The rule that would decide whether a carrier gets to see what the broker actually collected on a load moved one desk closer to reality. On August 27 FMCSA sent its supplemental proposal on broker transparency to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — the White House shop that reviews rules before they can be published. It is the last internal gate. It is also the same rule that was promised in May, then in July, and is arriving in September at the earliest.
What is on the table
The paperwork trail is RIN 2126-AC63, docket FMCSA-2023-0257. The proposal rewrites 49 CFR 371.3, the eighty-word regulation titled "Records to be kept by brokers," and it does four separate things. Read them individually, because they are not equally powerful.
The four proposed changes to 49 CFR 371.3
Brokers would have to keep their transaction records in electronic format — closing the move where a broker answers a transparency request by inviting you to come read a paper file at their office.
The required contents get modernized: for every shipment, all charges and payments tied to it, each with a description, an amount and a date, plus any claims such as a shipper's damage or delay claim. The old split between brokerage and non-brokerage service disappears.
Transparency stops being framed as a right the transacting parties happen to hold and becomes a regulatory duty imposed on the broker.
The records must be handed over within 48 hours when a party to the transaction asks for them.
48 hours on request — not 48 hours automatically
This is the gap most coverage blurs. OOIDA's petition asked FMCSA to make brokers send an electronic copy of every transaction record automatically, within 48 hours of the load being delivered, and to explicitly outlaw contract clauses that waive the carrier's access. What FMCSA proposed instead starts the clock only after you request the record. The agency said plainly in the notice that its provisions "differ from those requested by OOIDA and SBTC."
How a 2020 petition became a 2026 news item
The Small Business in Transportation Coalition petitioned the Department on May 6, 2020. OOIDA filed on the same subject. On August 4, 2020 the Transportation Intermediaries Association filed in the opposite direction, asking FMCSA to delete § 371.3(c) altogether on the argument that the rule is a relic of 1980, that it exposes proprietary pricing, and that carriers already know enough about market rates. FMCSA held a listening session that October, took 76 written comments on it, took another 179 on the TIA petition, and then split the difference in a single day: on March 16, 2023 it granted the OOIDA and SBTC petitions — while warning in the grant letters that the eventual rule would not necessarily contain what either group had asked for — and on March 17, 2023 it denied TIA's, saying the association's approach ran contrary to the fairness and efficiency goals Congress wrote into 49 U.S.C. 13101.
The proposed rule itself appeared in the Federal Register on November 20, 2024. Comments were due January 21, 2025; the docket was reopened at SBTC's request and ran through March 20, 2025. By the close, the file held roughly 7,000 comments — an enormous response for a recordkeeping regulation, and a fair measure of how personal this one is on both sides of the load.
“ This proposal represents a misguided focus on outdated and unnecessary regulations rather than tackling issues that genuinely threaten the safety and efficiency of our nation's supply chains. ”
What OIRA review actually means for the timeline
Reaching OIRA is real progress and not a publication date. The executive order that governs this review gives the office up to 90 days, and the clock can be extended; rules also come back to the agency for changes. Trade coverage has floated much shorter estimates for this one, but nobody at OMB or FMCSA has put a date on it. And when it does clear, what publishes is a supplemental proposal — meaning another comment period, and only then a final rule. Anyone telling you the 48-hour requirement takes effect this year is guessing.
The cost question that is still open
In the 2024 notice FMCSA argued the change would be cheap — brokers already send rate confirmations, so the machinery exists — analyzed the costs qualitatively rather than in dollars, and stated it did not consider the rule economically significant. That qualitative treatment is one of the things the supplemental proposal is expected to firm up, and it is the part brokerage groups have aimed at.
What a small carrier should do now
Nothing has changed yet: § 371.3 as written today still gives you the right to review the record, and broker contracts still commonly waive it. Read the waiver clause before you sign, because the proposed rule does not retroactively void one.
Watch the Federal Register for docket FMCSA-2023-0257, not the trade headlines — the supplemental notice is the document that opens the next comment window.
When it opens, comment with specifics. Roughly 7,000 comments got this rule out of the drawer; the agency is on record asking for cost data it says it does not have.
Keep your own paper: rate confirmations, accessorial approvals, delivery times. A 48-hour records right is only as good as your ability to show what you were told.
Rules explained, not just announced
We read the docket so the headline does not get to do your thinking.