A carrier packet is the set of documents a broker needs before they will put freight on your truck. Every broker wants substantially the same things, each in a slightly different format, and getting it wrong is the most common reason a new authority sits for a week.
The documents
Operating authority letter. Issued by FMCSA, showing your legal name, address, MC number, and USDOT number. This is proof you are permitted to operate for hire. Download it and keep a clean PDF — brokers will not accept a phone photograph of a screen.
W-9. Your EIN and legal business name, so the broker can report what they pay you. The single most common error in a carrier packet is a W-9 whose legal name does not exactly match the name on the authority. It will bounce, and the bounce will happen on the day you needed the load.
Certificate of insurance. Proof of coverage, typically at least $1,000,000 auto liability and $100,000 cargo, though some shippers and commodities require more. The broker generally needs to be named as certificate holder, and that means requesting it from your agent for each broker rather than reusing one PDF. Your agent will do this routinely; ask them to send it directly.
Equipment list. Your tractor and trailer with VINs, years, and unit numbers. Straightforward, and easy to keep current.
Broker-carrier agreement. Their contract. Read it — particularly the payment terms, the double-brokering clause, and anything about claims liability. This is the document people sign fastest and should read slowest.
Notice of assignment. Only if you factor. It tells the broker to pay your factoring company instead of you. Leave it out and the broker pays you directly, which puts you in breach of your factoring agreement and creates a genuine mess with your factor.
A cover page. Company name, MC and DOT numbers, phone, email, and equipment. Not required by anyone. It makes you look like a business that has done this before, and that is worth something with a broker deciding whether to call you back.
What brokers check that is not in the packet
Your FMCSA authority status and your safety record are public, and broker vetting systems pull them automatically. So is your insurance filing. If your authority shows as anything other than active, or your filings are not current, you will be declined before a human sees your packet — and usually nobody will tell you why.
Check your own record the way a broker sees it before you start calling. Surprises there are expensive.
The part nobody warns you about
Insurance certificates expire annually. When yours renews, every broker you are set up with needs the new one. Miss that and your first indication will be a load falling through on a Monday morning, on a system rule, with nobody to argue with.
Keeping that current across twenty broker relationships is exactly the kind of administrative work that gets skipped when you are driving. It is part of what we do under carrier packet setup, and it is unglamorous enough that it is worth saying out loud.