FMCSA Revokes 133 Logging Devices and Gives Two Different Deadlines

• On Nov. 12 FMCSA dropped 133 truck logging devices from its registry: 121 through agency revocation and 12 through withdrawal by the providers themselves.
• The Department of Transportation tells inspectors to cite drivers and park them out of service on or after Nov. 24, while FMCSA’s own carrier notice gives a 60 day window that appears to end Jan. 12, 2027.
• Truck drivers and carriers should look up each device’s name and ELD identifier on FMCSA’s Revoked ELDs list now and keep paper logs ready until a compliant replacement is installed.

Which Deadline Will an Inspector Enforce?

Inspectors have been told to cite any truck driver still running a revoked electronic logging device on or after Nov. 24, 2026, and to place that driver out of service. The Department of Transportation issued that instruction on Nov. 12, the day the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration struck 133 devices off its registry. The same release tells motor carriers they “have up to 60 days to replace the revoked ELDs with a compliant ELD.”

Both instructions cannot hold at once. Nov. 24 falls 12 days after the announcement, not 60. The release says safety officials who meet a driver using a revoked device “on or after November 24, 2026, should cite 395.8(a)(1) and place the driver out-of-service.” The notice FMCSA emailed to carriers on Nov. 13 gives a different date, telling them to replace the devices “before January 12, 2026.” That year has already passed, so the line reads as a typo for Jan. 12, 2027, which lands exactly 60 days after the notice. The notice does not mention Nov. 24 at all.

FMCSA has not reconciled the two dates as of Nov. 15, and nothing published says which one an inspector will apply. The agency has a precedent for the longer window. Its Aug. 6, 2026 notice on five devices gave carriers until Oct. 6 to swap them, roughly two months out, and urged inspectors to hold off on citations until that date passed. The earlier date carries the lower risk for a driver on the road. A carrier that installs a replacement by Nov. 24 loses nothing if FMCSA later confirms January, while a driver stopped on Nov. 24 with a revoked unit in the cab gets a citation and an out of service order.

What FMCSA Found Behind the 133 Revocations

Motoring Chronicle’s July report on truckers using 12 logging devices covered a far smaller batch. The Department of Transportation calls this action “the largest ELD revocation in FMCSA history.” The agency has described three cases from its investigations and withheld every company name “to avoid compromising ongoing investigations.” In the first, a provider allegedly let carriers phone a support line and have recorded driving time wiped, with fabricated rest periods written in while the truck was still moving. In the second, a provider allegedly uploaded false logs in the middle of a roadside inspection, hiding that the driver had run past the legal limit. In the third, a provider’s logs allegedly placed trucks at up to 130 mph, a figure investigators said was used to shrink logged driving time.

FMCSA has not said how many carriers or drivers used the 133 devices, and it has not linked any device to a specific crash. A device on the revoked list does not mean its maker was one of the three providers described.

The reach goes beyond the trucking yard. DOT says a manipulated or noncompliant device lets a carrier erase driving time, invent rest periods and conceal violations, which can keep a fatigued driver behind the wheel past federal limits. Those limits protect everyone sharing the interstate with a loaded tractor trailer. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put the case in his own terms.

“This latest crackdown — which required hundreds of man-hours and extensive forensic investigations — will prevent criminals from cooking the books, sabotaging trucker wages, and endangering you and your family when you drive,” Duffy said.

FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said the target was the loophole itself.

“We are removing noncompliant and fraudulent devices to close loopholes that can be exploited to evade oversight, avoid revocation, bypass vetting requirements or undermine accurate hours-of-service records,” Barrs said. “This action protects law-abiding carriers and drivers and makes clear that FMCSA will not tolerate devices that compromise the integrity of the ELD system.”

Providers register devices with FMCSA and certify for themselves that the units comply. The Nov. 13 carrier notice says the removed devices failed the technical minimums set out in 49 CFR Part 395, Subpart B, Appendix A. A DOT post on X the day of the announcement added that FMCSA is now investigating the suspected fraudster behind the examples and that more actions are coming.

What the Rules Already Required

The revocation adds no new driving rule. Under 49 CFR 395.8(a)(1)(i), a motor carrier must put an ELD in its trucks and make every driver log duty status with it. Four groups can still keep paper records under 395.8(a)(1)(ii): drivers who need a record of duty status on no more than 8 days in any 30 day period, drivers in a driveaway towaway operation, drivers moving a motor home or recreation vehicle trailer in that kind of operation, and drivers of vehicles built before model year 2000. A paper log must be written in duplicate on the specified grid for each 24 hour period.

