How Long Should Brokers Keep Carrier Vetting Records? What the Law Says and What Smart Brokers Do

Most freight brokers know they are supposed to keep carrier vetting records. Far fewer know exactly how long, what to keep, or why the answer changed significantly in May 2026.

The Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC removed a legal defense that brokers had relied on for years. Before the ruling, brokers in many circuits could argue that federal law preempted state-level negligent hiring claims outright. That defense is now gone in all 50 states. Negligent selection claims can reach a jury, and what a jury sees is whatever documentation a broker can produce.

That makes record retention a front-line business issue, not a back-office task.

What Federal Law Actually Requires

The baseline for broker record retention comes from 49 CFR Part 379, the FMCSA's "Preservation of Records" regulation. It applies explicitly to both motor carriers and brokers.

The minimum retention periods that matter most for carrier vetting are:

The regulation also requires that records be protected from destruction, unauthorized access, and data corruption. Digital records are explicitly permitted as long as they "accurately reflect all of the information in the record and remain accessible in a form that can be accurately reproduced later for reference." Three years is the floor. It is not the ceiling.

Why Three Years Is No Longer Enough

Here is the problem with treating the federal minimum as the target: litigation timelines do not respect it.

Personal injury claims from trucking accidents can take years to file and years more to resolve. Statutes of limitations for negligence claims vary by state, and some run as long as six years. In wrongful death cases, the clock may not start until a minor plaintiff reaches adulthood. A carrier vetting record that was legally destroyed at the three-year mark may be exactly what a plaintiff's attorney requests in discovery five years after the load moved.

Post-Montgomery, legal counsel across the industry has converged on a consistent recommendation: retain carrier vetting records for a minimum of seven years, with many advising indefinite retention for records tied to any load that resulted in an accident, injury, or claim. The practical translation: if a load ever touches a claim, those records should never be deleted.

"Document retention practices need to include fact intensive vetting protocols focused on vetting, FMCSA data limitations, and proximate cause boundaries."

What Records Should Actually Be Kept

The federal regulation sets the categories. Post-Montgomery legal guidance tells you what those categories mean in practice for carrier vetting specifically. Here is what a defensible file looks like for each carrier relationship:

The word that keeps appearing in post-ruling legal guidance is "contemporaneous." A record created at the moment of the decision carries significantly more legal weight than one reconstructed after a claim arrives. Spreadsheets updated retroactively, emails assembled into a folder after an incident, or rep memory offered in a deposition are not contemporaneous records. They are reconstructions, and opposing counsel will treat them accordingly.

The Difference Between Checking and Documenting

Many brokers check FMCSA SAFER. Far fewer document that they checked it, when they checked it, what they saw, and what decision they made as a result.

Checking and documenting are not the same thing.

A SAFER lookup confirms that a carrier held active authority at some point. It does not prove you looked at it before booking this specific load. It does not capture the CSA scores you reviewed. It does not show that you saw a conditional safety rating and made a deliberate decision. Without a timestamped record of the check, the check may as well not have happened from a legal standpoint.

This is why the architecture of how records are created matters as much as what records are kept. A system that builds the vetting record automatically as the load moves, with timestamps attached to each step, produces contemporaneous documentation. A system that requires someone to manually log what they checked after the fact does not.

What Smart Brokers Are Doing Now

The brokerages that are ahead of this are treating the post-Montgomery environment as an operations problem, not a legal one. The legal exposure is real, but the solution is operational: build the record as the work happens.

The Bottom Line

The federal minimum for broker record retention is three years. The litigation reality is closer to seven, with indefinite retention for any load tied to a claim. The legal standard post-Montgomery is "reasonable care," and what reasonable care looks like in a deposition is a timestamped, traceable record of every vetting step taken at the moment it was taken.

Brokers who treat carrier vetting as a checkbox are exposed. Brokers who treat it as a documented, auditable process are protected.

The records you keep today are the defense you have tomorrow.

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult qualified legal counsel regarding your specific compliance obligations.