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Carrier compliance

Community licence, cabotage and posting

What the licence allows, how far cabotage goes, and when a driver is posted. Three rules that are often described together and work quite differently.

What this page is, and what it is not

LogisticID is a freight forwarder. It arranges road freight and independent transport companies perform it. It is not a licensing authority, a regulator, a law firm, an insurer, a tachograph workshop, a driving school or a certification body, and it does not issue, check, endorse or expedite any of the documents described here.

This page explains published European rules and points at the national authorities that apply them. It is general information, written from the official texts cited at the foot of the page, and it is not legal advice on your business. Requirements differ by Member State, by the work you do and by the vehicles you use; the competent authority in your country of establishment is the only body that can tell you what applies to you.

LogisticID does not operate an approved or verified carrier pool, and nothing on this page is a statement that any carrier holds any document. Carriers we work with are asked to keep their own paperwork valid and to be able to show it.

Carriers · How LogisticID selects carriers · EU driver requirements

The Community licence

The Community licence is issued by the Member State of establishment to a haulier that holds an authorisation to pursue the occupation. It is granted for 10 years, is renewable, and entitles the holder to carry goods by road for hire or reward between Member States.

The licence itself stays with the undertaking. What travels is a certified true copy, one for each vehicle at the undertaking's disposal, and it has to be produced whenever an authorised inspecting officer asks for it. A vehicle carrying an international load without its copy is not carrying the licence, whatever is in the office.

A driver who is neither a national nor a long-term resident of a Member State needs a driver attestation, issued by the Member State where the haulier is established, valid for 5 years. It belongs to the haulier, not to the driver, and it travels in the vehicle alongside the licence copy.

The cabotage limits

Cabotage is national carriage inside a Member State by a haulier established elsewhere. It is permitted, in defined quantities, on the back of an incoming international carriage — never on its own. These limits apply from 21/02/2022.

Cabotage under Regulation (EC) No 1072/2009 as applicable from 21 February 2022
LimitWhat it means
3 operationsAfter delivering the goods of an incoming international carriage, the haulier may carry out up to 3 cabotage operations with the same vehicle — in a coupled combination, the motor vehicle of that combination.
7 daysThe last unloading in the course of a cabotage operation, before the vehicle leaves the host Member State, must take place within 7 days of the last unloading of the incoming international carriage.
1 operation per other Member StateWithin that same time limit, the operations may be spread across other Member States, limited to 1 cabotage operation per Member State within 3 days of unladen entry into its territory.
4-day cooling-offAfter the end of a cabotage operation in a Member State, the same vehicle may not carry out cabotage in that Member State for 4 days.
Evidence, or it did not happenThe haulier must be able to produce clear evidence of the preceding international carriage and of each consecutive cabotage operation. Where the vehicle was in the host Member State during the 4 days before the international carriage, evidence of all operations in that period as well.

Member States apply and enforce these rules, and the Commission's own questions and answers on cabotage state that they were prepared by the Commission services, do not commit the Commission, and that only the Court of Justice may authoritatively interpret Union law.

The 7 evidence elements

For each operation. The Regulation lists them, permits them to be presented or transmitted electronically in a revisable structured format, and then says that no additional document shall be required.

Parties

Sender
Name, address and signature.
Haulier
Name, address and signature.
Consignee
Name and address, and once the goods are delivered, signature and the date of delivery.

The movement

Places and dates
The place and date of taking over the goods, and the place designated for delivery.
The goods
Description in common use of the nature of the goods and the method of packing; for dangerous goods, their generally recognised description; the number of packages and their special marks and numbers.
Mass or quantity
The gross mass of the goods, or their quantity otherwise expressed.
Vehicle identity
The number plates of the motor vehicle and of the trailer.

When a driver is posted

Posting is an employment-law question, not a market-access one, and it is decided by what the driver is doing rather than by where the vehicle is registered. Directive (EU) 2020/1057 sets out which road operations count.

