FMCSA open data lets anyone build a free weekly US trucking lead feed via public API

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration publishes a publicly accessible Company Census File on the US DOT's open-data portal, data.transportation.gov, updated regularly with details on newly registered carriers. Every new trucking company that obtains operating authority must legally purchase primary liability insurance, cargo coverage, and other services, making fresh registrants high-value sales leads. The census data includes carrier name, address, phone, email, fleet size, and safety rating, queryable for free using standard HTTPS requests through the Socrata open-data API without scraping or paid subscriptions. A developer guide outlines how to filter the dataset by registration date and US state to extract only carriers with verified contact details, then schedule the query as a weekly automated feed. The approach eliminates the need for third-party lead list services, which can cost hundreds of dollars per month for comparable data.

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