Do you dispatch Virginia carriers running out of state?

Yes — most of the work is nationwide. Being based in Virginia matters for knowing the lanes and the markets, not for restricting where your truck goes.

What are the main freight corridors in Virginia?

I-95 runs the whole eastern seaboard through Richmond and Fredericksburg toward DC and the northeast. I-64 crosses east–west from Hampton Roads through Richmond to the Blue Ridge and into West Virginia. I-81 runs the Shenandoah Valley on a diagonal and carries enormous through-freight between the northeast and the south. I-85 drops southwest from Petersburg toward the Carolinas.

What is different about running freight in Virginia?

Three things. The Port of Virginia generates drayage and inland container volume with its own rules and clocks. The DC metro area at the top of I-95 has restrictions and congestion that wreck naive route plans. And the state is long east to west, so a load that looks regional on a map can eat a full day crossing it.

Do you handle Port of Virginia drayage?

Port work runs on appointment systems, chassis availability, per diem and demurrage clocks that keep running whether or not you can get through the gate. If you are working NIT or the other terminals, tell me what your turn times look like and we can talk honestly about whether dispatch adds value.

What about IFTA and IRP for Virginia carriers?

If you cross state lines in a qualifying vehicle you need IFTA fuel tax reporting and IRP apportioned plates, both administered through Virginia as your base jurisdiction. They are renewals with deadlines, which is exactly the category of thing that quietly deactivates a working authority.

What does dispatch cost?

A flat 10% per load, invoiced every Friday, 30 days' notice to leave with no penalty.

JackRick Logistics

Trucking With a Felony: An Honest Guide for Drivers and Owner-Operators

The short answer

Trucking with a felony is possible: no federal rule bars felons from holding a CDL, and carriers set their hiring standards. The hard limits are hazmat endorsements and TWIC cards, where TSA's published disqualifying offenses and timelines are absolute. Disclose early, target carriers whose policies clear you, and build clean time — the one factor every gatekeeper rewards.

Written from the published work of Shay Denise, freight strategist & commercial insurance broker, Hampton Roads VA Last updated September 28, 2026

A felony record narrows but rarely closes the door on trucking — the key is knowing which segments clear you.

Trucking with a felony is possible — thousands of drivers with criminal records work in this industry every day. But it is also one of the few career topics where the honest answer is "it depends" rather than a yes or no. Whether you can get hired, get your own authority, or haul certain kinds of freight depends on what the conviction was, how long ago it happened, which state you live in, and which carrier or broker you want to work with. This page lays out the realities without sugarcoating, so you can make a clear-eyed plan.

The first thing to understand is that no federal rule permanently bars people with felony records from holding a commercial driver's license. Getting the CDL itself is usually the least of the obstacles. The real gatekeepers are carriers and their insurance companies, who run criminal background checks as part of the driver qualification process and set their own hiring standards. Some carriers have strict lookback periods — commonly three, five, seven, or ten years — and disqualifying conviction types. Others run second-chance programs specifically for drivers with records. Knowing where each carrier stands before you apply saves months of wasted applications.

JackRick Logistics is a truck dispatch service run by Shay Denise, a Freight Strategist and licensed commercial insurance broker based in Hampton Roads, Virginia, working with owner-operators and small fleets since 2022. Dispatch terms are simple and public: a flat 10 percent per load, invoiced every Friday, no retainer, no minimum volume, and no long-term contract — just 30 days' written notice. This page is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Call (757) 744-2484 or email [email protected] for guidance tailored to your situation.

The First Truth: Carriers Decide, Not a Single Rule

Unlike the medical card or the skills test, there is no single national rule that says which felonies disqualify a driver from trucking. Federal motor carrier safety regulations require carriers to maintain a driver qualification file and to check an applicant's safety performance history, but the decision about criminal history is largely left to each carrier's hiring policy — and to its insurer's underwriting appetite. A large fleet with a captive insurance program may be able to accept a driver that a small carrier's insurance market would reject outright.

This is why blanket advice like "trucking hires felons" or "you can't drive with a felony" is both wrong. The realistic picture is a spectrum. Mega-carriers with formal second-chance hiring programs, dedicated food and beverage fleets, and many regional LTL operations have hired drivers with records for decades. Specialty segments — hazmat, military freight, port drayage, and some high-security government-adjacent freight — are harder or impossible depending on the conviction. The match between your record and the segment you target matters more than trucking as a whole.

