What documents do you need to onboard a carrier?

Onboarding a new carrier means collecting a stack of documents — and then chasing the ones that never arrive. Here's the practical checklist, and how to make the chase disappear.

The core documents

For a cross-border (US–MX) carrier, you'll typically ask for:

• Operating authority — proof the carrier is licensed to haul (MC/DOT in the US, the SCT permit in Mexico).
• Insurance — a current Certificate of Insurance with adequate liability and cargo coverage, naming you where required.
• Tax identity — a W-9 in the US, or a current Constancia de Situación Fiscal in Mexico.
• Banking — a bank letter or voided check for direct deposit.

Why it takes so long

None of these are hard to produce. The delay is the back-and-forth: a missing page, an expired certificate, the wrong entity name. Every gap is another email, and every email is another day the load waits.

Stop chasing

This is exactly what Reley does: each carrier gets a dedicated thread where Reley asks for what's missing, follows up until it arrives, and keeps the whole packet current — so your team only steps in to decide, never to chase.

The documents become a verifiable profile that travels with the carrier to the next audit, the next renewal, the next lane.