Is your dispatcher acting as an unauthorized broker?

Chapter 01

When does a dispatcher need broker authority?

A dispatcher needs broker authority when it acts as a broker instead of as your agent. The rules say a broker is someone who, for pay, arranges for a carrier to haul freight. Your agent is not a broker when it books loads that your company has accepted and will haul itself (the rule’s definitions). So a dispatch service that finds loads for your trucks, in your name and on your orders, is on the safe side. One that takes a load and then looks for a truck, or chooses which carrier gets it, is brokering.

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you run two dry vans out of Ohio. Since March 2026, a dispatch service has booked your loads. It finds them on load boards, calls the brokers, negotiates the rate and emails you the rate confirmation. That is the broker’s sheet with the load, the rate and the pickup times. The dispatcher keeps 8 percent of each load, and you pay it every Friday. We made up that figure, like every other detail of this story.

Then, in the middle of September 2026, two things happen. On Monday, September 14, you find an email in which your dispatcher asks a broker to pay the dispatch company for your load. On Friday, September 18, a load that fit your empty truck goes to another carrier the same service dispatches. And a broker you work with tells you that “dispatchers need broker authority now”. Is that true?

Not for every dispatcher. FMCSA has no license for a dispatch service as such. It says it has no power to regulate one unless it works as a broker, a freight forwarder or a carrier (FMCSA’s guidance). What decides it is what your dispatcher really does. The rule’s name for a real agent is a bona fide agent. It is part of the carrier’s normal organization. It works “under the carrier’s directions”, with an agreement made in advance for an ongoing relationship. And it makes no choice “in allocating traffic between the carrier and others” (the rule’s definitions). In plain words, your agent works for you, on your terms, and does not decide which carrier gets which load.

Congress told FMCSA to explain where a dispatch service ends and a broker begins. So in June 2023, FMCSA published two lists of signs (FMCSA’s guidance). One list points to an agent that does not need to register as a broker. The other points to a broker. No single sign decides the case. FMCSA adds that the more control you have over your dispatcher, the less likely it is to be brokering. The guidance itself is not law. It is FMCSA’s reading of the rule, and it says so. Here are the two lists side by side, sorted by what you can check.

Compare your dispatcher’s work with these lists. It passes some rows and fails others. There is a written agreement, but it is one page about your percentage. It says nothing about insurance or liability. The dispatcher’s emails come from its own address and do not always say that it books for your company. And two rows need a closer look: who gets the money, and who gets the loads.

Chapter 02

Who should pay my dispatcher, and where should the freight money go?

You should pay your dispatcher, and the broker should pay you. FMCSA’s list says a real agent “does not provide billing or accept compensation from the broker”. The same goes for a logistics company, or a factoring company that buys your invoices for quick cash. The carrier pays the agent, under the written agreement. And the agent stays out of the payment between the broker and the carrier (FMCSA’s guidance). A dispatcher that takes pay from the broker, or any involvement in that payment, is on the broker’s side of the line.

Nothing on that list says a percentage is wrong. Your 8 percent deal can be fine, as long as you are the one who pays it. What matters is which way the money flows. FMCSA says that handling the money between shippers and carriers “strongly suggests” a broker, though it is not the only sign (FMCSA’s guidance).

Now back to Monday, September 14. Your dispatcher emailed the broker about a load that pays $2,400. It asked the broker to send the payment to the dispatch company, which would “pass on the carrier’s share”. That one email puts your dispatcher on the broker’s list. Taking pay for a load from the broker is a sign of a broker. So is any involvement in the payment between the broker and the carrier (FMCSA’s guidance).

Think about what it means for you. The broker owes $2,400 for a load your truck hauled. If it pays the dispatch company, your money sits in an account you do not control. The dispatcher may take its cut and pay you late. It may take more than its cut. Or it may close its doors. Then you are chasing two companies for your own money, and each one can point at the other. That fight belongs in our guide to an unpaid broker invoice. It is far easier to stop it now.

So stop it the same day. Write to the broker yourself. Say that you are the carrier on the load, and that payment goes only to your company. Point to the payment details in your carrier packet. That is the set of papers you gave the broker when you first worked with it: your authority, your insurance and where to pay you. If you factor your invoices, keep the payment details your factoring company gave the broker. Then write to your dispatcher. Say that it must never change payment details or ask a broker to pay it.

You also have a right to see the broker’s own record of the load. Every broker must keep one, and each party to the deal may review it (the rule on broker records). The record shows what the broker collected for the load and the date it paid the carrier. So if a broker says it has already paid, ask to see that record.

Chapter 03

Can my dispatcher book loads for other carriers too?

Yes, but only if it never has to choose between you and them. FMCSA says “allocating traffic” means “any exercise of discretion on an agent’s part when assigning a load to a motor carrier” (FMCSA’s guidance). In plain words, that is any choice about which carrier gets a load. A dispatcher that works for several carriers and makes that choice is not a bona fide agent. It has to register as a broker. Working for more than one carrier is not a problem by itself.

Back to Friday, September 18. Your second truck was empty in Columbus. Your dispatcher found a load from Columbus to Atlanta that fit it. But the load went to another carrier the service also dispatches, with the same kind of dry van. Someone at the dispatch service chose between two of its carriers. That is exactly what the guidance calls allocating traffic.

