Clearinghouse queries and § 40.25 are not the same check

Drug-and-alcohol history is the area where hiring files most often go wrong, and the reason is structural: there are two obligations that sound like one. They live in different parts of the CFR, cover different spans of time, and are satisfied by completely different actions.

The Clearinghouse query — § 382.701

The Clearinghouse is a federal database. § 382.701 sets out when you must query it.

Pre-employment

The duty in § 382.701(a)(1) is framed as a bar on employment, not a task with a deadline: an employer must not employ a driver without first conducting a pre-employment query. This is a full query, and it requires the driver's specific consent — a full query releases the actual Clearinghouse information to the employer. The section provides no alternative procedure where consent is not given, which makes the consent step a gate rather than a formality.

Annually, thereafter

Employers must query the Clearinghouse at least once per year for every employee subject to controlled-substance and alcohol testing. The annual obligation may be satisfied with a limited query, which tells the employer only whether information exists about that driver without releasing it. Driver consent for limited queries can be effective for more than one year.

The previous-employer inquiry — § 40.25

Separately, § 40.25 requires an employer to obtain specific drug-and-alcohol information from the prospective employee's previous DOT-regulated employers. This is an inquiry to companies, not a database lookup, and it needs the employee's written consent before you can request the records. Read this section for what the obligation is — then read the next one, because since 2023 the Clearinghouse discharges it for most previous employers a motor carrier will encounter.

What must be requested includes alcohol tests with a concentration of 0.04 or higher, verified positive drug tests, refusals to test (including adulterated or substituted results), other DOT drug-and-alcohol violations, and documentation of successful completion of return-to-duty requirements.

The question you must ask the driver

Two things that stop a driver working

Both are absolute, and both sit in this section rather than in Part 391:

• § 40.25(a)(1) — if the employee refuses to give written consent for the release, you must not permit them to perform safety-sensitive functions. There is no good-faith-effort route around a refusal.
• § 40.25(e) — if you obtain information that the employee violated a DOT drug-and-alcohol regulation, you must not use them for safety-sensitive functions unless you also obtain information that they subsequently complied with the return-to-duty requirements.

And the record has a life of its own: under § 40.25(i) the written, confidential record of what you obtained — or of the good-faith efforts you made — must be retained for three years from the date the employee first performs safety-sensitive duties. Note the trigger, which is not the hire date and not the date the information arrived.

The difference that catches people: the lookback

These three requirements are routinely collapsed into "three years", and one of them is not.

Since January 2023, the Clearinghouse replaces part of this

The two obligations above no longer stack the way they used to, and this is the provision most guidance written before 2023 gets wrong.

Two exceptions in § 391.23(e)(4) keep the direct request alive, and both are narrow:

• (e)(4)(i) — if the applicant has not completed all required follow-up tests, the employer must request the applicant's follow-up testing plan directly from the previous employer.
• (e)(4)(ii) — if the applicant was subject to a testing program under a DOT mode other than FMCSA, the employer must request the information directly from those non-FMCSA-mode employers.

Timing, which also differs

Under § 40.25 the information must be obtained and reviewed before the employee first performs safety-sensitive functions. Where that is not feasible, it must be obtained and reviewed as soon as possible — and no later than 30 days after the employee first performs those duties. As with § 391.23, where the information cannot be obtained, the employer must keep a written, confidential record of the good-faith efforts made to get it.

A working sequence

CDLVOE handles the previous-employer side of this: the § 391.23 investigation and the § 40.25 request go to the same set of former employers, so they are sent together, chased together, and filed into one driver record. The Clearinghouse query itself is run in the federal system — CDLVOE does not sit between you and that database.