How do I keep my Amazon Relay account and performance score?

Chapter 01

What does Amazon keep checking after I am approved?

Almost everything it checked when you applied, plus how you run its loads. Amazon expects carriers to keep meeting safety, DOT and insurance rules, deliver on time, accept loads consistently and run every load through Relay’s own tools. It says it keeps checking with its own compliance teams and an outside monitoring service (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). How a company qualifies and applies is in our guide to getting approved for Amazon Relay. This page is about staying on.

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you run two box trucks, 26 feet long, with lift gates. You drive one, and a hired driver runs the other. Amazon approved your company in March 2026. By September you haul Relay loads every week, and you hold a contract for a weekly route. Your grade is B+, and your account looks fine. But Amazon is still measuring you, every week and every month.

Start with your safety scores, which most people call CSA scores. FMCSA sorts roadside violations into seven groups, which it calls BASICs. In each group it ranks you from 0 to 100 against carriers with a similar number of inspections, and 100 is the worst. That rank is your percentile (FMCSA’s scoring manual). Amazon wants five of them under its lines. Unsafe Driving and Hours of Service Compliance must stay below 60. Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances and Alcohol, and Driver Fitness must stay below 75 (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). FMCSA’s own warning lines for most carriers are 65 and 80. So Amazon’s lines are five points stricter, as Amazon itself says (Amazon’s insurance article).

Where do you see your percentiles? Not on FMCSA’s public website. Under a 2015 law, the FAST Act, FMCSA shows a trucking company’s full results only after the company logs in (FMCSA’s scoring manual). Amazon shows them to you in the Safety Scorecard in your Relay account. It also shows your FMCSA safety rating and how the numbers move month to month. Next to each of Amazon’s limits, it shows a simple Yes or No (Amazon’s Safety Scorecard article). Amazon does not say how it gets these numbers. So now and then, compare them with what you see when you log in at FMCSA.

Then come two numbers Amazon added in the fall of 2025: your driver violation rate and your vehicle violation rate. Amazon takes your roadside inspections from the last 12 months. It adds up the violations found, and counts each out-of-service violation twice. Then it divides by the number of inspections. An out-of-service violation is one so serious that the driver or the truck must stop until it is fixed. The driver rate must stay at or below 35%, and the vehicle rate at or below 50%. Amazon has screened new carriers this way since October 31, 2025. It said it would start holding existing carriers to the limits in February 2026 (Amazon’s article on violation rates).

Amazon says a carrier with three or more inspections that goes over these limits “may lose access to Relay loads”. And just as with the safety scores, “we won’t offer an appeal process”. In other words, Amazon provides no way to appeal a decision based on these limits. The only way back is to bring the numbers down.

A few more rules keep applying. Your FMCSA safety rating must stay “Satisfactory”, “None” or “Not Rated” (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). A Conditional rating after an FMCSA investigation is not on that list. Your insurance must stay at Amazon’s levels, such as $1,000,000 of auto liability and $100,000 of cargo coverage. Each driver needs a profile of their own in the app, and must pass Amazon’s background check and the photo checks during loads. Amazon says repeated failed photo checks can affect your access (Amazon’s article on drivers). You may not pass an Amazon load to another carrier (Amazon’s page on secure freight). And the site’s terms keep Amazon’s right to “terminate accounts” at its “sole discretion” (Relay’s conditions of use).

Chapter 02

How does the Amazon Relay performance score work?

The Amazon Relay performance score measures how you run Amazon’s loads. Amazon tracks four things over your last six weeks of hauls. They are arriving on time, not rejecting loads you booked, using the app on every trip, and trips without disruptions. Your score is the lowest of the four, from 0% to 100%. It turns into a grade from F to A+ (Amazon’s article on the score). You get a grade once you have hauled ten or more Relay loads in the last six active weeks (Amazon’s article on grades).

Each of the four has its own rule (Amazon’s article on the score). For “On-time”, your driver must arrive by the scheduled time at pickup and at delivery. Relay goes by the time the driver checks in at the site. For “Acceptance”, a load you booked is yours to run. Rejecting it hurts your score, and so does letting it expire. Amazon warns that “the closer a carrier rejects to pick-up time, the higher the penalty.” A load that Amazon cancels does not count against you. For “App usage”, drivers must keep the Relay app running, with location turned on, for the whole trip. For “Disruption-free”, Amazon counts trailers left standing and loads with no driver assigned.

