Dispatch services: where the line is

A plain-English guide for independent dispatchers and the carriers who hire them. Last reviewed September 26, 2026 against the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 49, and FMCSA's final guidance at 88 FR 39368.

The one question that decides everything

A dispatch service is either a carrier's agent or a broker. Agents need no federal registration. Brokers need registration under 49 U.S.C. § 13904 and a $75,000 surety bond or trust fund under 49 CFR § 387.307, filed on Form BMC-84 or BMC-85, before FMCSA will register them.

49 CFR § 371.2 draws the line. A bona fide agent is someone "who [is] part of the normal organization of a motor carrier and perform[s] duties under the carrier's directions pursuant to a preexisting agreement which provides for a continuing relationship, precluding the exercise of discretion on the part of the agent in allocating traffic between the carrier and others."

Read that last clause slowly, because it is the whole thing: allocating traffic.

Yes, you can work for more than one carrier

Nothing forbids it, and FMCSA said so directly in its 2023 guidance: "FMCSA understands that dispatch services may not be able to operate a successful business if they only work for a single, small carrier."

What you cannot do is take a load that more than one of your carriers could run and decide which one gets it. FMCSA lists that as a factor requiring broker authority: "The dispatch service engages in allocation of traffic by accepting a shipment that could be transported by more than one carrier with which it has agreements and assigns it to one of those carriers."

The usual way people keep several clients without allocating is to write each agreement so the carriers do not overlap in a way that leaves you a live choice: different lanes, different regions, different equipment or commodities. If, for a given shipment, only one of your carriers could ever have taken it, you never made a choice between them.

What keeps you an agent

FMCSA's Section E lists factors pointing to no broker authority being needed. The ones that matter most day to day:

• A written contract with each carrier appointing you as that carrier's agent, stating the insurance and liability responsibilities of both sides. Usually a long-term relationship, not a load-by-load arrangement.
• You go through a broker to find freight and do not seek or solicit shippers.
• You are paid by the carrier under that contract, and never take money from the broker, the shipper or a factoring company.
• You are not in the middle of the money between broker and carrier at any point.
• You disclose that you are a dispatch service acting for one named carrier, and the shipment is arranged for that carrier only.
• You do not re-assign the load to a different carrier afterwards.

What makes you a broker

Section F of the same guidance. Any one of these and you are brokering:

• Dealing or negotiating directly with a shipper or a shipper's representative.
• Taking payment for a load from the broker or a factoring company, or being any part of that transaction.
• Arranging freight for a carrier with no written contract of the kind above.
• Accepting a shipment before you have a truck and then going looking for one.
• Allocating traffic between carriers you represent.
• Being a named party on the shipping contract.
• Soliciting the open market of carriers to move a shipment.

The penalty provision is 49 U.S.C. § 14916: up to $10,000 per violation to the government, plus liability to the injured party for all valid claims without limit, and it reaches "the individual officers, directors, and principals" personally, not just the company.

Paperwork: what the rules require, and what is just industry habit

Worth separating, because a lot of what circulates as "required" is not in any regulation:

Required if you are a broker: a record of each transaction kept for three years (§ 371.3), operating only in your registered name and never representing yourself as a carrier (§ 371.7), registration and the bond.

Not a regulation, but the evidence FMCSA looks at to decide you are an agent: the written agency contract, being paid by the carrier, a 1099 or W-2 from the carrier, and disclosing who you act for.

Industry custom, not law: limited powers of attorney, carrier packets, a dispatcher's own certificate of insurance, W-9s. Useful commercially. Nothing in 49 CFR requires them of a dispatch service.

Who is on the hook

When you book a load for a carrier, the contract is the carrier's, not yours, and the carrier is the party the broker and shipper are dealing with. That is the point of doing it as an agent. It is also why signing a rate confirmation in your own name is a problem: § 371.7(b) bars a broker from representing its operations to be that of a carrier, and being a named party on the shipping contract is on FMCSA's broker list.

How E2U is built around this

E2U Essentials Marketplace LLC never gives a dispatcher a load to allocate. There is no screen where a dispatch service receives freight and chooses which of its carriers runs it. A dispatcher on E2U works one named carrier's board, under a relationship that carrier agreed to and can end, with the scopes that carrier granted. That is the arrangement FMCSA describes as an agent's.

E2U does not write your agreements, does not hold anyone's money, is not a party to anything you agree with a carrier, and does not decide whether you are an agent or a broker. Those are yours. What E2U does is introduce you to carriers who said they want to hear from dispatch services, keep the conversation on the record, and put these rules in front of both sides before anyone starts.

Read the rules yourself: 49 CFR Part 371 · § 387.307 · FMCSA final guidance, 88 FR 39368 · Part 365