FMCSA-registered interstate motor carrier
Interstate motor carrier
Lease-On 101
Leasing on is the middle road between company driving and owning a carrier. This page explains the model itself — how it works anywhere, not just here — so you can judge any program you're offered. Including ours.
The decision
Maximum control, maximum exposure
You file for your own MC number, buy your own insurance, build your own compliance file, and book your own freight. Every dollar of revenue is yours — and so is every dollar of cost, every filing deadline, and the months many brokers make a new MC wait before offering good freight.
Fits drivers with capital reserves, business appetite, and patience for the ramp-up.
Your business, on an established authority
You stay an independent contractor and owner of your truck, but you run under a carrier's MC number, insurance, and compliance file. The carrier's back office — dispatch, paperwork, fuel cards — works for you, and the costs are itemized on your settlement under a written lease.
Fits drivers who want to own their business without building a carrier around it.
Minimum risk, minimum equity
The company owns the truck, the freight, and the schedule. You get a paycheck and predictability — and give up the upside of ownership entirely.
Fits drivers who want wages, not a business.
Side-by-side numbers live on Pay & Benefits · the long-form math is in the Logbook: Leasing On vs. Your Own Authority →
The mechanics
A motor carrier’s operating authority — the MC number — is federal permission to haul freight for hire across state lines. It comes bundled with obligations: liability insurance, a safety rating, driver qualification files, drug and alcohol programs, audits.
When you lease on, the carrier keeps those obligations and extends the authority to your truck. You bring the equipment and the driving; the carrier brings the legal and commercial infrastructure. The lease agreement — required in writing by 49 CFR Part 376 — is where the split is defined: compensation, deductions, escrow, insurance responsibilities, termination.
That document is the whole game. A good lease-on relationship is a readable lease, honored weekly on an itemized settlement. Everything else is marketing — this page included.
The honest fit test
A driver who leases on for the wrong reasons leaves in six months, and everyone loses the paperwork fight on the way out. Check yourself against both columns.
Heard at every truck stop
“Leasing on means giving up your independence.”
You remain an independent contractor who owns the truck. What you delegate is the carrier-side overhead: authority, insurance, compliance, back office. The lease — a written one, per federal rule — defines exactly where the line sits. Read it and you know precisely what you kept.
“The carrier controls your money.”
Federal Truth-in-Leasing rules (49 CFR Part 376) require your compensation, every chargeback, and all escrow terms to be stated in the lease, and settlements to be itemized. A carrier that follows the rule can't control what it must disclose. A carrier that doesn't follow it is the thing to walk away from.
“All lease-on programs are the same, so pick by the percentage.”
Two programs quoting the same split can net you very different money once fees, chargebacks, fuel terms, and freight quality play out. Compare leases line by line, not headlines. The one-number pitch is exactly the sales move the written lease exists to correct.
“Escrow money is gone money.”
Escrow must be accounted for and returned within 45 days of lease termination, with the deductions itemized (§376.12(k)). If a lease is vague about escrow return, that vagueness is information.
“You can't verify what a carrier tells you.”
You can verify more than recruiters expect: the carrier's authority and safety record on the FMCSA's public SAFER system, the lease against Part 376's checklist, and the settlement math against your rate confirmations. The tools are free and public.
Run our own checklist on us — then on everyone else you’re considering.
