Your freight brokerage authority rests on a bond, a filing and records you have to hand over on request.
Freight brokerage is the business of arranging transportation between shippers and motor carriers without moving the goods yourself. It is federally licensed work. A broker needs operating authority, financial security in the form of a surety bond or trust fund filed on the correct form, and a record of each brokered transaction that the parties are entitled to inspect. The licence is the easy part. Keeping the evidence current is where brokerages come unstuck.
Neurobird Freight Brokerage in short
- Track bond and trust fund status against the authority they support, including cancellation notice dates.
- Keep the record of each brokered transaction where it can be produced on request rather than reconstructed.
- Record which form evidences your financial security, because the form differs between a bond and a trust fund.
- $10,000 A property or freight broker must have a surety bond or trust fund in effect for $10,000 under 49 CFR 387.307(a)(1). FMCSA broker operations compliance guide
- BMC-84 Form BMC-84 is the evidence that a brokerage is covered by a surety bond, at a level that depends on whether it brokers property or household goods. FMCSA broker operations compliance guide
- Pricing runs 140 to 760 US dollars per month across 3 tiers. Early access is free.
What freight brokers and household goods brokers actually deal with
Why it stays broken
Transportation management systems are built around loads, not around authority. The bond, the trust fund, the filing form and the transaction record are separate artefacts held by separate parties, including a surety who can cancel with notice. A brokerage can be operationally excellent and still lose authority because one filing lapsed quietly in the background.
$10,000 is the surety bond or trust fund a property or freight broker must have in effect under 49 CFR 387.307(a)(1).
If you are a household goods broker, then you must have a surety bond or trust fund in effect for $25,000, as required by the regulation at 49 CFR §387.307(a)(2).
How does Neurobird Freight Brokerage work?
Establish
Operating authority is recorded with the financial security supporting it, whether that is a surety bond on a BMC-84 or a trust fund on a BMC-85.
Broker
Each transaction keeps its own record of the parties, the rate and the terms, held in the form the rules expect it to be available in.
Defend
When a bond is cancelled or a record is requested, the file already contains the dates and documents, so the response is a lookup rather than a scramble.
Neurobird Freight Brokerage Operations Platform
Hold authority, financial security and transaction records as one connected file, so a cancellation or a record request is answered the same day it arrives.
- 1Track bond and trust fund status against the authority they support, including cancellation notice dates.
- 2Keep the record of each brokered transaction where it can be produced on request rather than reconstructed.
- 3Record which form evidences your financial security, because the form differs between a bond and a trust fund.
- 4Flag household goods advertising duties separately, since they attach to the website rather than the load.
What changes with Neurobird Freight Brokerage?
The same work, read left to right: how it runs today, and how it runs once the record is in one place.
| Today | With Neurobird Freight Brokerage |
|---|---|
| A bond cancellation notice arrives and nobody realises operating authority is about to be suspended | Track bond and trust fund status against the authority they support, including cancellation notice dates. |
| A carrier asks to see the record of a brokered transaction and the answer has to be assembled from email threads | Keep the record of each brokered transaction where it can be produced on request rather than reconstructed. |
| Household goods advertising requirements are missed because nobody owns the website as a compliance surface | Record which form evidences your financial security, because the form differs between a bond and a trust fund. |
Who is this for?
Three ways an operationally sound brokerage still ends up exposed.
The bond that lapsed
Financial security is not a one time task. A property or freight broker must have a surety bond or trust fund in effect, and the evidence filed on the right form. If the surety cancels and nobody is watching the notice, operating authority follows it down.
The website as a compliance surface
Household goods brokers must prominently display required information in all advertisements and on the home page of their website. That is a marketing asset carrying a federal duty, and it is rarely anybody's job on the compliance side.
Producing the transaction record
Broker record obligations sit in the rules on brokerage transactions, and FMCSA has been consulting on making those obligations clearer. A brokerage that keeps records per transaction answers a request. One that keeps them per inbox does not.
See it work
A short walk through authority, security and a records request.
| Requirement | Status | Next due | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Records complete | current | in 42d | |
| Bond in force | due soon | in 9d | |
| Authority active | current | in 120d | |
| Bond in force | overdue | 3d late | |
| Bond in force | current | in 64d |
Tick a requirement to file evidence against it.
