Amazon Relay CSA & BASIC Score Requirements | Carrier Guide 2026

Amazon Relay requires percentile rankings below its own stricter thresholds across five BASIC categories, which sit 5 percentage points below FMCSA's federal intervention thresholds. Specifically: Unsafe Driving must be below 60% (FMCSA: 65%), HOS Compliance below 60% (FMCSA: 65%), Vehicle Maintenance below 75% (FMCSA: 80%), Driver Fitness below 75% (FMCSA: 80%), and Controlled Substances below 75% (FMCSA: 80%). Amazon publishes this policy directly on the Relay portal as its carrier vetting standard. The two BASIC categories Amazon does not monitor are Crash Indicator and Hazardous Materials, both of which are private data not visible in FMCSA's public Safety Measurement System. Amazon also requires an FMCSA Safety Rating of "Satisfactory," "None," or "Not Rated" — a Conditional or Unsatisfactory federal rating disqualifies the application before CSA review. Percentile scores update monthly based on trailing 24-month roadside inspection and crash data, so a carrier that crosses a threshold has a one-month early warning cycle from the Relay Safety Scorecard before Amazon typically initiates coaching contact.

In fall 2025, Amazon Relay announced two new safety metrics that sit on top of the existing BASIC monitoring: the Driver Violation Rate and the Vehicle Violation Rate. Both are calculated from 12 months of roadside inspection data with greater weight given to out-of-service violations. Amazon started enforcing these limits for existing carriers in February 2026; new carriers onboarding must meet the thresholds immediately. The Driver Violation Rate must be at or below 35% to qualify for Relay loads. It measures how often driver-related violations occur across the carrier's inspections — HOS violations, driver documentation gaps, driver-cited defects, controlled-substance findings, license-related issues. The Vehicle Violation Rate has a similarly calculated threshold visible in the Relay Safety Scorecard on the carrier's portal; it measures how often vehicle-related violations occur — brake defects, tires, lighting, coupling, load securement. Enforcement uses a 3-strike mechanic: carriers with 3 or more inspections that exceed the threshold in the 12-month window may lose access to Relay loads with no appeal process. The rates are visible in real time on the Relay Safety Scorecard.

Amazon Relay requires a minimum of 180 days of active DOT authority (with a valid MC number) before it will review an application. Carriers can submit an application with less than 180 days of authority — Amazon accepts the submission and holds it — but the review only starts once the 180-day threshold is met. Industry best practice is to apply around month 4 or 5 of authority so the file is ready for review as soon as day 180 hits. Beyond authority tenure, applications also require the entity to be classified as a "Carrier" authorized for Property and For Hire in FMCSA records. Applications typically review within about three weeks of becoming eligible. During those first 180 days, carriers should focus on building the clean roadside inspection record, DQ file completeness, and DVIR discipline that will produce favorable CSA percentiles and violation rates by the time the application reaches the safety review stage. A carrier that reaches day 180 with a high BASIC percentile or violation rate has a much longer path to Relay access than one that used those 180 days to build a clean compliance history from day one.

Amazon Relay monitors five of the seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories from FMCSA's Safety Measurement System: Unsafe Driving, HOS Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Driver Fitness, and Controlled Substances. These are the five categories that are publicly visible in FMCSA data. The two categories Amazon does NOT monitor are Crash Indicator and Hazardous Materials, both of which are private in FMCSA's SMS and therefore not available for Amazon's vetting process. Amazon has confirmed this scoping directly in its Relay blog materials. The practical implication for carriers: incidents that only touch Crash Indicator or HAZMAT don't directly affect Relay eligibility, but the underlying operational failures those incidents represent almost always also register in one of the five monitored categories, so treating any BASIC as low-priority is a risk. Under the 2026 CSA overhaul, the categories have been renamed and partially restructured — Vehicle Maintenance is now split into "Standard" and "Driver Observed," and Controlled Substances is increasingly consolidated with Unsafe Driving. Amazon's monitoring adapts to these federal changes on FMCSA's data release schedule.

No. Amazon Relay has stated explicitly that there is no appeal process for enforcement decisions based on the new 2026 violation rate metrics. The same "no appeal" policy applies to BASIC score exceedances that cross Amazon's stricter thresholds. Responsibility for identifying violation trends, correcting them, and maintaining eligibility falls entirely on the carrier. The operational implication: Amazon Relay compliance requires proactive monitoring, not reactive response. Carriers monitor the Relay Safety Scorecard monthly, watch for BASIC percentile drift toward thresholds, watch for violation rate accumulation across the 12-month rolling window, and address underlying operational issues before roadside inspections produce the next citation. Amazon does perform outreach through coaching contact when a score is nearing a threshold, but this is advisory, not appealable. If load access is lost, the recovery path is a documented pattern of clean inspections over subsequent months that pulls the trailing metrics back below the threshold. There is no fast track. Prevention through disciplined inspection, maintenance, and driver-training programs is the only reliable Relay compliance strategy.