keeping the rest gives 82,220 interstate for-hire carriers with zero to five power units. So 82,220 − 65,800 = 16,420 of them had no docket in the record yet. Of those 16,420, 15,400 were registered from May 2026 on, and 8,524 in September and October alone. The timing section below shows why that matters.

Contact fields are almost complete on new registrations. In the full file, 177,751 carriers (99.8%) have a phone, 177,954 (99.9%) have an email address, and 29,448 (16.5%) have a separate cell phone listed. A phone in the file is the one the carrier gave FMCSA. For an owner-operator it is often a personal mobile, which shapes the calling rules covered below.

What the census file does not show matters just as much. It has no insurance status, no date the operating authority was granted, no inspection or crash history, and nothing about revenue, loads, brokers or an existing factor. A docket in the record means the carrier has a docket number. It is not proof the authority is active.

How to pull the segment yourself for free

Every number above can be reproduced without paying anyone. The Company Census File is published by the U.S. Department of Transportation on data.transportation.gov and needs no login. You can filter it in the browser or query its API.

Open the dataset page and use the filter tool, or call the API at data.transportation.gov/resource/az4n-8mr2.csv.
Filter add_date, which is stored as text in YYYYMMDD form. For carriers added since October 1, 2025, use add_date >= '20251001'.
Keep active records: status_code = 'A'.
Keep interstate carriers: carrier_operation = 'A'.
Keep for-hire carriers: classdef contains AUTHORIZED FOR HIRE. A carrier can carry more than one class, so use a contains filter, not equals.
For the docketed segment, add docket1prefix in ('MC','MX','FF').
For fleet size, power_units is also text, so list the values you want: '0' through '5'.
Add phy_state for one state.
Set a row limit. The API returns 1,000 rows by default; our test of a 5,241-row filter returned exactly 1,000 until we added $limit.

The full where clause for the docketed national segment looks like this:

add_date >= '20251001' AND status_code = 'A' AND carrier_operation = 'A' AND classdef like '%AUTHORIZED FOR HIRE%' AND docket1prefix in ('MC','MX','FF') AND power_units in ('0','1','2','3','4','5')

The raw file has well over a hundred columns, including cargo checkboxes, ownership counts and mileage. You will want to keep a dozen or so, format the phones, split the class field, and check the docket and authority status before anyone calls. Our guide to getting a list of new trucking companies from FMCSA data walks through the download and cleanup in detail.

The free route costs time, not money. Someone has to run the pull, the filter and the cleanup every week, because new carriers register every day. In the twelve full months from October 2025 to September 2026, registrations in the file ran between 10,257 (November 2025) and 16,414 (March 2026) a month. A filtered, refreshed file saves the pull and the cleanup. Whether that is worth paying for depends on what an hour of your team's time costs.

Timing by weeks since registration

The census file's registration date is when the carrier's record was added. For a factor, the date that matters more is when the carrier's operating authority was granted, because that is when it can start hauling for-hire interstate freight under its own name. The two dates are weeks apart, and the gap changes what a sales team should do each week.

The docket fills in after registration

We counted interstate for-hire carriers with zero to five power units by the month they were added, and how many had an MC, MX or FF docket in the census record as of October 28, 2026:

Docket share by registration month, interstate for-hire carriers with zero to five power units
Registered	Carriers	With docket	Share
October 2025	5,717	5,590	97.8%
November 2025	4,740	4,628	97.6%
December 2025	4,917	4,782	97.3%
January 2026	6,444	6,295	97.7%
February 2026	6,414	6,257	97.6%
March 2026	7,652	7,483	97.8%
April 2026	7,484	7,313	97.7%
May 2026	6,162	4,499	73.0%
June 2026	6,548	4,259	65.0%
July 2026	7,467	6,782	90.8%
August 2026	7,073	4,834	68.3%
September 2026	6,981	2,528	36.2%
October 1 to 28, 2026	4,621	550	11.9%
Total	82,220	65,800	80.0%

From October 2025 to April 2026, 42,348 of 43,368 carriers in this group (97.6%) have a docket. For the carriers added in October 2026, it is 11.9%. Either the newest carriers have not filed for authority yet, or the docket has not reached their census record yet. The file doesn't say which. The May to August 2026 months sit between 65.0% and 90.8%, and the file doesn't explain that dip either.

The practical lesson: a factor that filters this week's registrations on MC docket sees about one carrier in eight of the group it actually wants. Use interstate plus for-hire plus fleet size to find the newest prospects, and use the docket and authority status to decide when to call.