What this means practically: do not apply everywhere and hope. Research carriers' written hiring policies, ask recruiters directly about the conviction type and the timeline, and get the answer in writing where you can. A recruiter's verbal "should be fine" is not the same as clearing the insurance underwriter. Honest, targeted applications beat a hundred scattershot ones.

What Carriers Actually See on Your Background Check

When a carrier runs a background check, it is not one check but several. The motor carrier sees your Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) report from FMCSA, which shows your crash and roadside inspection history — not criminal records. Your DAC employment history report from HireRight shows your prior trucking employment, including reasons for leaving and eligibility for rehire. Separately, the carrier or its background vendor runs a criminal history check, typically covering state and federal records over whatever lookback period its policy sets.

Your driver qualification file (DQF) is the carrier's legal obligation, and the carrier must keep it current. That file includes your MVR, medical certificate, employment verifications, and the results of the checks above. If a carrier discovers a conviction you did not disclose — or discovers that you failed to disclose a disqualifying offense on a federal application — the result is almost always termination and a permanent mark on your employment record. Lying on the application is consistently worse for your career than the underlying record.

You can pull your own PSP report and your own DAC report before you apply, and you should. Review them for errors the same way you would a credit report. If an old conviction shows on a commercial background check that the carrier's stated policy says should not disqualify you, having your own copies of the records — disposition, sentencing, release dates — lets you answer the recruiter's questions precisely instead of from memory.

Hazmat Endorsements and Felony Convictions

The hazmat endorsement is where felony history hits a hard, formal wall. The Transportation Security Administration conducts a security threat assessment on every hazmat applicant, and its published rules list disqualifying criminal offenses in two groups. Permanently disqualifying offenses include terrorism-related crimes, espionage, treason, murder, and certain explosives offenses — convictions for these end the conversation for hazmat, with no time limit.

The second group is interim disqualifying offenses: if you were convicted within the past seven years or released from prison within the past five years, TSA denies the threat assessment. This group covers a wide range — assault, kidnapping, robbery, unlawful weapons offenses, burglary, theft, fraud, bribery, smuggling, immigration violations, and drug distribution, among others. A single interim offense from nine years ago with a clean record since may clear; the same offense from three years ago will not.

TSA also considers warrants and immigration status, and it publishes an appeals and waiver process for applicants who believe the record is wrong or incomplete. Note that this is general information about published rules, not legal advice: the lists evolve, and individual determinations involve details this page cannot cover. If hazmat is part of your plan, read TSA's current list yourself and be prepared for a straight yes or no — this is the one part of trucking where the answer is not up to the carrier.

TWIC Cards, Ports, and Drayage

Port and rail ramp work requires a Transportation Worker Identification Credential — a TWIC card — and TSA applies essentially the same security threat assessment standard as it does for hazmat. The same permanently and interim disqualifying offenses apply, on the same timelines. If a felony conviction blocks your hazmat endorsement today, it will block your TWIC today too. Intermodal drayage, port drayage, and any container work that enters a maritime security facility goes through this gate.

That does not close the door on intermodal entirely, but it narrows it: you can still haul intermodal freight that does not require a TWIC for the move itself, such as rail-ramp-to-warehouse containers at facilities outside secure perimeters, provided the equipment provider and your carrier clear your record. Be direct with any drayage carrier about whether the specific accounts require TWIC, because losing a TWIC application mid-onboarding is a costly stall.

TWIC eligibility can be revisited over time, and TSA's appeals process exists for genuine errors and identity issues. If port work is your long-term target, build your record in the meantime — clean driving, steady employment, and time since the conviction are exactly what TSA's time-based standards reward.

How to Talk to Carriers and Dispatchers About Your Record

Disclose early, disclose plainly, and bring documentation. The drivers who succeed with records are the ones who lead with the facts: the charge, the conviction date, the sentence, the release date, and what has happened since. Carriers and dispatchers hear this story constantly; what distinguishes a hireable driver is specificity and ownership, not apologies or evasion. A candidate who says "2018 conviction, served 22 months, released March 2020, clean CDL since 2021, here are my references" gets taken seriously. A candidate who hides it and gets caught gets blacklisted.

