Road freight compliance in the EU: what a carrier has to have, carry, and retain

The rules a road freight operator has to follow in the EU are split across European regulations and each country's own laws. The European framework sets out what every carrier must do; each member state fills in the specifics, the authorities, the fees, the retention periods, the fines. To check whether an operation is in order usually means going through several sources, and even then it is hard to be sure everything has been covered.

This guide brings the framework together in one place. The licence to operate, the vehicle documents, the driver's documents, the goods documents, the tachograph, what to keep and for how long, and who inspects what. For each one it explains what the rule is, where it comes from, and what happens when it fails.

The licence to operate

Carrying goods for other companies, in vehicles above a set weight (2,500 kg since the EU Mobility Package), can only be done by companies licensed for it. The licence is national for domestic work, or a Community licence, which covers both domestic and international transport. Licences last a maximum of five years and are renewable.

Getting the licence depends on four legal requirements, set out in Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009, and they are checked on an ongoing basis. Meeting them once at the start is not enough. The company has to keep meeting them and be able to prove it whenever the licensing authority asks.

1. Good repute

The transport manager and the company's directors and managers must have a clean record of certain offences. A build-up of serious offences can put this at risk, and without it there is no licence.

2. Professional competence

The company must have a certified transport manager, who can be one of the directors, a partner, an employee, or someone brought in for the role.

3. Financial standing

The company must be able to show a set level of financial capacity, worked out per licensed vehicle, and prove it every year. The exact amounts are set in the regulation and change from time to time.

4. A real, fixed place of business

A genuine address in the country where the company is based, where it keeps the main documents of the business. A post-office box does not count.

In international transport, each vehicle carries a certified copy of the Community licence, while the original stays at the company. The Community licence also allows cabotage, meaning domestic transport done in another EU country after an international trip. The limits are tight. There can be at most three trips within seven days, followed by four days without cabotage in that country, and the driver has to be able to prove the international trip that led to it and each trip done afterwards, usually through the CMR.

The documents that travel with the vehicle

Every vehicle in the fleet has its own set of papers, and any roadside check starts by asking for them. These are the registration document, proof of insurance, a valid roadworthiness certificate, and the vehicle licence. The categories are the same across the EU, though the documents' names and the issuing bodies differ by country.

With insurance renewing on different dates and roadworthiness tests spread through the year, the hard part is making sure no document lapses before the company notices.

The driver's documents

A professional heavy goods driver needs more than a licence for the right category. They also need the professional qualification, known as the Driver CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence), shown by code 95 on the driving licence, or a driver qualification card for non-resident drivers. This has to be renewed every five years through training. Without it, the driver cannot work professionally.

They also need the tachograph driver card, which is personal and cannot be shared. Using another driver's card is one of the most serious offences and can lead to criminal charges as well. The card lasts five years, and renewal should be requested in advance, because the new card starts empty and the data on the old one has to be downloaded before the swap or it is lost.

For dangerous goods, the driver also needs ADR training, and above certain quantities the company must appoint a safety adviser. Dangerous goods add paperwork to every trip and are a subject of their own.

There is also the attestation of activities, the European form that accounts for the days a driver has no tachograph records, such as sick leave, holidays, or driving a vehicle that is out of scope. Without it, those blank days are left unexplained at a check, and it falls to the company to account for them.

The goods documents

Domestic and international transport work differently.

For international trips, there is one shared document across the EU, the CMR, the consignment note under the 1956 CMR Convention. It travels with the goods and records who is sending what, from where to where. Its electronic version, the eCMR, has the same legal validity as paper under the Additional Protocol to the CMR Convention, which most European countries have signed. We wrote a full guide to the eCMR for anyone who wants to see how it works in practice.

For domestic trips, there is no single EU document. Each country has its own rules for the paperwork that must go with goods moving inside its borders. In Portugal, for example, the eCMR can serve as that document, while Spain has its own national control document. The practical point is the same everywhere. Goods moving domestically have to travel with whatever document the national rules require, and the driver has to be able to show it at a check.

