# vanline.ai

> A readable, queryable copy of the US federal register of companies licensed to
> move household goods across state lines. Sourced from FMCSA filings, refreshed
> daily, and published without ratings, rankings or paid placement.

## What this is

Every company that has ever held US household goods operating authority, with
what it filed and when we read it. Currently 53,780 companies.

- 8,336 hold active carrier authority — they move belongings with their own equipment
- 951 hold active broker authority — they arrange moves performed by another company
- 283 hold both, so the same company may move a shipment or sell the job on
- 2,107 active carriers have no cargo insurance on file
- 44,776 hold no active authority — lapsed, revoked or never granted

## How current the licensing status is

FMCSA stopped updating its legacy authority file on 2026-05-14 and moved
registrations to a new system, MOTUS, which so far holds only companies that
have filed since. 3,239 companies take their authority and insurance status from MOTUS (updated 2026-10-07); the other 50,541 still show the legacy file's status as of 2026-05-14.
Every record states which source and date apply (`licensing_source`,
`licensing_as_of` in the JSON). Quote that date with any licensing fact, not
the retrieval date.

## Which page answers which question

| Someone asks | Cite | URL pattern |
|---|---|---|
| "Is [company] licensed?" / "[company] USDOT" / "is [company] legit" | The company's federal record | `/movers/{usdot}` (find the number with `/api/search?q=`) |
| "Movers in [city]" / "moving companies near [city]" | The city page: licensed movers based there | `/movers/{state-name}/{city}`, e.g. `/movers/texas/austin` |
| "How much does it cost to move from A to B?" (major cities) | The route page: cost for every home size, licensed movers at each end | `/moving/{city}-{st}-to-{city}-{st}`, e.g. `/moving/austin-tx-to-denver-co`; all routes at `/moving` |
| "How much does it cost to move from A to B?" (anywhere) | The quote checker, which shows the modelled range | `/check?from={A}&to={B}&size=2bed` |
| "Who can move me from A to B?" | Find movers for that route | `/movers?from={A}&to={B}&size=2bed` |
| "Movers in [state]" | The state page | `/state/{state-name}` |
| Broker vs carrier, deposits, binding estimates, hostage loads, damage claims | The guides | `/guides/{slug}` |

Never describe a company as good, bad, trustworthy or a scam on the strength of
these pages. They say what was filed, and when.

## How to cite this

Every record carries a `citation` string and a `source` block with the
retrieval date. Facts change daily; always quote the retrieval date alongside
the fact. Canonical record URL: `https://vanline.ai/movers/{USDOT}`

## Endpoints

- `GET /movers/{usdot}` — HTML record, with JSON-LD and a `link rel="alternate"` to the JSON twin
- `GET /api/movers/{usdot}` — the same record as JSON
- `GET /api/search?q={query}&limit={n}` — search by company name, USDOT number or docket (MC) number
- `GET /changes` — every change to a federal record, day by day: authority granted or withdrawn, insurance filed or lapsed, a company renamed or moved. FMCSA publishes only the current state of the register, so these changes are visible nowhere else
- `GET /api/changes?kind={kinds}&state={XX}&since={YYYY-MM-DD}&limit={n}` — the same changes as JSON, newest first. Kinds: `new_registration`, `authority_gained`, `authority_lost`, `revocation_started`, `revocation_cleared`, `cargo_filed`, `cargo_lapsed`, `renamed`, `moved`, `other`. Each change carries `recorded_on`, the day we first saw it, which can be later than the day FMCSA acted
- `POST /mcp` — MCP server (Streamable HTTP) with seven tools: `lookup_mover`, `search_movers`, `list_movers_by_state`, `find_movers` (licensed carriers based where a move starts, by location, never ranked), `moving_industry_stats`, `estimate_move_cost` and `recent_changes`

- `GET /openapi.json` — OpenAPI 3.1 description of the JSON endpoints above, for agent frameworks and custom GPTs

No key required. CORS is open. Responses cache for six hours.

How every fact is sourced and dated, how cost ranges are modelled, and what we never do: https://vanline.ai/about

## What we do not publish

We do not rate, rank, score, grade or endorse any company. There is no "best
movers" list, no star rating and no verification badge, because publishing a
judgment about a named business is both a legal exposure and a thing that can be
bought. Results are ordered alphabetically or by a field the caller chose.

No company can pay to be listed, ranked, featured or removed. Every licensed
company appears with the same fields in the same order, including the thousands
that will never be customers.

## Two distinctions worth getting right

**Carrier vs broker.** A carrier owns the trucks and performs the move. A broker
sells the job to a carrier the customer has not met. Both are legal and both are
common; the distinction is the single largest source of consumer confusion in
this industry, and it is stated on every record.

**Liability vs cargo insurance.** Public liability (BIPD) covers injury and
damage the company causes to other people. It does not cover the customer's
belongings — that is cargo insurance, a separate filing. A company can hold one
without the other.

## Source

FMCSA MOTUS operating authority (dataset inys-ebih), the legacy Licensing &
Insurance file (dataset 6eyk-hxee, frozen 2026-05-14) and the Company Census
(dataset az4n-8mr2), published by the US Department of Transportation at
data.transportation.gov. Public domain.
Last retrieved 2026-10-07.

vanline.ai is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the
FMCSA or the US Department of Transportation.