How long the grant takes

FMCSA publishes a second free dataset, Motus AuthHist, All With History, with each authority's status changes by USDOT number and docket number: its initial status, its publication in the FMCSA Register, its grant, and later suspensions or reinstatements, each with a date. FMCSA publishes a summary of each application in the FMCSA Register so the public can oppose it, and the rule text gives applicants 90 days from that notice to file evidence of insurance and a BOC-3 process agent form (49 CFR 365.109).

We took the property-carrier authorities that AuthHist shows as granted from September 1 to October 28, 2026, and matched each one to its census add date, keeping carriers added in 2025 or later. That gave 9,477 grants. The grant came a median of 40 days after the census add date. A quarter came within 21 days, and three quarters within 84 days.

Weeks from census registration to authority grant, grants of September 1 to October 28, 2026
Weeks after registration	Grants	Share	Cumulative
Under 2 weeks	768	8.1%	8.1%
2 to 4 weeks	2,519	26.6%	34.7%
4 to 6 weeks	1,570	16.6%	51.3%
6 to 8 weeks	1,037	10.9%	62.2%
8 to 13 weeks	1,381	14.6%	76.8%
13 weeks or more	2,202	23.2%	100%
Total	9,477	100%

Where AuthHist recorded both steps for an authority granted in that window, the grant came a median of 14 days after publication in the FMCSA Register (2,581 authorities). These figures describe carriers whose authority was granted. They don't tell you what share of all new registrations will ever get there.

In this guide, new authority means an operating authority whose grant date in AuthHist is recent. A new registration is a carrier whose census record is recent. A carrier can be one without the other, and the factoring pitch works best when you know which.

A week-by-week schedule

FMCSA has warned new applicants that vendors often contact them within minutes of finishing their online filings, sometimes posing as officials (FMCSA, Aggressive and Fraudulent Marketing Guidance). Week one is crowded. A factor gains little by being one more caller that week, and gains a lot by being the clear, useful letter that is still on the desk when the first rate confirmation arrives. Here is a schedule built from the timing above. It is a plan to test, not a measured result:

A working schedule by weeks since registration
Week	Where the carrier likely is	What the factor does
0 to 1	Just registered; docket often blank; vendor calls arriving	Mail a letter; send one short email
2 to 4	Insurance and process agent being filed; about a third of the grants we measured came by week 4	Check AuthHist and the docket; second email with an example invoice
4 to 8	Grants keep landing; first loads and first invoices	Call carriers whose authority shows granted, after the scrub
8 to 13	About three quarters of measured grants came by week 13	Follow-up email or call; send the notice-of-assignment explainer
After 13	Grant still pending, dismissed, or done long ago	Check status; drop or move to a quarterly touch

Worked example for Texas

Texas has the most new carriers in the file: 20,972 registered since October 1, 2025, as of October 28, 2026. Of those, 18,142 (86.5%) are authorized for hire, 8,460 (40.3%) have a docket in the record, 14,641 (69.8%) report one power unit or none, and 3,828 (18.3%) list a cell phone. In the last 30 days, 1,305 Texas carriers registered, and 4,860 in the last 90 days. The Texas page shows the current figures and the largest cities.

Our API count for the same window gives the factoring segment for Texas:

7,675 Texas carriers in the docketed segment (docket, interstate, for hire, zero to five power units).
9,619 Texas carriers in the same group without the docket filter.
568 of them registered in the last 30 days (September 29 to October 28, 2026). That is 43.5% of all 1,305 Texas registrations in that window.
Of those 568, only 69 (12.1%) had a docket in the record. All 568 had a phone and an email; 181 (31.9%) listed a cell phone; 378 (66.5%) reported one power unit or none.

The Texas registration months follow the national pattern. From October 2025 to April 2026, 4,940 of 5,024 Texas carriers in this group (98.3%) have a docket. For September 2026 it is 289 of 854 (33.8%), and for October 1 to 28 it is 56 of 513 (10.9%).

The weekly flow

At 568 prospects in 30 days, Texas adds about 568 ÷ 30 × 7 = 133 interstate for-hire carriers with zero to five power units a week. That is the size of each weekly cohort. Using the schedule above, the work per week in steady state is:

133 letters to the newest cohort.
133 first emails to the same cohort, and 133 second emails to the cohort registered three weeks earlier.
One status check against AuthHist for the cohorts in weeks 2 through 13. That is a single query by USDOT number, not 133 manual lookups.
Calls to the carriers in weeks 4 to 13 whose authority shows granted, after a Do Not Call scrub.

The number of calls depends on how many carriers in each cohort get their grant in time. Measure it from your first two cohorts instead of guessing: calls per week = cohort size × share granted by your call week. With a cohort of 133, every 10 points of granted share is about 13 calls.

