DOT record keeping requirements and retention schedule
DOT record keeping requirements set different retention periods for different records. Most records a motor carrier keeps under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations have a retention period written into the paragraph that requires them, and the periods are not the same. A driver vehicle inspection report is kept three months. An annual inspection report is kept fourteen months. A driver qualification file is kept for three years after the driver leaves. Drug test records run from one to five years depending on the result. The table below lists each record, the period, the date the clock starts from, and the paragraph that says so.
The retention table
Every period here is a minimum. Keeping a record longer is never a violation. Where a paragraph says where the record must be kept, that is in the notes, because "kept" and "kept at the terminal" are different obligations.
| Record | Keep for | Clock starts | Citation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driver vehicle inspection report (DVIR) | 3 months | Date the report was prepared | §396.11(a)(4) | Includes the carrier's certification of repair and the next driver's signature. Not required at all for a carrier operating one commercial motor vehicle, under (a)(5). |
| DVIR when no defect was found | No federal report | Not applicable | §396.11(a)(2)(i) | Since December 2014 a driver who found nothing does not have to file a report. If your company asks for one anyway, that is company policy, and the three-month period is a sensible one to adopt for it. |
| Periodic (annual) inspection report | 14 months | Date of the inspection report | §396.21(b)(1) | Kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained. The inspection itself is only good for 12 months of use; see below. |
| Proof of inspection on the vehicle | While it is the current inspection | Date of the inspection | §396.17(c) | A copy of the report or a decal, on the unit. Replaced by the next one. |
| Inspector qualification evidence | Duration plus 1 year | Last inspection that person did for you | §396.19(b) | Not required when the inspection was done under a state periodic inspection program. |
| Maintenance records, each vehicle | 1 year, and 6 months after the vehicle leaves your control | Each entry's date; then the date the vehicle leaves | §396.3(c) | Kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained. Applies to any vehicle you controlled for 30 consecutive days, under (b). |
| Roadside inspection report | 12 months | Date of the inspection | §396.9(d)(3) | Signed by a carrier official within 15 days certifying the corrections, returned to the state if asked. Kept at the principal place of business or where the vehicle is housed. |
| Driver qualification file, whole file | Employment plus 3 years | Date employment ends | §391.51(c) | The application, the hire-date driving record, the road test and the previous-employer inquiries stay for the full period. |
| Annual driving record, annual review note, medical certificate or medical status record, medical variance, National Registry note | 3 years, may then be removed | Date each was executed | §391.51(d) | A permission, not a requirement. Nothing has to come out of the file early, and many carriers leave everything in until the whole file goes. |
| Records of duty status (hours of service) | 6 months | Date of receipt | §395.8(k)(1) | Whether from an ELD or on paper. The driver also carries the previous 7 days, under (k)(2). |
| Supporting documents for hours of service | 6 months | Date of receipt | §395.8(k)(1) | Same paragraph, same period. Up to eight per driver per 24-hour period under §395.11(d)(1); the driver hands them in within 13 days under §395.11(b). |
| Accident register | 3 years | Date of each accident | §390.15(b) | Each entry has its own clock. Copies of state and insurer accident reports are filed with it. |
| Drug and alcohol: positive results, refusals, alcohol at 0.02 or above, evaluations and referrals, calibration records, program administration records, annual summaries | 5 years | Date of the record | §382.401(b)(1) | Secure location with controlled access, under (a). Never in the qualification file. |
| Drug and alcohol: collection process records | 2 years | Date of the record | §382.401(b)(2) | Except breath device calibration, which is in the five-year group. |
| Drug and alcohol: negative and cancelled results, alcohol below 0.02 | 1 year | Date of the record | §382.401(b)(3) | The most common record in the program and the shortest clock. |
| Drug and alcohol: training records for technicians, supervisors and drivers | While they do the job, plus 2 years | Date the person stops the function | §382.401(b)(4) | Includes the driver's signed receipt for the policy under §382.601. |
| Clearinghouse queries and results | 3 years | Date of each query | §382.701(e) | Every query, pre-employment and annual, and everything received back. |
| Clearinghouse consent for limited queries | 3 years | Date of the last query it was used for | §382.703 | One consent can cover several years of limited queries, so this clock starts from the last one, not the first. |
| Proof of financial responsibility | While the coverage is in force | Not applicable | §387.7(d) | MCS-90 endorsement, surety bond or self-insurance authorisation, at the principal place of business. Expired policies are worth keeping for the accident register's three years. |
| Lease of owner-operator equipment | No period stated | Not applicable | §376.11 | The section requires a written lease and trip documents kept "as part of its transportation records" but names no period. Keep it for the term of the lease at minimum, and see the section. |
| MCS-150 | Not a retention item | Not applicable | §390.19T(b)(2) | An update is due every 24 months in your assigned month whether or not anything changed. Keep the confirmation. |
Two clocks that look like one
The periodic inspection has two numbers attached to it and they are not the same number. §396.17(c) says a carrier must not use a vehicle unless every component in Appendix A has passed an inspection at least once during the preceding 12 months. §396.21(b)(1) says the report of that inspection is kept for 14 months from its date.
Read the first one as a question asked on the morning of dispatch: looking back twelve months from today, is there a passing inspection? If not, the vehicle stays parked. There is no grace period, the day after the twelve months run out is a day the unit may not be used. A failed inspection does not count, so a unit that failed on day 360 has five days of legal use left, not a fresh year. And a later inspection does not extend an earlier one, it replaces the anchor. Inspect early and you have given up the unused months.
