Before you pay anyone
Check the school is still allowed to train you
In December 2025 the federal government removed about 3,000 CDL schools from the register of providers allowed to train new drivers. In January 2026 it removed around 3,800 more, and put thousands of others on notice.
This is the part that costs people everything. Training from a school that is not on the federal register does not count toward your licence — even if the teaching was good, even if you finished, even if you paid in full. Four checks, all free, all official. Ten minutes.
Is the school on the federal register today?
This is the one that decides whether your training counts. Search the school by name or by your city. If it is not there, training with them cannot get you a commercial licence, and no arrangement with the school changes that.
Search the FMCSA Training Provider Registry →Run by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Free, no account.
Has the school been told it may be removed?
A school can still be listed while the government is in the middle of removing it. Those schools appear on a separate list, and they get 30 days to prove they have fixed the problem.
See the proposed removal list →The law is on your side here. A school on that list is required to tell its current students and anyone already booked in. If you are on that list and nobody told you, you have learned something important about the school, and you should ask them directly what the notice said and what they have done about it.
If it is a private school, is it licensed by the state?
This one is about your money rather than your licence. Washington licenses private career schools, and if a school is not on the state list, the protections you would expect may not apply — including the process for getting tuition back if the school closes partway through your course.
Washington's licensed private career schools →Community and technical colleges are not private career schools and will not be on this list. That is normal and not a problem.
If you are a veteran, check the exact campus
The VA's tool shows caution flags, which mean the school is under increased scrutiny from the VA or another federal agency. Two things worth knowing before you rely on it.
- Approval belongs to a specific campus, not to the company. Check the address you would actually attend.
- There is no flag for a school being suspended. So no flag does not mean no problem — it is a reason to keep looking, not a clean bill of health.
What about accreditation?
Most CDL schools are not accredited, and they do not need to be. Accreditation is the gateway to federal college aid, not to a commercial licence. A CDL school being unaccredited is not a warning sign, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
The useful check is the reverse one. If a school advertises that it is accredited, confirm it with the accreditor rather than with the school — most often ACCSC, which also publishes the schools it has put on probation. A school claiming an accreditation it does not hold has told you everything you need to know.
If you find something
If you have not paid yet: stop and ask the school directly. A school that has fixed its problem will say so plainly and show you. Call your local WorkSource office before you pay anyone — paying for training yourself and starting first commonly forecloses money you would otherwise have qualified for.
If you have already paid, or already trained: your training may still be valid if the school was listed on the day you trained. Removal is not retroactive. Ask the school for your training certification record, and if you cannot get it, contact FMCSA and the state board.
Then answer six questions and we will show you what else is open to you, including employers who train you themselves and pay you while you do it.
Where we stand in this
We are not the authority on any of the above, and none of these checks belongs to us. Every one is a free government tool, and the only thing we have added is the order to do them in and what each one actually proves. Where our own listings show a school's federal status, we are copying the register rather than judging anyone — we have no view of our own to add, and it would not be worth much if we did.