How to split Texas among reps

The physical city on the record lets you split by metro. Among the 4,860 Texas carriers registered in the last 90 days, the most common cities are Houston (620), Dallas (215), San Antonio (187), Austin (176) and Fort Worth (155), with Katy (121), Odessa (118) and Laredo (118) next. A rep who knows the brokers moving freight out of Houston has a better first conversation with a Houston carrier. Laredo and El Paso (100) are border cities; ask those carriers which brokers and lanes they plan to work, because that changes the account debtors you will see.

Texas is not one of the three disclosure states covered above. Check current Texas law before you assume no disclosure applies, and remember that a Texas carrier owned by a New York resident who runs it from New York can fall under New York's rule.

Outreach sequence and templates

The rules first

Of the new carriers in the file, 68.8% report one power unit or none. Many are one person with one truck and one phone. That phone is often a personal mobile, and the calling rules treat it that way:

The TCPA and the National Do Not Call Registry apply. The FCC's rules extend the Do Not Call protections to wireless numbers (47 CFR 64.1200(c) and (e)). Scrub every list against the national registry and your own do-not-call list before any sales call.
No autodialers, prerecorded or AI voices. Autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls and texts to cell phones need the called party's prior express written consent (64.1200(a)(2)). Dial by hand. Treat an AI-generated voice as off limits.
No texts without consent. Text a carrier only after it has asked you to.
Email follows CAN-SPAM, including business email. The FTC says the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. Use accurate headers and subject lines, identify the message as an ad, include a valid postal address, offer an opt-out, and honor it within 10 business days (FTC CAN-SPAM guide).
Mail is the lowest-risk channel. A letter is outside the TCPA's calling rules and CAN-SPAM's email rules, and it waits on the desk until the owner is home.

Our post on the rules for calling, texting and emailing new trucking companies covers these in detail, including state rules that add to the federal ones.

Never look like the government

FMCSA has warned new applicants about vendors whose names, websites, emails or letters use abbreviations close to USDOT or FMCSA, and about callers who say they are calling for FMCSA. Federal law makes pretending to be a federal officer to obtain money or anything of value a crime punishable by up to three years in prison (18 U.S.C. 912, as cited in FMCSA's guidance). For a factoring company the practical rules are simple:

No eagles, seals, "compliance notice," "action required," or "USDOT" in a subject line or envelope.
Your company name and logo on the envelope and the letter, and the words "private company" near the top.
Say where you got the carrier's details: its public FMCSA registration.
Never ask for a PIN, a password, or banking details in a first message.

An owner who has been warned about look-alike mail has a reason to trust the letter that plainly comes from a private company.

The sequence

A four-touch sequence for one weekly cohort
When	Channel	Purpose
Week 1	Letter	Introduce the company, explain factoring in one page, give a direct number
Week 1	Email 1	Same message, shorter, with a reply option
Week 3 to 4	Email 2	Worked invoice example with your own fee written as a formula
Week 4 to 13, after grant	Phone, dialed by hand, after the scrub	Answer questions, check brokers, offer the application

Letter template

[Owner name]
[Legal name], USDOT [number]
I saw from your public FMCSA registration that you set up [Legal name] recently. Congratulations on getting started.
We are [Factor name], a private freight factoring company in [city]. We buy freight invoices from carriers, so you get paid when you deliver instead of when your broker pays. Our terms for new carriers are on the enclosed page: advance, fee, reserve, recourse, and how fast funds reach your account.
We are not part of FMCSA or any government agency, and you never need us to keep your authority. If factoring isn't for you, call or email and we won't write again.
[Name], [direct phone], [email]
[Postal address]

First email template

Subject: Freight factoring for [Legal name]
Hi [first name], I found [Legal name] through its public FMCSA registration. We are [Factor name], a private factoring company. We buy freight invoices so carriers get paid on delivery. Our new-carrier terms are here: [link to your terms page]. Reply with a question or "no thanks" and I'll take it from there.
[Name], [phone]
[Postal address]
To stop these emails, reply "stop" or use this link: [opt-out link]

Second email template with a worked example

Subject: What a [your typical invoice amount] invoice looks like with us
Hi [first name], here is how one invoice works with us, using our standard terms. You deliver and send us the rate confirmation, the signed bill of lading and your invoice. We advance [your advance terms] within [your funding time]. When the broker pays us, we release the reserve minus our fee of [your fee formula]. If the broker never pays, [your recourse terms]. No obligation; if you want a quote on a real load, send me the broker's name and I'll check it.