The hours limits that the devices track have not changed either. Under 49 CFR 395.3, a driver needs 10 consecutive hours off duty before driving, cannot drive after the 14th consecutive hour following that rest, and is capped at 11 hours of driving inside that window. Driving stops after 8 hours without a 30 minute break. Weekly caps are 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days, or 70 hours in 8 consecutive days for a carrier that runs every day, and 34 or more consecutive hours off duty restarts the count.

Tampering was a violation before Nov. 12. Section 395.8(e) bars any driver or carrier from making a false report of duty status, and bars anyone from disabling, jamming or reprogramming an ELD so it stops recording accurately. Paragraph (e)(3) goes further: no driver or carrier can permit or require another person to do it. A carrier that lets a support line edit its drivers’ hours is in violation regardless of whether anyone at the carrier touched a log. From April 1, 2026, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s out of service criteria have listed ELD tampering as a separate out of service violation, and it became a focus of this year’s International Roadcheck.

Records also outlast the hardware. Section 395.8(k) sets a minimum retention of 6 months for a carrier’s duty status records and supporting paperwork, and each driver must carry a copy covering the previous 7 consecutive days for inspection. A replacement unit does not wipe the history the old one captured, so a carrier that cancels a revoked provider before exporting its logs can end up unable to produce them.

What Drivers and Carriers Should Do Before Nov. 24

Start with the list. FMCSA’s Revoked ELDs list had 121 devices from 83 providers dated Nov. 12 as of that evening, and the 12 self-revoked devices had not yet appeared. Search by device name and ELD identifier, not by company name, as one provider can have units on the registered list while others sit on the revoked one. The list changes as devices are added, corrected or reinstated, so check it again before Nov. 24 and again if FMCSA changes its guidance. A driver who does not own the truck should ask the carrier which device is installed and whether it appears.

If the device is on the list, put affected drivers on paper logs, or on logging software, now, which is what FMCSA’s revocation notices direct. Stock every cab with enough blank graph grid logs and confirm drivers know how to fill them in. Choose the replacement from the Registered Devices List, confirming the exact device and version, and export the old system’s records before closing that account.

Audit the history too. Flag unexplained edits, driving time that vanishes, strings of flawless days, impossible speeds and changes started by support staff. Ask the vendor how edits get made and recorded, whether its staff can alter a driver’s record, and whether any of its devices has been revoked or re-registered. For a carrier, that review is the best protection against the (e)(3) exposure. Anyone who spots an unsafe truck on the road can report it through the agency’s revamped complaint center.

What the Industry Says and What Happens Next

The American Trucking Associations put out a Nov. 13 statement in support.

“ATA strongly supports FMCSA’s decisive action to crack down on fraudulent electronic logging devices that undermine highway safety and put law-abiding motor carriers at a competitive disadvantage,” said Nathan Mehrens, who holds the senior vice president post for regulatory affairs and workforce policy at ATA.

“We commend Secretary Duffy, Administrator Barrs and their teams for taking this important step to restore integrity to the ELD system and hold bad actors accountable,” Mehrens said. “Fraudsters have no place in an industry where safety is paramount, and carriers must be able to trust that the devices they rely on meet federal standards.”

ATA plans to publish its ELD certification recommendations the week of Nov. 16. In October 2025 its Safety Policy Committee voted for tougher safeguards, third-party certification among them, and formed a working group to address known fraud. Mehrens previewed the plan.

“Next week, ATA looks forward to unveiling a comprehensive road map to strengthen the ELD certification process by introducing third-party certification and closing the front door on fraudsters seeking to exploit weaknesses in the system,” he said. “Today’s action is an important step forward, and preventing noncompliant devices from entering the marketplace in the first place is essential to protecting motorists and ensuring a level playing field for responsible motor carriers.”

Three developments decide how this ends. FMCSA still has to say whether Nov. 24 or Jan. 12 is the enforcement date. A revoked device can return to the registered list if its provider corrects every deficiency the agency found. And the pace continues: by May, FMCSA had removed 79 devices from January 2025, leaving about 1,050 on the registered list and more than 250 on the revoked list, and an agency spokesperson says enhanced vetting in 2025 blocked 552 more vendor applications.

Check the device name and identifier against the Revoked ELDs list, line up a replacement from the Registered Devices List, keep paper logs in the cab and treat Nov. 24 as the date that counts.

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Sources

• FreightWaves: FMCSA revokes 133 electronic logging devices in fraud crackdown
• Transport Topics: FMCSA removes 133 ELDs from registered devices list
• Trucksafe: FMCSA Pulls 133 ELDs in Largest Revocation in Agency History
• Cornell LII: 49 CFR 395.8, Driver’s record of duty status

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar