Operating authority (MC number)

Definition

The federal permission to haul for hire, held separately from the USDOT number that identifies you.

Why It Matters

Two registrations, and they behave differently in a sale. The regulator says plainly that a USDOT number may not be sold or transferred, while operating authority can sometimes be recorded as transferred inside a corporate transaction. That difference is the whole structure question: buy the company and both survive with it, buy the assets into a new entity and the new entity applies for its own. Ask which the asking price assumes before reading a single tax return, because the answer is months of runway.