What the numbers say about freight brokerage
Broker obligations are documentary. A bond amount, a form number, a rule reference and a record that has to be producible on request.
A property or freight broker must have a surety bond or trust fund in effect for $10,000 under 49 CFR 387.307(a)(1).
FMCSA broker operations compliance guideForm BMC-84 is the evidence that a brokerage is covered by a surety bond, at a level that depends on whether it brokers property or household goods.
FMCSA broker operations compliance guideForm BMC-85 is the required evidence where financial security is provided by a trust fund rather than a surety bond, and it must be in place before authority is granted.
FMCSA broker operations compliance guideHousehold goods brokers must prominently display required information in all advertisements and on their website home page under 49 CFR 371.107.
FMCSA broker operations compliance guideHousehold goods brokers are advised to use a carrier within a 50 mile radius of the shipper's origin to avoid grossly inaccurate estimates.
FMCSA broker operations compliance guideFreight brokerage software questions, answered
Key terms
- What is a freight brokerage?
- A freight brokerage arranges transportation between a shipper and a motor carrier without taking possession of the goods. It is federally licensed activity, requiring operating authority from FMCSA and financial security in the form of a surety bond or a trust fund. Beyond the licence, a broker carries record obligations on the transactions it arranges, and household goods brokers carry additional duties about how they advertise and what they must display publicly.
- What is the difference between a BMC-84 and a BMC-85?
- They evidence different things. Form BMC-84 is the evidence that a brokerage is covered by a surety bond. Form BMC-85 is the evidence that it is covered by a trust fund instead, and it must be in place before authority may be granted. Which form applies depends on how a brokerage chose to satisfy its financial security obligation, so recording the mechanism matters as much as recording the amount.
How much financial security does a broker need?
The compliance guide is explicit that a property or freight broker must have a surety bond or trust fund in effect for $10,000 under 49 CFR 387.307(a)(1), with the guide also describing bond levels of $10,000 or $25,000 depending on whether the brokerage handles property or household goods. Because a surety can cancel a bond on notice, the practical requirement is not obtaining security once but keeping it in force continuously.
What extra rules apply to household goods brokers?
Several, and they attach to places most brokerages do not treat as compliance surfaces. Under 49 CFR 371.107 a household goods broker must prominently display required information in all advertisements and on the home page of its website. The guide also recommends using a carrier within a 50 mile radius of the shipper's origin to avoid grossly inaccurate estimates, and requires the written agreement with a household goods carrier to be available for public inspection on reasonable request.
Can we use this today?
No. It is in development and open for early access. We are building the authority and records model with brokers who have been through an authority lapse and would rather not repeat it.
Why we are building this
Brokerage software is almost entirely about loads, which makes sense, because loads are the business.
But the thing that ends a brokerage is rarely a load. It is a bond cancellation nobody caught, or a records request that could not be answered, or an advertising duty attached to a website that no one on the compliance side had ever looked at.
So we are building the authority file rather than another load board. The Neurobird Team is starting with brokers who have already had a scare and can tell us exactly where the gap was.
Where the requirement comes from
Primary sources, straight from the regulators.
- FMCSA, small entity compliance guide for broker operations Bond and trust fund amounts, filing forms and household goods advertising duties.
- FMCSA, transparency in property broker transactions rulemaking Proposed changes to broker record obligations under the brokerage rules.
- FMCSA regulations, 49 CFR Parts 300 to 399 The wider body of motor carrier rules that broker authority sits inside.
How much does Neurobird Freight Brokerage cost?
Early access pricing, held for the first 12 months for brokerages that help shape the build.
- Authority and bond tracking
- Cancellation alerts
- Transaction records
Get free early access
We want brokers of record who have watched a filing lapse and know how fast that moves.
Straight answer on where this is: The software is unfinished. Authority records, bond tracking and transaction records work. There is no load board integration and no automated FMCSA filing.
Prefer email? Write to office@neurobird.com and a person will reply. No autoresponder.