My medical card expired

How long a card actually lasts

The federal rule says a driver must be medically examined and certified within the preceding 24 months. So a certificate is good for up to 24 months, and that is the number most drivers think of.

Three cases are shorter, at 12 months, and they are the ones that catch people out because the driver assumed two years:

• A driver with diabetes treated with insulin.
• A driver who needs a vision exemption for the worse eye, on acuity or field of vision.
• A driver authorized to operate only inside an exempt intra-city zone.

If a card is short-dated for any other reason, treat the date on the card as the real date and nothing else.

Who is allowed to examine the driver

The medical examiner has to be listed on FMCSA's National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners. That is the rule, and it is not optional.

• One exception: a licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist can perform the part of the exam covering visual acuity, field of vision and color recognition.
• Another exception: a certified VA medical examiner, for veteran operators only.

The examiner also reports the result to FMCSA electronically. So this is not a piece of paper that only you and the driver know about.

What happens when an examiner says no

If the examiner finds the driver is not physically qualified, the finding is reported to FMCSA, and every medical examiner's certificate previously issued to that driver stops being valid. It does not satisfy the requirement anymore. That is not a matter of waiting for the old card to run out.

This is a hard stop on that driver, and it is the point where a phone call to somebody who knows the process is worth making rather than guessing.

What it costs you to let it slide

• Using a driver who is not medically qualified is an automatic failure of a new entrant safety audit. There is no judgment call in it.
• It is a recordkeeping violation as well. The federal penalty schedule allows up to $1,584 for each day a required record is not kept, up to a maximum of $15,846.
• An out-of-service driver on the road is the expensive version of this. The truck is stopped and the load does not move.

What to do, in order

1. Take the driver out of service that day. The card is the permission to drive. Without it there is nothing to discuss.
2. Book the exam with an examiner on the National Registry. Ask specifically for the Medical Examiner's Certificate, MCSA-5876.
3. Put the copy in the driver qualification file as soon as it comes back. A certificate that exists but is not in the file is a finding.
4. Write down the real expiry date immediately. A short-dated card is the one that lapses again, and the next lapse is the one that costs a load.

What this service does about it

Every driver's medical date sits on a written checklist and gets checked off. It is watched at 60 days out, then 30, then 7. The driver gets chased until it is renewed, and when the phone call at the 7 day mark happens, a lapsed card has not become a stopped truck. The renewed copy goes into the file.

We do not perform the exam and we do not issue anything. The examiner does that. We keep the date from ever arriving unwatched.

Where this comes from: the federal rules at 49 CFR 391.45, on who must be examined and certified and how often, and 49 CFR 391.43, on the National Registry requirement, the exceptions, and the electronic reporting of results, both read September 18, 2026. The recordkeeping penalty is the current maximum published in 49 CFR Appendix B to Part 386.