The 14-month period is a different thing. It exists so that the report is still producible for two months after the inspection has stopped being good for use. An investigator asking in month 13 why a unit ran in month 12 is entitled to see the report that covered it. Keep both numbers, and never let anyone, or any system, treat them as one. A state periodic inspection under §396.17(f) counts for the same 12 months; the difference is only what you hold as evidence.
What "on the vehicle" means
§396.17(c) ends with the words "and documentation of such inspection is on the vehicle". That is a physical requirement. A copy of the report, or a decal carrying the information, travels with the unit. A record of the inspection in a filing cabinet, a spreadsheet or a database is the 14-month record, not the on-the-vehicle one, and it does not satisfy this paragraph. The two halves fail separately: a decal on the trailer and no report in the office is one violation, a report in the office and nothing on the trailer is another. The roadside officer sees the second one.
The six-month clock after a truck leaves the fleet
§396.3(c) keeps the maintenance record where the vehicle is housed or maintained for one year, and for six months after the vehicle leaves the carrier's control. The second half is the one that gets missed. A sold truck, a trailer returned at the end of a lease, a tractor written off after a crash: each one starts a six-month clock on the day it goes, and the file has to stay where it was, not go with the truck. The buyer is welcome to a copy. The original is yours until the clock runs out.
The same shape applies to people. §391.51(c) runs three years from the day employment ends, and the file most likely to be missing in a review is the one on a driver who left two years ago. Both clocks start on an event nobody records anywhere else, which is why they are the two a small carrier most often loses.
Records that must be producible, not just kept
§390.32(b) lets any of these records be generated, kept and signed electronically. Paragraph (d) sets the test: the record has to accurately reflect the information the rule asks for, and it fails if it is not capable of being retained, is not used for the purpose it was created for, or cannot be accurately reproduced within required timeframes for anyone entitled to see it. Electronically generated records also carry proof that the driver consented to electronic records, under 15 U.S.C. 7001(c). A signed electronic DVIR without the consent it was signed under is, for this purpose, an unsigned one.
Paper meets the same test without the consent step. Nothing in this section prefers one to the other. What the section does add to every row in the table is the word "reproduced": a record is only kept if it can be shown, in time, to the person asking. A filing box in a truck that is in Ohio, or a vendor portal that needs a login the investigator does not have, is a record that exists and cannot be produced. "Within required timeframes" borrows the deadline from whatever rule requires the record, so at the roadside it means now and in a compliance review it means days.
State rules and longer periods
Every period on this page is a federal floor. Other obligations sit on top: IFTA fuel records have their own period under that agreement, payroll and tax records have their own periods, workers' compensation carriers set theirs, and an insurance or leasing contract can require that maintenance files be kept for as long as the policy or lease can still be claimed against. Intrastate carriers follow their state's adoption of these parts, which can lengthen a period but rarely shortens one. When two periods apply, the longer one wins, and a claim from a crash can make even the longer one look short. Keeping the accident register's three years as your minimum for anything touching a vehicle involved in a reportable crash is a habit worth having.
Do you need software for this?
Not for the fixed clocks. A folder per year, a shred date written on the front, and the table above pinned inside the lid is a retention system that passes reviews. Most of the periods here are counted from a date you already write down: the inspection, the test, the accident, the receipt. What software is actually for is the two clocks that start on an event nobody files: the six months after a truck leaves the fleet and the three years after a driver does. Ledger Road starts those two clocks on the day the truck or the driver is marked as gone, and shows each record against the paragraph it is being kept under. If your fleet does not change much, a note on the calendar the day something leaves does the same job. The qualification file guide and the DVIR guide cover the two files with the most clocks in them.
Sources
The sections this page cites, on eCFR. Read the paragraph, not the summary.
- 49 CFR 396.11 Driver vehicle inspection reports (three months)
- 49 CFR 396.21 Periodic inspection recordkeeping (fourteen months)
- 49 CFR 396.17 Periodic inspection (twelve-month lookback)
- 49 CFR 396.19 Inspector qualifications
- 49 CFR 396.3 Maintenance records
- 49 CFR 396.9 Roadside inspections and certification of repairs
- 49 CFR 391.51 Driver qualification files
- 49 CFR 395.8 Records of duty status
- 49 CFR 395.11 Supporting documents
- 49 CFR 390.15 Accident register
- 49 CFR 382.401 Drug and alcohol testing records
- 49 CFR 382.701 Clearinghouse query records
- 49 CFR 382.703 Clearinghouse consent records
- 49 CFR 387.7 Financial responsibility
- 49 CFR 376.11 Lease agreements
- 49 CFR 390.32 Electronic documents and signatures
Questions people ask
How long do you have to keep DVIRs?
Three months from the date the report was prepared, under section 396.11(a)(4). That covers the report, the carrier's certification of repair and the reviewing driver's signature.
How long should a trucking company keep maintenance records?
For as long as the vehicle is under your control and for six months after it leaves, under section 396.3(c). The records must be kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained for one year, so the clock on a sold truck keeps running after the sale.
How long are annual inspection reports kept?
Fourteen months from the report date, under section 396.21(b). The vehicle may only be used for twelve months on that inspection under section 396.17, so the report outlives the inspection by two months.
Can DOT records be kept electronically?
Yes, under section 390.32, as long as they can be retained, used for their purpose and reproduced accurately for anyone entitled to see them. Paper records meet the same test. The rule does not prefer either.