The tachograph

The tachograph records the driving times, breaks, and rest periods set out in Regulation (EC) No 561/2006. The main rules are the ones every driver knows: the limits on how long you can drive before a break, on driving hours per day and per week, and the minimum daily and weekly rest.

For whoever runs the company, the office side carries the most weight, because responsibility for driving-time breaches falls, as a rule, on the company rather than the driver. The reasoning is that organising the work so the rules can be met is the company's job. The company can only shift that responsibility if it can prove it gave the driver clear instructions to comply and that the driver did not follow them.

On the road, the driver has to be able to show the records for the current day and the previous 56 days. The period rose from 28 to 56 days on 31 December 2024. At the office, there are two download deadlines under EU rules. Each driver's card has to be downloaded at least every 28 days, and the vehicle unit at least every 90 days. The downloaded data has to be kept and available when an inspection asks for it.

Penalties for tachograph and driving-time breaches are set by each country, and they can be heavy. Portugal, for example, overhauled its rules in 2026, grouping them into a single law and adding a top offence category with company fines reaching several thousand euros. The amounts and categories vary by country, but the EU rules behind them are the same.

What to keep, and for how long

A large part of compliance comes down to being able to produce a document when someone asks for it, months or years later.

Retention periods depend on the type of document, and most are set by each country rather than at EU level. Tachograph data is kept for a period set by EU rules. Accounting documents, transport documents, and signed consignment notes each have their own period under national law. As a rough guide, accounting records are kept the longest, often ten years, and the signed CMR is worth keeping for as long as the relationship with the customer lasts, since it is also the proof of delivery that backs up the invoice.

In practice, these documents tend to be scattered in different places, some at the office, some in the cab, some on a computer or in the invoicing software. Keeping everything in one place, like a TMS, saves hunting for them when they are needed.

Who inspects, and where

Enforcement happens in two places, and this split is common across the EU under Directive 2006/22/EC.

On the road, the police or the relevant national authority run roadside checks. A stop on a heavy vehicle looks at the vehicle and driver documents, the transport document or CMR for the load, and the tachograph records for the last 56 days. Some breaches can lead to the vehicle being stopped from continuing on the spot.

At the company's premises, a labour or transport authority checks driving and rest times from the tachograph files, the working-time records, and whether downloads are up to date. Premises inspections cover long periods, not just the last few days. In international transport, the authorities of every country the fleet passes through can check the same documents.

The specific bodies differ by country. In Portugal, for instance, roadside checks fall to the GNR and PSP, workplace inspection to the ACT, licensing to the IMT, and goods documents to the tax authority. Elsewhere the names change, but the division of labour is much the same.

Staying on top of it without the paperwork taking over

None of this requires software. There are carriers meeting all of it with folders, binders, and one organised person, the way it has always been done. What a system changes is the cost of keeping everything current as the fleet grows. Renewal dates stop depending on someone's memory, each trip's documents stay attached to that trip, and when someone asks for an old CMR the answer takes minutes instead of an afternoon.

A TMS like Meight keeps each trip's documentation in the trip's own record, from the transport document to the CMR signed on delivery, with the eCMR built into the platform, ready on the day an inspection asks for it.

If you want to see how that works with your operation, book a demo with one of our specialists, or write to us and we will take it from there.

Frequently asked questions

I don't only run trucks, I also have vans. Are they out of scope? Not always. In domestic transport, vehicles up to 3,500 kg stay outside the tachograph rules. Since 1 July 2026, if they do international transport or cabotage for other companies and weigh more than 2,500 kg, they are inside it, with the same driving-time and download rules as heavy vehicles.

Can I digitise the documents and throw away the paper? Largely, yes. Accounting archives can be electronic, tachograph files are already digital, and the eCMR has full legal validity. One thing to weigh is documents signed on paper, such as a traditional CMR with the recipient's stamp and signature.

Is a driver's fine paid by the driver or the company? As a rule, by the company. The law presumes the company is responsible for organising the driver's work. The company only avoids that responsibility in limited situations, where it can show it gave clear instructions to comply and the driver did not follow them.

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