The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has finalized a rule that tightens oversight of commercial driver's licenses held by non-citizens, and Jackson Lewis attorneys warn the compliance burden lands squarely on motor carriers.

The regulation, analyzed in a Jackson Lewis client alert, changes how carriers must verify and monitor the licensing status of non-citizen drivers. For HR and safety teams at trucking and logistics employers, that means revising onboarding checks, license-verification procedures and ongoing monitoring practices.

The rule targets a gap carriers already know well: non-citizen CDL holders whose authorization to drive can lapse or change while they remain employed. Jackson Lewis frames the practical consequence as a carrier burden — employers, not regulators, will carry the verification work and the exposure if it's done wrong.

What does the rule change for carriers?

The FMCSA action cracks down on how non-citizen commercial driver's licenses are issued and tracked. Carriers should expect:

• Tighter verification duties when hiring non-citizen drivers
• Closer monitoring of license validity during employment
• Greater exposure to penalties if a driver's status lapses undetected

Jackson Lewis's alert focuses on the operational fallout rather than the rule's drafting history. The firm's core message: carriers need to treat non-citizen CDL verification as an active, ongoing compliance process, not a one-time hiring check.

What should HR teams do now?

For employers in regulated freight and passenger transport, the rule touches several people-process decisions. Recruiting and onboarding teams will need updated screening steps for CDL applicants who are non-citizens. Safety and compliance functions will need a monitoring cadence that catches status changes between annual reviews.

Jackson Lewis advises carriers to review their driver-qualification files and verification workflows against the new requirements. The firm also signals that mishandling these checks creates risk beyond the driver — the carrier's own registration and safety ratings sit on the line.

Employers that rely heavily on non-citizen drivers face the most rework. That's a large share of the trucking sector, where workforce shortages have pushed carriers toward broader labor pools for years.

The rule also raises a practical training question: who inside the organization owns the recurring check? Assigning it to a named role — whether in HR, safety or a dedicated compliance function — matters more under a regime where ongoing monitoring, not just hire-date verification, defines compliance.

Carriers should expect enforcement attention to follow the rule's effective date, and Jackson Lewis's alert positions the change as one motor carriers can't afford to treat as paperwork. FMCSA has put the verification duty on employers; how each carrier rebuilds its process around that duty will determine the practical cost.