Because your score is your weakest number, one bad area pulls the whole grade down. That is on purpose: it shows you where to work first. Your dashboard lets you review individual loads, so you can see which trips hurt and talk to the driver about them.

Your Amazon Relay grade decides what you can book (Amazon’s article on grades). Every approved carrier can book from the load board. A grade of C+ or better lets you bid in Amazon’s freight auctions, and reefer auctions need a B. A grade of B or better lets you book new contracts. A+, A and B+ see new loads and contracts first. In Post A Truck, where you post when your truck is free and get matched to loads, the higher grade is matched first. And Amazon’s own warning is plain: “drop below C+, and you risk losing the contracts you’ve already booked.” Your tier in Relay Rewards, Amazon’s bonus and discount program, also uses your lowest score from the month before.

In the example, you booked your contract route with a B+. To book the next one, you need at least a B. Under C+, you could lose the one you have. So your grade is worth watching. Amazon says scores refresh every week, and your account shows a daily forecast of your next score (Amazon’s article on busy seasons). Keep the email and phone of your account’s main administrator current in Relay, so Amazon’s alerts reach you.

Owners often search for a chart that turns percentages into letters. Amazon’s public pages do not give one. Some carrier websites print a chart, but those are not Amazon’s pages, and we could not check them against the portal. The grade on your own dashboard is the one Amazon uses.

Chapter 03

What do I do when one of my numbers goes over the line?

Act on the cause at once, and fix what is wrong in the record. There is no appeal against the safety limits, so waiting does not help. For a safety number, repair the truck or coach the driver, sign the inspection report, and correct any inspection that is wrong. For the performance score, reject a load early if you cannot run it, and tell Relay about delays that were not your fault. Then track whether your results improve from week to week.

Here is how that looks in real life. On Thursday, September 3, 2026, your hired driver pulls into a weigh station. The inspector finds brakes out of adjustment and puts the truck out of service. A mobile mechanic adjusts them, and after three hours the truck rolls again. The load arrives late.

Now count your vehicle violation rate the way Amazon describes it (Amazon’s article on violation rates). Before that morning, your trucks had four vehicle inspections in the last 12 months. Three were clean. One, on May 12, found a lamp out, which did not stop the truck. So your rate was 1 divided by 4, or 25%. The brake violation counts twice, because it put the truck out of service. Now the rate is 3 divided by 5, or 60%. That is over the 50% line, and you have more than three inspections. We worked this out from Amazon’s formula. Your Safety Scorecard shows the number Amazon really uses.

Did Amazon warn you? Maybe not. In 2024, Amazon wrote that it contacts carriers each month when a safety score gets close to one of its lines. It then coaches them on keeping access (Amazon’s article on CSA scores). But one inspection can push you over between two emails. So open the Scorecard yourself after every inspection.

First, repair the truck and complete the paperwork. Keep the mechanic’s invoice. The federal rule gives you 15 days after the inspection to sign the report, confirming every violation was fixed. You send it back only if the State asks, but you keep a copy for 12 months (the rule on roadside inspection reports). So by Friday, September 18, the signed report is in your file.

Second, check the record. Read both inspection reports line by line. Is it your truck, your DOT number, the right date? A violation that really happened stays. One that is wrong can be corrected through FMCSA’s DataQs system, and that is your only real fix, because Amazon hears no appeal. See how to dispute a violation in DataQs. We could not find how fast a correction shows up in Relay’s numbers.

Third, fix the cause. Brakes out of adjustment are a maintenance problem, not bad luck. Add a brake check to the pre-trip inspection, and put brake service on the shop calendar. Write down the change and the date.

Fourth, work your way back. Clean inspections lower the rate, because each one adds to the number you divide by (Amazon’s article on violation rates). One more clean vehicle inspection makes it 3 divided by 6, which is exactly 50%, and that is “at or below” the line. The May lamp violation drops out of the 12-month calculation in May 2027. Until then, every inspection counts, so every truck should leave the yard ready for one.