FMCSA gave two ways an agent can serve more than one carrier without choosing (FMCSA’s guidance). The first is by region. Say its agreement with one carrier covers only loads from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont or Massachusetts. Its agreement with another covers only loads from Florida, Georgia or Alabama. Then each load fits only one carrier’s agreed territory. The second is by freight or by truck. One carrier hauls only hazardous materials, and the other never does. Or one runs refrigerated trucks and the other runs flatbeds. But say the agent finds the same kind of loads for both carriers, with no split by region. Then it cannot serve both unless it registers as a broker. Every load would force a choice.

Your case fits neither example. You and the other carrier both run dry vans out of Ohio. So each time a good load turns up, the dispatcher has to decide who gets it. Maybe it picks the carrier that pays it more. You cannot tell from the outside. Either way, some of the loads you pay it to find go to someone else.

Two more habits sit on the broker’s list, and they matter to you as well (FMCSA’s guidance). One is taking a shipment before there is a truck for it, and then looking for a carrier. The other is offering a load to the open market of carriers. A dispatcher that does either is brokering freight to other people’s trucks. If your truck hauls a load that passed through such hands, you may not know who really owes you. Our guide to double brokering explains how to spot it. FMCSA notes that “double brokering” has no definition in the law or the rules. Most of the people who raised it with FMCSA meant companies working as brokers without proper authority.

So ask your dispatcher three plain questions, in writing. How many carriers do you dispatch? Do any of them run my kind of truck in my area? And when two of us could take the same load, who decides? If the answers show that the service chooses between carriers, it must register as a broker. Or it must split its carriers so that it never chooses. To see whether a company is registered as a broker, look it up the way you check any broker: how to check a broker.

Chapter 04

What should my dispatch service agreement say, and what if the line is crossed?

Your dispatch service agreement should make the dispatcher your agent on paper. It should also keep it away from the brokers’ money and from other carriers’ loads. FMCSA’s first sign of a real agent is a written contract in which the carrier appoints the dispatch service as its agent. That contract “should specify the insurance and liability responsibilities” of both sides (FMCSA’s guidance). The rest of FMCSA’s list tells you what else to write down.

Your one-page agreement only sets the 8 percent fee. So you sit down with your dispatcher and write in the rest. The agreement names the service as your agent, working for your company. It says who carries which insurance, and who answers for what if a load goes wrong. It says that you pay the dispatcher, how much and when, and that it takes nothing from brokers or factoring companies. It says that the freight money goes from the broker to you, or to your factoring company, and never through the dispatcher.

It goes on. The dispatcher tells each broker that it books for your company, and that the load is for your company only. It works through brokers and does not deal with shippers. It never passes one of your loads to another carrier. If it dispatches other carriers, the agreement says how their loads are kept apart from yours, by region or by kind of truck. The guidance also expects the dispatcher to get a 1099 from you at tax time, or to be your employee. Some States may have their own licensing rules for such services. The guidance mentions them, but we did not check each State’s rules. Ask your dispatcher which ones apply, and get the answer in writing.

And what if your dispatcher refuses, or the line has already been crossed? First, know who can act. The federal law on unlawful brokerage sets a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation (the federal law). FMCSA’s penalty table raises that for inflation. It now lists up to $13,676 for each violation for knowingly working as a broker without registration or bond (FMCSA’s penalty table). A second line, for working as a broker without registration, lists at least $13,676 for each violation. These amounts come from the update of December 30, 2024 (the 2025 update). We found no newer update as of September 22, 2026.

But for the law on unauthorized brokering, FMCSA says it cannot hand out the penalty itself. The guidance blames “a statutory omission”, a gap in the law. Because of it, FMCSA may pursue such penalties “only through the Department of Justice in federal court” (FMCSA’s guidance). In plain words, a fine for your dispatcher is far from certain. Many articles say FMCSA will fine an unauthorized dispatcher $10,000. That leaves out two things. FMCSA cannot issue that fine itself, and the amount has since been raised for inflation.

The same law gives you a stronger tool. An unauthorized broker is liable “to the injured party for all valid claims incurred without regard to amount” (the federal law). That reaches the company and, personally, its “officers, directors, and principals”. Say a dispatch service that acts as a broker keeps your freight money. Then the law makes the company, and the people who run it, answer for your valid claims. That is a private claim in court, and you need a lawyer for it. We cannot tell you how a court would rule in your case.

One more line in that law concerns you. It covers anyone who “knowingly authorizes, consents to, or permits” unauthorized brokering. We found no FMCSA guidance on how that applies to a carrier whose dispatcher crosses the line. But once you know, going along with it puts you at risk. Put your objection in writing, and then fix the setup or change the service.

What has changed lately? Very little. Congress asked for the guidance in November 2021. FMCSA issued an interim version in November 2022 and the final one on June 16, 2023 (FMCSA’s guidance). As of September 22, 2026, we found no newer FMCSA document on dispatch services in the Federal Register. The only later one that mentions them is a proposal about broker records, published on November 20, 2024 (the broker records proposal). It would make brokers send a party the record of a load on request, within 48 hours. Comments closed on March 20, 2025 (the notice that reopened comments). It is still only a proposal, and we found no final rule. Two common claims are wrong, too. Not every dispatcher has to register as a broker now, and working for two carriers does not make one a broker by itself.

Start with the three checks: the agreement, the money and the loads. For dispatch at a flat monthly fee per truck, with every load brought to you for approval, here is what we offer.