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What Goes in a Driver Qualification File — and How Long You Keep It

Updated September 2026

"Each motor carrier shall maintain a driver qualification file for each driver it employs." That is the whole of 49 CFR 391.51(a), and it applies to anyone driving a commercial motor vehicle for you — not only CDL drivers. If the truck is 10,001 lbs or more and the work is interstate, the person driving it needs a file, whether or not the licence in their wallet is a CDL.

It also applies to you. Someone who is both the carrier and the driver has to follow both sets of rules (391.1(b)) — so an owner-operator keeps a qualification file on themselves.

The list

Under 391.51(b), the file holds:

  1. The driver's application for employment (391.21). Not your ordinary job application — the rule specifies what it must ask, including employment history and accidents and violations.
  2. The motor vehicle record (MVR) from each state where the driver held a licence in the preceding 3 years, obtained when they were hired (391.23(a)(1)).
  3. The road test certificate (391.31) — or a copy of the licence or certificate accepted in its place (391.33).
  4. The MVR you pull every year (391.25(a)).
  5. A note of your annual review of that driving record — who reviewed it and when (391.25(c)(2)).
  6. The medical examiner's certificate (391.43). For a CDL driver, the file instead holds the CDLIS motor vehicle record showing the medical status.
  7. Any medical variance — a Skill Performance Evaluation certificate or a medical exemption, if the driver has one.
  8. A note verifying that the medical examiner was on the National Registry when the exam was done (391.23(m)).

The first 30 days

Two things have a clock on them when someone starts (391.23):

  • The MVR inquiry to every state where the driver was licensed in the last 3 years — made, and the record placed in the file, within 30 days of the date employment begins.
  • The safety performance history investigation — asking the driver's DOT-regulated employers from the preceding three years about them. The replies go in a separate driver investigation history file (391.53), also within 30 days.

The medical certificate is not a 30-day item: a driver has to be medically certified before driving at all.

What repeats

  • Every 12 months: pull a fresh MVR and review it, and put both the record and the note of the review in the file (391.25).
  • Every 24 months, or sooner: the medical exam. A driver must have been examined and certified in the preceding 24 months; the examiner can certify for a shorter period, and some conditions carry a 12-month limit (391.45). Go by the expiry date on the certificate.

How long to keep it

For as long as the driver works for you, and three years after (391.51(c)). Within that, the items that renew — the annual MVRs, the review notes, the medical certificates and the registry verification notes — can each be removed three years after the date they were made (391.51(d)).

Where small fleets come up short

  • No file on the owner. The rule makes no exception for the person who signs the checks.
  • No file on the non-CDL driver of the 14,000-lb box truck.
  • An ordinary job application instead of one that asks what 391.21 requires.
  • The annual MVR with no note that anyone looked at it. The rule asks for both.
  • A medical card that expired in the glovebox. Track the expiry date, not the date of the exam.

Driving a CDL vehicle adds requirements this guide does not cover, notably drug and alcohol testing under 49 CFR Part 382 and the Clearinghouse queries that go with it.

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This is general information, not legal advice, and RelayPoint is not a law firm or a compliance consultant. Sources: 49 CFR 391.1, 391.21, 391.23, 391.25, 391.45, 391.51 and 391.53, as published in September 2026. The list summarises 391.51(b); read the section for the exact wording and for exceptions (for example, multiple-employer and certain farm and intermittent drivers). States set their own rules for in-state operations. Confirm your obligations with the FMCSA or your state's motor carrier authority.