The Annual MVR Review: Running §391.25 Without Missing a Driver

Picture a driver you hired three years ago. Good attitude, on time, no claims. The application, the road test and the pre-employment checks were all done properly. Then, sometime last spring, a speeding ticket in a personal pickup turned into a second serious violation on a state record you never looked at. Nobody at the company knew, because the yearly review slipped while the safety manager was covering dispatch.

That is the gap §391.25 exists to close. Hiring checks look backward once. The annual review keeps looking, every 12 months, for as long as the driver works for you. It is a short rule, it is cheap to comply with, and it is one of the easiest findings for an investigator to write up, because either the paper is in the file or it is not.

This guide covers what the regulation actually says, how to run the review so it holds up, how to read what comes back, and what to do when a record shows something you cannot ignore.

What the rule requires, in plain terms

The text of 49 CFR 391.25 breaks into three duties.

Get the record. At least once every 12 months, the carrier must request the motor vehicle record for each driver it employs. The record has to cover at least the preceding 12 months, and it has to come from every licensing authority where the driver held a commercial motor vehicle license or permit during that time.

Review it. In the same 12-month cycle, someone at the carrier must look at the record and decide whether the driver still meets the minimum requirements for safe driving or is disqualified under §391.15. The rule tells the reviewer what to weigh: violations of the federal safety and hazmat rules, the driver's accident record, and violations of motor vehicle laws generally. It singles out speeding, reckless driving and operating under the influence for "great weight."

Document it. The carrier keeps a copy of the record in the driver qualification file, plus a note naming the person who did the review and the date it was done.

Notice what the rule does not say. It does not care what vehicle the driver was in when the violation happened. A conviction in a personal car counts on the record the same way it counts toward CDL disqualification. It also does not let you substitute a list written by the driver. Until 2022, drivers had to give carriers an annual list of their violations under the old §391.27; FMCSA dropped that requirement in a March 2022 final rule, so the state record is now the whole picture.

The 12-month clock

"At least once every 12 months" is measured from the last review, not from January 1. If you reviewed a driver's record on April 20 last year, the next one is due by April 19 this year. Fleets that batch every review into December tend to get caught in one of two ways: a driver hired in January waits nearly two years for a first annual review, or a busy December pushes the whole batch into January and every file is late at once.

A few timing points that trip people up:

• The hiring MVR does not count as the first annual review. The pre-employment inquiry under §391.23 is its own requirement. Start the annual clock on the date you hire, and schedule the first annual review within 12 months of that date.
• Early is fine. Nothing stops you from reviewing more often. If you move every driver to the same month to make scheduling easier, review some of them early rather than letting anyone run late.
• Leaves of absence do not pause the clock for a driver who stays on your roster. If they come back after the due date, run the review before they drive.

Running the review: a working sequence

1. Know which states to pull

Most drivers hold one license, so one state record covers them. The ones to watch are drivers who moved during the year. If a driver transferred a CDL from Missouri to Kansas in June, the review that covers that year needs both states. Ask drivers at review time whether they held any other license or permit in the last 12 months, and compare the answer with the license issue date on the new record.

2. Order the official record

Use the state licensing agency or an authorized vendor that pulls directly from it. A printout the driver brings in from a state portal can be legitimate, but you lose the chain of custody. Most carriers order through a vendor so the request, the date and the response are all logged.

3. Read it against the disqualification rules first

Before you think about risk, answer the yes-or-no question: is this driver disqualified right now? That means checking the record against §391.15 and, for CDL holders, the disqualification tables in §383.51.

4. Then read it for patterns

A record with no disqualifying entry can still tell you something. Look at the mix and the timing of violations, any crashes, new restrictions on the license and medical certification status.

5. Write the note and file it with the record

The note must name the reviewer and the date. In practice, most carriers use a one-page form that also records the conclusion: qualified, qualified with follow-up, or disqualified and removed. A form makes the reviewer answer the same questions every time and gives an auditor something to read in ten seconds.

6. Set the next due date before you close the file

Put it in whatever system you trust: a DQ software alert, a spreadsheet with a conditional format, a shared calendar. Thirty days of lead time gives you room for a state that is slow to respond.

What a record can show, and what each finding means

The table below is a quick triage guide. It is a summary, not the regulation; check §383.51 for the exact conditions, including the longer periods that apply when a driver was hauling placarded hazmat.

"Serious traffic violations" under §383.51 include speeding 15 mph or more over the limit, reckless driving, improper or erratic lane changes, following too closely, a traffic violation connected with a fatal crash, driving a CMV without a CDL or without the license in your possession, and texting or using a hand-held phone while driving a CMV.

Two details matter more than people expect.

Use conviction dates, not citation dates. Disqualification follows convictions. A ticket written in March and resolved in August counts from August. A record that lists only the citation date can make a period look over when it has barely started.