The same morning hurt your performance score too. That evening, say your shop finds worn brake parts that must be replaced, and the truck will be ready only by noon tomorrow. You have a load booked for 6 the next morning. Reject it now, in the app. Do not wait until morning, and do not let it expire, because the later you reject, the bigger the hit. The late load from the weigh station was your truck’s fault, so there is nothing to dispute.

A delay that was not your fault is different. Say next week a load runs late because the driver waited at a closed gate. Amazon says that if something happens along the way, you can let Relay know and dispute the hit to your score (Amazon’s article on the score). Tell Relay’s operations center, called the ROC, during the trip. It works 24/7, through the portal and the app (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). Save the messages and the times. How disputes are decided is explained only inside the portal, and we could not see it.

Say the next weekly update shows your grade down from B+ to B. You can still book new contracts, and the one you have is safe while you stay above C+. But one more bad week could push you lower. For the next six weeks, book only loads you are sure you can run.

Last, put it in writing. Amazon’s FAQ says Relay does not have an official contact phone number. Its help for approved carriers is the support center inside your account. Write what happened and what you fixed, attach the proof, and keep Amazon’s answer.

Chapter 04

Which records keep my Relay account safe?

Keep the papers that prove three things: your insurance never lapsed, every violation was fixed, and what really happened on each late or rejected load. That means insurance certificates and renewal dates, and signed roadside inspection reports for 12 months (the rule on roadside inspection reports). It also means repair records, driver papers, and the messages and times behind each load. With no appeal on the safety numbers, these records are how you correct the data, win a dispute over a load, and show a clean operation.

Start with insurance, because a lapse stops you at once. When you renew, you enter the new details through the Insurance tab in your Relay account. Amazon asks for this at least 5 days before the old policy ends. It also says to renew at least two to three weeks before that date. That gives RMIS, the monitoring company Amazon names, time to update its records. If coverage lapses, you cannot book or haul Relay loads until it is back (Amazon’s insurance article). Owners search for it as the Amazon Relay insurance update.

In the example, your policy renews on Thursday, October 15, 2026. So you ask your agent to renew by Thursday, September 24, three weeks before. You enter the new details the day the agent sends them, and no later than Saturday, October 10. Keep a copy of every certificate of insurance. When you add a truck or a driver, tell your insurer first, and then add the truck or driver to your Relay profile.

Next, the inspection file. Keep each signed roadside report for 12 months, which is also how far back Amazon’s violation rates look. Keep the repair invoice for each violation next to it. The rest is the safety file the federal rules already ask for: driver files with license and medical card, logs, and truck repair records. Amazon’s own tip is to keep driver papers “current and available for inspection” (Amazon’s article on violation rates). How long to keep each one is in our list of the records to keep.

Keep your company details with FMCSA current too. The law asks you to update your MCS-150, your company’s basic report to FMCSA, every 24 months (the rule on the form). Amazon suggests every six months (Amazon’s article on CSA scores). The reason is in FMCSA’s scoring manual. Your Unsafe Driving score is divided by your size, using the truck count and the miles from that form (FMCSA’s scoring manual). If you added a truck and never reported it, your score looks worse than it is.

Then the load records. For each late or rejected load, keep the Relay messages, the times, and a note of every talk with the ROC. Amazon pays weekly and makes the invoices itself. If a payment looks wrong, you can dispute it in the portal within 30 days of reviewing the weekly invoice (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). And once a month, save a copy of both scorecards. Your own copies show the trend when you talk to Relay or an insurer. The same clean record matters to brokers too, as our guide to why brokers turn a carrier down explains.

What has changed lately? Amazon added the violation rates for new carriers on October 31, 2025, and set February 2026 as the start for existing carriers. So older guides that talk only about CSA scores are out of date. Amazon described the Safety Scorecard and the grade rules in December 2025, and the insurance timing in February 2026. There is also much we could not check. Amazon’s full Relay Program Policies are shown only to carriers after onboarding, so we could not read them. We also could not see the dispute steps, the chart of percentages and letters, or how access comes back after a carrier goes over a line. If your numbers keep you off Relay for a while, the other ways to find freight still work.

If you want someone to watch your safety records, inspection reports and insurance dates all year, here is what we offer.