Call opener

"Hi, this is [name] with [Factor name], a private factoring company. I'm calling about [Legal name]. I saw your authority came through, so I wanted to see if you're hauling yet and whether you've set up how you'll get paid. Is now a bad time?"

If the answer is yes, it is a bad time, ask when to call back and log it. An owner-operator may be driving when the phone rings, and a short call that respects that earns a second one.

What to put in the offer

Never quote another company's rates or a market average you can't source. Put your own terms in writing, in the same order for every carrier:

The advance and when it is paid.
The fee: flat, or by days outstanding, with an example on one invoice.
The reserve: how much, when it is released, and whether it can be held against other invoices.
Recourse or non-recourse, and for non-recourse, the covered events and exclusions.
Funding method and any charge for faster funding.
Minimum volume, contract term and how to end it, including notice and any fee.
Broker approvals: how a carrier checks whether you'll buy an invoice from a given broker before it books the load.
Fuel advances, if you offer them, and how they are repaid.
The state disclosure, where one applies, attached to the offer rather than sent later.

Don't promise approval before you have checked the carrier, its liens and its brokers. A carrier approved on the phone and then declined on its first invoice has lost a load's worth of time, and you have probably lost the carrier.

Insurance agents, dispatchers and other referral partners

Several businesses meet a new carrier before or during its first loads. Each sees a different moment, and each can send a factor a carrier that is ready to sign.

Insurance agents. A carrier must file evidence of insurance as part of its authority application (49 CFR 365.109), so the agent may talk to the owner before the first invoice. Our guide on selling commercial truck insurance to new trucking companies shows how agents work the same file, and the insurance agent page shows the filters they use.
Dispatchers. A dispatcher books loads and sees rate confirmations, so it knows which brokers a carrier works with and when the first invoice is coming. See how truck dispatchers find carriers and the dispatch services page.
Compliance services. Firms that handle drug and alcohol programs, BOC-3 filings and new-entrant paperwork meet the carrier in its first weeks. See how DOT compliance services find new carrier clients.
Truck lenders and dealers. A carrier that just financed a truck has a payment due every month. See commercial truck financing leads from new carrier registrations.

Paying for referrals

A partner paid to arrange a factoring deal can fall inside a state's definition of a broker. Florida's law defines a broker as a person who, for compensation or the expectation of it, arranges a commercial financing transaction, and excludes people whose pay doesn't depend on the terms of the specific transaction (559.9611). New York gives brokers their own duties, including passing the financer's disclosures to the business unaltered before communicating a specific offer (23 NYCRR 600.21). If you pay referral fees, decide with counsel which partners are referring and which are brokering, and write the agreement to match.

What to give a partner

A one-page summary of your new-carrier terms that the partner can hand over without explaining it.
A sample notice of assignment, so the partner can tell the carrier what will be sent to its brokers.
Your intake checklist, so referred carriers arrive with documents in hand.
A rule for the partner's own outreach: no look-alike government branding, no autodialed calls, and no texts without consent, because your name will be attached to theirs.

Onboarding documents for a new carrier

A new carrier has thin files. That makes the documents you collect, and the checks behind them, do more of the work.

Intake checklist
Document or check	Why it matters
Signed factoring agreement	Assignment language, recourse terms, warranties and reserve rules
State disclosure, signed where required	New York requires the signature before the deal closes; California and Florida have their own formats
Notice of assignment for each account debtor	Starts the duty to pay you under UCC 9-406(a)
Formation document or proof of sole proprietorship	Tells you which state to search and file in under UCC 9-307
UCC search results, with releases or subordinations	Finds prior factors and blanket liens before you fund
Owner's government ID	Matches the company officer named on the registration
IRS Form W-9	Taxpayer ID for your records and reporting
Authority status from AuthHist	Shows the grant, or a suspension, by USDOT and docket number
Certificate of insurance	Confirms coverage with the agent, not only the carrier
Bank account verification	Funds go only to an account in the carrier's name
First invoice package	Rate confirmation, signed bill of lading or proof of delivery, and the invoice
Account debtor credit check	The broker or shipper is who pays you

Identity checks that use the public record

Call back on the phone in the census record, not only the number on the application.
Check that the email on the application matches the census email, or ask why it changed.
Match the owner's ID to the company officer on the registration.
Confirm the load with the broker directly, using a number you looked up yourself.

These checks take minutes. They help stop the simplest frauds, where someone uses a real carrier's public details to factor invoices the carrier never issued.

