FMCSA Makes Rule Changes Regarding Electronic Logging Devices In Commercial Vehicles

The United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) has had a busy second quarter of 2026. 

In May 2026, the FMCSA removed a total of 12 devices from the agency’s registry of electronic logging devices (“ELDs”). These devices were pulled as a result of their respective manufacturers failing to meet minimum federal security and safety standards. 

This decision is increasingly on-brand for the FMCSA, which has now removed a total of 79 ELD models since January of 2025. There is certainly an increasing culture of safety and the scrutiny of risks within the organization, which is well timed in light of the ongoing cyber threats against actors within and across the supply chain sector, of which motor carriers are particularly affected.

In light of this development, motor carriers now have 60 days to replace the revoked ELDs with compliant versions. Carriers can expect to receive a letter from the FMCSA (if they have not received one already) instructing any carrier currently utilizing a banned ELD in their fleet to discontinue their use and revert to paper logs or logging software to replace the revoked ELDs with compliant models. 

The instruction is then to switch an approved ELD model as set out on the FMCSA registry. 

The deadline for doing so is July 20, 2026. 

The FMCSA strongly encourages motor carriers to take the actions listed above now to avoid compliance issues in the event that the deficiencies are not addressed by the ELD provider. 

A full listing of the revoked ELD devices can be found here: https://eld.fmcsa.dot.gov/List 

More on the topic of ELDs, in a Final Rule to be published on June 22, 2026, the FMCSA has now also rescinded the requirement that a copy of the ELD’s user manual be kept inside of a commercial motor vehicle. 

According to the FMCSA, there is no readily apparent benefit to continuing to require that the ELD user manual be kept inside of the commercial motor vehicle since electronic versions are now readily available and truck drivers are already required to have an understanding of how to operate their ELDs in order to maintain their records of duty status.

Public commentary collected in respect of the proposed regulatory change overwhelmingly applauded the agency’s deregulatory proposal and further championed the FMCSA to further eliminate or modify unnecessary and ineffective regulations that have limited probative value in addressing safety concerns (for reference, 3000 drivers were found to be in breach of the ELD provision in 2024, with little to no material impact on risk or safety). 

This final rule, by all accounts, eliminates a regulatory burden on motor carriers without compromising safety.

This new regulation will go into effect on July 22, 2026. 

While the above-captioned efforts by the FMCSA show positive signs of an increasing effort to remove non-compliant devices from trucks on the road, the underlying threat remains largely unresolved, which is that many ELDs marketed under different brand names often share the same problematic underlying software. 

The FMCSA can pull as many ELDs off of its registry as it pleases, but if the underlying software is reciprocated and reproduced in related products which remain registered, the threat to safety and compliance is not truly being resolved or dealt with in any meaningful manner. 

Unlike safety devices in other industries, ELD manufacturers are not (at present) required to submit their devices for independent third-party testing before putting them out to market. Instead, the manufacturers self-certify and register their devices.

As the FMCSA’s ELD registry is not a security certification in its own right, this gap is precisely how non-compliant ELD devices have found their way into commercial motor vehicles at scale in trucks across North America. 

To combat any compliance or safety risk, trucking companies would be well advised to routinely cross-reference their existing ELD portfolios against the updated FMCSA registry.

Taken a step further, fleet operators should engage their vendors to ensure that their ELDs are not a part of a broader subset or grouping of products with shared software language or components. A PDF version is available for download here.