Count across vehicles. For CDL holders, serious violations in a personal vehicle can count toward disqualification when they lead to a license suspension or revocation, and certain major offenses count regardless of vehicle. Do not filter the record down to work trucks.

When the record turns up a disqualifying offense

Pull the driver off safety-sensitive work the same day. Letting a disqualified driver operate is not a paperwork problem: FMCSA treats it as an acute violation in a compliance investigation, and one instance can hurt your safety rating.

Then work through it in order:

1. Confirm the facts. Get the conviction date and the period from the state record. If the record is unclear, contact the licensing agency.
2. Talk to the driver. They may not know the conviction posted, or there may be a pending appeal. A pending appeal does not change the record you have to act on, but it helps you plan.
3. Document the removal. Add a dated note to the file: what you found, when you removed the driver, and when the period ends.
4. Decide what happens next. A 60-day disqualification may mean a temporary move to a non-driving job or unpaid leave, depending on your policies. A lifetime disqualification ends driving work with you.
5. Re-check before return. When the period ends, pull a fresh record to confirm the privilege has been restored before the driver goes back on the road.

A driver who should have told you is a separate issue. Under §383.31, a CDL holder must notify their employer of any conviction for a traffic violation, other than parking, within 30 days. If the annual review is how you learned about it, that failure belongs in the conversation and in the file.

Where continuous monitoring fits

Many carriers now subscribe to services that alert them when a driver's record changes, including a few states' own employer notification programs. The appeal is obvious: the annual review tells you about a problem up to a year late, and an alert tells you within days.

Can monitoring replace the annual review? Industry guidance is split. FMCSA has issued guidance indicating that an employer notification or record monitoring system can satisfy §391.25 if it does the job the rule describes, and some compliance providers accept that. Others tell carriers to keep a documented annual review regardless, because an investigator still wants to see a record and a reviewer's note in the file at least once every 12 months.

Our view for a small fleet: use monitoring as an early warning, and keep the annual note anyway. The cost of one extra record pull per driver per year is small. The cost of arguing with an investigator about whether your vendor's alert history equals a review is not.

Common findings in an audit

These are the problems that show up most in DQ files we have seen and in the compliance guidance carriers publish:

• Late reviews. The record was pulled at 13 or 14 months.
• Record but no note. Someone pulled the record and filed it, but nobody wrote down who reviewed it or when. The rule requires both.
• Note but no record. The reverse, usually after a file migration lost attachments.
• One state when there should be two. The driver moved and only the new state was checked.
• No action on a bad record. The review was done on time, found a disqualifying conviction, and the driver kept running.
• The driver signed the review. The review is the carrier's job. A driver's signature does not stand in for the reviewer's name and date.

FMCSA lets carriers keep these records electronically. Paper copies are not required if the system meets the electronic records standards in §390.31, which mostly means the records are accurate, retrievable and protected from tampering.

A simple annual review form

If you do not have one, a form this short covers the rule and the decision:

• Driver name and license number
• States pulled and the date each record was received
• Disqualifying offenses found (yes or no; if yes, which, with conviction dates)
• Serious violations in the last three years, with dates
• Other violations and crashes in the last 12 months
• License status, class, endorsements and restrictions
• Medical certification status on the record
• Determination: qualified, qualified with follow-up, or disqualified and removed
• Follow-up action, if any
• Reviewer name, title and date
• Next review due

Keep a copy of the blank form in your safety manual, and use the same form for every driver so reviews do not drift over time.

Frequently asked questions

Does the annual review apply to drivers without a CDL?Yes. Section 391.25 applies to drivers of commercial motor vehicles covered by Part 391, which includes many non-CDL drivers of vehicles over 10,000 pounds in interstate commerce. The CDL disqualification tables in §383.51 apply only to CDL holders, but §391.15 and the general review duty apply to all of them.

Who should do the review?Someone at the carrier who knows the disqualification rules and has the authority to pull a driver off the road. The rule only requires that the note name the reviewer and the date, but it makes sense to designate one or two people for the job.

Can we review every driver in the same month?Yes, as long as nobody goes more than 12 months between reviews. Move drivers to the common month by reviewing them early, not late.

What if a state takes weeks to send the record?Order early. Thirty days of lead time covers most states. If a record will be late through no fault of yours, document the date you requested it so the file shows a good-faith effort, and finish the review as soon as it arrives.

Do we still need the annual review if we use a monitoring service?FMCSA guidance says a monitoring system can meet the requirement, but advice from compliance firms differs. Keeping a documented review at least once every 12 months is the safer choice.

How long do we keep old annual reviews?The DQ file is kept while the driver works for you and for three years after they leave. Individual annual records and notes can be removed three years after the date they were done.