Mistakes that cost factoring companies new-carrier deals

Filtering the newest week on MC docket. Only 11.9% of interstate for-hire carriers added October 1 to 28, 2026 had a docket in the record by October 28. You miss nearly nine in ten of this month's prospects and reach the rest late.
Treating a docket as active authority. The census file doesn't show whether the authority is granted, suspended or pending. Check AuthHist before you call or fund.
Calling everyone in week one. The carrier has no invoice yet, it is already getting vendor solicitations, and FMCSA has warned it to be careful with them.
Autodialing or texting cell phones. The TCPA's consent rules apply to owner-operators' mobiles, and the Do Not Call Registry covers wireless numbers.
Mail that looks official. It can read as a scam to a carrier FMCSA has warned, and it can create legal trouble of its own.
Quoting numbers you can't hold. Promising an advance or a fee before checking the broker turns into a declined first invoice.
Searching UCC filings in the wrong state. An LLC is searched where it was formed and an individual where he or she lives, not necessarily where the truck is parked.
Skipping the state disclosure. A California, New York or Florida carrier that gets an offer without the required format is a compliance problem, and in New York a broker passing on an altered disclosure is one too.
A vague notice of assignment. A notice that doesn't reasonably identify what was assigned is ineffective under UCC 9-406(b)(1).
Pulling the list once. New carriers register every day. A list from last quarter misses every carrier registered since, and the names on it have had months to choose a factor.
Dropping zero-power-unit rows unread. 6,717 carriers in the docketed segment reported no power units. The file doesn't say why, so ask before you drop them.

Using Lead Mining Company's trucking file

If the weekly pull and cleanup isn't how you want your team to spend its time, our trucking lead file for factoring companies is the same public census data, filtered and refreshed every six hours. It is not an FMCSA product and has no link to any government agency. Each row has the USDOT number, MC docket, legal and DBA name, company officer, phone, cell phone, email, physical and mailing address, registration date, operation, for-hire status, power units, drivers, hazmat and cargo.

Two options, both listed on the pricing page:

$99 a month for new trucking companies in every state, up to 25,000 rows a month.
$149 once for carriers registered in the last 90 days, downloadable for 7 days after payment.

The file has the same limits as the census: no insurance status, no authority grant date, no inspections. Pair it with the free AuthHist dataset for authority status, and with your own Do Not Call scrub. For the wider picture of how factoring companies use public records, see our invoice factoring page and the trucking leads overview.

Questions and answers

Are new trucking companies good prospects for freight factoring?

New interstate for-hire carriers are the core prospects. They invoice brokers and shippers from the first load, have no payment history, and pay their own costs while they wait to be paid. Private carriers move their own goods and have no freight invoices to sell, so filter on for-hire status first. As of October 28, 2026, 130,839 of 178,190 carriers registered since October 1, 2025 were authorized for hire.

Should I filter new carriers by MC number?

Not for the newest registrations. Among interstate for-hire carriers with zero to five power units added October 1 to 28, 2026, only 11.9% had an MC, MX or FF docket in the census record by October 28, compared with 97.6% of those added October 2025 to April 2026. Use interstate, for-hire and fleet size to find new prospects, then check the docket and authority status before you call.

How long after registering does a carrier get its operating authority?

For 9,477 property-carrier authorities granted from September 1 to October 28, 2026 to carriers added in 2025 or later, the grant came a median of 40 days after the census registration date. A quarter came within 21 days and three quarters within 84 days. These figures come from matching FMCSA's free AuthHist dataset to the Company Census File.

What does a notice of assignment do?

Under UCC 9-406(a), once an account debtor such as a broker receives a notice, authenticated by the carrier or the factor, that the invoice has been assigned and payment is to go to the factor, it can discharge the debt only by paying the factor. The notice must reasonably identify what was assigned, and the account debtor can ask for reasonable proof of the assignment.

Which states require disclosures for factoring deals?

California (10 CCR 912, offers of $500,000 or less), New York (23 NYCRR Part 600, offers up to $2,500,000) and Florida (Fla. Stat. 559.961 to 559.9615, transactions of $500,000 or less from January 1, 2024) all reach factoring. Other states may have similar laws, so check each state where your carriers are based. This is not legal advice.

Where do I search for UCC liens on a new carrier?

Where the carrier is located under UCC 9-307: a registered organization such as an LLC in its state of organization, and an individual owner-operator at his or her principal residence. The census file shows physical and mailing addresses but not the state of organization, so ask for the formation document at intake.

Can I call or text owner-operators from the FMCSA file?

Many numbers are personal mobiles. Scrub against the National Do Not Call Registry and your own list, dial by hand, and use no autodialers, prerecorded or AI voices. Text only with consent. Email must follow CAN-SPAM, which covers business email. Mail is the lowest-risk first touch, and it should never look like it came from FMCSA or DOT.