QUERY REQUIREMENTS (C/TPAs)

Conduct Annual Queries Before January 6, 2021

Per § 382.701, employers of CDL drivers must conduct a query in the Clearinghouse at least once per year for each CDL driver they employ. Employers may designate a consortium/third-party administrator (C/TPA) to conduct queries on their behalf.

The annual query requirement is tracked on a rolling 12-month basis. For example, if an employer conducts a query on a driver on October 22, 2020, the employer is not required to conduct another query on that driver again until October 22, 2021.

Your Employer Must Purchase a Query Plan

According to our records, an employer who has designated you as their C/TPA in the Clearinghouse has not yet purchased a query plan in the Clearinghouse. Without this query plan, employers and their C/TPAs cannot conduct Clearinghouse queries on current and potential new employees, which is a regulatory requirement for employers of CDL drivers.

Registered employers may purchase query plans only on the FMCSA Clearinghouse website. C/TPAs may not purchase query plans on behalf of an employer. A separate query plan must be purchased for each individual company.

View Your Employer’s Query Plan Information

As a C/TPA, any queries you conduct on behalf of an employer will be deducted from that employer’s query balance. You can view information about your employer’s query plan status in your Clearinghouse account. Log in to the Clearinghouse and navigate to My Dashboard > Manage > Employers to view your employer list. Look under Query Balance to see how many queries, if any, each employer has left in their balance.

As a C/TPA, you can also learn about query plan options or download instructions on How to Purchase a Query Plan, and consider sharing this information with the employers you work with.

Log in to the Clearinghouse →

Obtaining Consent: Sample Limited Consent Request Form

Per § 382.703, an employer cannot access a driver’s Clearinghouse record without first obtaining that driver’s consent. The type of consent depends on the type of query the employer, or their C/TPA, is conducting.

A limited query satisfies the annual query requirement. Before conducting a limited query, an employer, or their C/TPA, must obtain general consent outside of the Clearinghouse. This may be obtained in writing, and may be valid for multiple years.

Download a sample general consent request

Before conducting a full query, an employer, or their C/TPA, must obtain the driver’s specific consent. This includes all pre-employment queries. This specific consent must be obtained electronically in the Clearinghouse. A driver must be registered and logged in to the Clearinghouse to respond to a consent request for a full query.

What happens if a driver does not consent to a query?

If a driver does not consent to the query, it means the employer (or C/TPA) requesting the consent cannot access that driver’s Clearinghouse record. This also means the employer (or C/TPA) cannot verify that the driver does not have an unresolved drug and alcohol program violation in their Clearinghouse record.

Therefore, by refusing to consent to an employer’s query consent request, a driver is prohibited from performing safety-sensitive functions, including operating a commercial motor vehicle (CMV), for that employer. Refusing consent to one employer does not affect a driver’s eligibility for performing safety-sensitive functions for other employers.

Learn More about Queries and Consent Requests →

Email sent: 10/22/2020