Freight Brokers With Authority

Running freight under your MC number changes the math entirely. You spent years brokering loads, watching carriers pocket the linehaul while you worked the margin. Then you pulled your own authority. Maybe you started with one truck to cover the lanes you knew best. Now the board is full and you're losing loads because you don't have the capacity to cover them. That's the moment where financing is either the thing that moves you forward or the bottleneck that keeps you brokering somebody else's freight.

We work with freight brokers who have added carrier authority and are building out a Class 8 fleet. The profile is common and we understand it: a brokerage business with real revenue history, an MC number that may be under two years old on the carrier side, and a clear plan to serve specific lanes with owned equipment. Banks often balk at the hybrid model. We don't. If you can show us the loads and the revenue, we can usually work with the story.

The typical operator in this space ran a freight brokerage, built relationships with shippers, learned which lanes moved consistently, and decided to capture more of that revenue by owning the truck. Some start with one Equipment Options on a regional lane and grow from there. Others jump straight to a pair of Financing Options to cover longer OTR runs they were previously dispatching to other carriers.

The challenge is that lenders use time in business on the carrier side, not the brokerage side, as the primary metric. A broker who has operated for five years but only held carrier authority for fourteen months looks like a startup to a traditional truck lender. That's where we come in. We look at the combined business history, total revenue, brokerage income, and the contract or load history that supports the plan. A two-year-old brokerage with solid books is not the same risk as a genuine startup.

For operators who genuinely are in the first year with their authority, we have a Get Fleet Terms program that addresses the documentation requirements for newer MC numbers. It typically involves a larger down payment and a shorter term, but it gets equipment in the yard.

Application-only financing is available up to approximately $400,000, which covers most single-unit and some two-unit deals on mid-price Class 8 tractors. For a broker-carrier buying a first or second truck running about $80k to $150k, application-only is often the right structure. Three months of bank statements and the application itself. If you're buying multiple units or the deal exceeds that threshold, we'll need additional documentation, usually tax returns for the brokerage and a look at current load board activity or contract freight.

Down payment requirements vary by credit profile and time under authority. Stronger credit and longer operating history can get you into a deal with less cash out of pocket. Operators with shorter authority history or challenged credit should expect to bring more to the table up front, but that doesn't close the door. We have structured deals for broker-carriers with credit scores in the high 500s who had strong brokerage revenue and a clear lane plan.

The equipment itself matters. Aerodynamic highway tractors like the Freightliner Cascadia, Kenworth T680, and Peterbilt 579 hold residual value well and are broadly acceptable collateral. Specialty builds or heavily modified trucks are harder to finance and may require more equity. If you're buying used equipment, we handle used semi financing and review used units on a case-by-case basis rather than drawing a hard age cutoff.