Time your applications to carrier policies. Many carriers publish their lookback windows — if a carrier's policy is five years and your conviction is four and a half years old, waiting six months is smarter than applying now and burning the application. Some carriers allow re-application after a waiting period; others treat a denied application as final. Ask the recruiter which it is.

Small carriers and owner-operators hiring company drivers are sometimes more flexible than large fleets, but their insurance markets may not be. The reverse can also be true: a large carrier with a formal second-chance program has already worked out the insurance mechanics. Either way, the question to ask the recruiter is not "do you hire felons" but "does your insurer accept this specific conviction at this age of conviction." That is the question that decides it.

Expungement, Sealing, and the Long Game

Expungement and record sealing are real legal processes that, depending on the state, can remove a conviction from the records employers see or limit who can see it. They are not myths, and they are not automatic — eligibility varies by state, by offense type, and by how much time has passed since the sentence was completed. Some states exclude certain felonies entirely; others allow expungement for a broad range of offenses after a clean period. This is a state-by-state question that belongs with a criminal defense attorney, not a dispatch office.

A note of caution that matters in trucking specifically: even a sealed or expunged record may still appear to federal agencies during a TSA threat assessment for hazmat or TWIC, because federal background processes can access records that state sealing does not reach. Expungement improves your odds with carrier background checks and general employment, but do not assume it clears federal credentialing. Again — general information, not legal advice.

The long game works. Time is the one factor TSA's rules, carrier lookback periods, and insurers all reward. Every clean year on a CDL with steady work history moves you further from the conviction and closer to the widest set of opportunities. Many drivers with records built entire owner-operator businesses on exactly this patience: start where the door is open, keep the record clean, and let the timeline do its work.

Key takeaways

No federal rule bars felons from holding a CDL — carriers and their insurers set the actual hiring standards.
Hazmat endorsements and TWIC cards follow TSA's published disqualifying-offense lists; carriers have no discretion there.
Interim TSA disqualifications run on seven-year conviction and five-year release timelines.
Disclosing a conviction early beats getting caught hiding it — dishonesty ends applications the record itself would not.
Expungement can help with carrier checks but may not clear federal threat assessments.
Time, clean driving, and steady work history are the strongest factors for widening your options.

FAQ

Questions carriers ask

Can you get a CDL with a felony on your record?

In most states, yes. There is no federal rule that bars people with felony convictions from obtaining a commercial driver's license. State rules vary, and the practical challenge is not the license itself but getting hired or insured afterward. Check your state's licensing agency for any state-specific restrictions, and understand that the CDL is the beginning of the process, not the end of it.

Can you get a hazmat endorsement with a felony?

It depends on the conviction and the timeline. TSA runs a security threat assessment with published lists of disqualifying offenses: some, like terrorism and murder, disqualify permanently, while others disqualify if convicted within the last seven years or released within the last five. If your offense and timeline clear TSA's current list, you can hold the endorsement. If not, you cannot — and the carrier has no discretion in the matter.

Do trucking companies run criminal background checks?

Nearly all carriers do, alongside PSP and DAC reports. Carriers must maintain driver qualification files and typically check state and federal criminal records over their policy's lookback period. Disclose convictions on the application — carriers treat undisclosed findings as dishonesty, which is a separate and usually career-ending problem from the record itself.

Can you get your own trucking authority with a felony?

Nothing in federal authority registration bars it, but the insurance market is the real gatekeeper. New authorities already pay the highest premiums, and a criminal record narrows the list of insurers willing to quote. Owner-operators with records typically do better after a few years of clean company driving, which builds the experience and loss history that insurers underwrite.

Does expungement help a truck driver with a felony?

It can help significantly with carrier background checks and general employment, because eligibility rules and the records employers can see vary by state. But it may not clear federal processes: TSA threat assessments for hazmat and TWIC can still surface sealed or expunged records. Treat expungement as a genuine improvement worth pursuing with a criminal defense attorney, not as a magic eraser.

Should you tell a dispatcher about your record?

Yes — a dispatcher books your freight and vouches for your fitness with brokers and shippers, so a surprise finding mid-load is the worst possible outcome. Disclose the conviction, the timeline, and your documentation up front. Dispatchers who know your record will steer you toward carriers and freight segments that actually clear you, which is faster than applying blind.

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