The New-Entrant Audit Result Has a 45-Day Notice

Pass and fail are both written notices

385.319(a) says that upon completion of the safety audit, the auditor reviews the findings with the new entrant. That conversation is not the notice. The notice is the written determination that comes after. A pass and a fail are both written. A nod at the end of the visit is not a pass letter, and a list of concerns left on the table is not a fail letter. Wait for the writing, and do not invent a result from the auditor's tone.

The pass sentence and the fail sentence use the same timing words: as soon as practicable, but not later than 45 days after completion of the safety audit. Carriers who had a friendly exit interview sometimes stop checking mail. Carriers who had a rough exit interview sometimes stop dispatching the next morning. Both reactions ignore the section. The result is the letter. The letter has a date. Every later clock in this article runs from a date you can point to.

The 45 days run from the audit, not from your first day

New entrants already live inside an 18-month monitoring period that started when they met the pre-operational requirements. That period is not the 45 days. The 45 days begin when the safety audit is completed. If the audit was on March 3, the notice deadline is 45 days after March 3, not 45 days after the MC number was granted and not 45 days after the first invoice.

Call it the agency's deadline out loud when someone in the office says "we have 45 days to fix this." You do not. FMCSA has up to 45 days to tell you the result. Your cure period, if there is one, starts when that notice is dated, and it is a different number.

What a pass letter does not end

If the audit discloses adequate basic safety management controls, the notice says so. Adequate controls on audit day are not a graduation from the new-entrant program. 385.319(b) says the new entrant's safety performance will continue to be closely monitored for the remainder of the 18-month period. A crash, an out-of-service rate, a loss of insurance, or an automatic-fail item discovered later can still bring the agency back. The pass letter belongs in the file. It does not belong in a frame as if the monitoring ended.

Do not read the pass letter as a safety rating of Satisfactory. The new-entrant audit is a test of basic safety management controls. A safety rating is a different process. Carriers who tell a broker they are "Satisfactory" because they passed the new-entrant audit are describing a rating they were not given.

What a fail letter starts

The fail notice says the USDOT new-entrant registration will be revoked and operations placed out of service unless the carrier takes the actions specified in the notice to remedy its safety management practices. Read the actions. They are the plan. A generic promise to "do better" is not what the notice asked for if the notice listed specific failures.

385.319(c)(1) gives all new entrants except those in (c)(2) 60 days from the date of the notice to take the specified actions. 385.319(c)(2) gives 45 days from the date of the notice to three groups: a new entrant that transports passengers in a commercial motor vehicle designed or used to transport between 9 and 15 passengers, including the driver, for direct compensation; a new entrant that transports passengers in a vehicle designed or used to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver; and a new entrant that transports hazardous materials in a commercial motor vehicle as defined in paragraph (4) of the definition in 390.5. If you are not in those groups, do not shorten yourself to 45. If you are in them, do not give yourself 60 because a friend with dry vans had 60.

The carrier may keep operating while that window is open. The letter is a warning that revocation will follow if the actions are not taken. It is not an out-of-service order effective the morning it arrives. Do not write, and do not let a broker write, that the MC died when the envelope was opened.

The fix-and-refile path

385.325(a) says that if the new entrant provides evidence of corrective action acceptable to FMCSA within the time period in 385.319(c), including any extension authorized under 385.323, FMCSA provides written notification that the new-entrant registration will not be revoked and the carrier may continue operations. Acceptable is FMCSA's word. A stack of documents that does not address the failures in the notice can be rejected. Send the response early enough that a rejection can still be cured inside the window. This page will not pretend there is a universal 15-day internal goal. The regulation gives you the window. Use it.

385.325(b) is the other outcome. If the carrier fails to submit a written response demonstrating corrective action acceptable to FMCSA within the time in 385.319, and any extension under 385.323, FMCSA revokes the new-entrant registration and issues an out-of-service order effective on day 61 from the notice date for carriers subject to the 60-day rule, or day 46 from the notice date for carriers subject to the 45-day rule. If an extension was granted, the order is effective the day following the expiration of the extension. The regulation does not set the length of that extension in 385.325. Do not invent one. If you have an extension letter, the date in that letter controls.

On or after the effective date of the out-of-service order, the new entrant may not operate in interstate commerce. That is the shutdown. It is a dated order, not a mood.

An automatic-fail item under the new-entrant table still produces a failed audit. The same notice, the same plan window, and the same day-61 or day-46 order apply. Passing the plan does not rewrite the item. It shows the corrective action FMCSA accepted. If the registration is later revoked, a new application starts the 18-month monitoring period over. The new-entrant safety audit is the overview of the audit itself. This page stops at the notice.

If day 45 passes in silence

The section says not later than 45 days after completion. If that day passes and you have neither a pass nor a fail, do not fill the silence with a guess. Check the contact the auditor left and the company record in the portal. Ask whether the audit is marked completed and whether the notice was sent to an old address. A notice sent to the address on the registration still starts the cure clock if it was sent. An unread email is not a stay.

Do not dispatch a press release that you passed because nobody called. Do not park the fleet because nobody called. The written notice is the event. Until it exists, the audit result is not in your hand, and the cure window has not started.

The sheet is the whole article. Everything else is how not to count those dates from the wrong starting point.

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