A driver is not considered posted when performing a bilateral transport operation in goods — a movement, under a transport contract, from the Member State of establishment to another Member State or a third country, or from another Member State or a third country back to the Member State of establishment. Nor when transiting a Member State without loading or unloading. Nor on the initial or final road leg of a combined transport operation, where that leg on its own consists of bilateral operations.

Cabotage and cross-trade are where the posting rules bite. From 2/02/2022, the bilateral exemption also covers 1 additional loading or unloading activity in a Member State or third country the driver crosses, provided the driver does not load and unload in the same Member State; and where an outbound bilateral operation with no additional activity is followed by a bilateral operation back to the Member State of establishment, up to 2 additional activities. Those additional-activity exemptions are themselves tied to the smart tachograph timetable.

The posting declaration

Submitted by the operator, through one interface, for every Member State to which a driver is posted.

  1. Before the posting begins
    The operator submits a posting declaration to the national competent authorities of the Member State to which the driver is posted, at the latest at the commencement of the posting, using the multilingual standard form on the public interface connected to the Internal Market Information System.
  2. What the declaration contains
    7 items: the identity of the operator, at least by Community licence number where available; the contact details of a transport manager or other contact person in the Member State of establishment; the driver's identity, address of residence and driving licence number; the start date of the driver's employment contract and the law applicable to it; the envisaged start and end dates of the posting; the number plates of the motor vehicles; and whether the services are goods or passengers, international carriage or cabotage.
  3. What the driver carries
    3 things, in paper or electronic form, to be kept and made available on request at the roadside: a copy of the posting declaration submitted via IMI; evidence of the transport operations taking place in the host Member State, such as an electronic consignment note or the cabotage evidence described above; and the tachograph records, including the country symbols of the Member States the driver was in.
  4. Keeping it current
    The operator keeps the posting declarations up to date in the public interface for the purposes of control. Declaration information is held in the IMI repository for 24 months.
  5. If the authorities ask afterwards
    At the direct request of the competent authorities of the Member State where the posting took place, the operator sends, through the IMI public interface, copies of the roadside documents plus documentation on the driver's remuneration for the posting period, the employment contract or equivalent, time sheets and proof of payments — no later than 8 weeks from the date of the request.
  6. Mutual assistance
    Where the operator does not supply the documentation in time, the authorities of the host Member State may ask the Member State of establishment for assistance through IMI, and those authorities have 25 working days from the request to provide it.

Enforcement is national

The Union sets these rules; Member States enforce them, and set the penalties. What counts as a serious infringement, what a first offence costs, whether a vehicle can be immobilised and how an appeal works are all national questions, and they differ sharply between the countries in the directory on the hub.

The European Labour Authority coordinates information and joint inspections in road transport across Member States and publishes material for drivers and operators in every Union language. It is a useful starting point; it is not the enforcing authority in your case.

LogisticID does not interpret these rules for a specific operation, does not confirm whether a particular movement is cabotage or cross-trade, and does not advise on penalties. Where the answer matters commercially, ask the competent authority or a lawyer qualified in the Member State concerned.

Questions we are asked

Does the cabotage clock restart if I leave and come back?
No. The cooling-off rule prevents exactly that: after the end of a cabotage operation in a Member State, the same vehicle may not carry out cabotage in that Member State for 4 days. And where the vehicle was in the host Member State in the 4 days before the international carriage, evidence of all operations in that period must also be available.
Is cross-trade the same as cabotage?
No. Cross-trade is carriage between two Member States neither of which is the haulier's Member State of establishment; cabotage is national carriage inside a single host Member State. They are treated differently for market access, and both fall outside the bilateral exemption from the posting rules.
Can an authority ask for a document beyond the cabotage evidence?
For proving that the cabotage conditions have been met, the Regulation states that no additional document shall be required. That is about the cabotage proof specifically and does not remove other obligations — the licence copy, driver documents and tachograph records remain.
Who submits the posting declaration, the driver or the operator?
The operator. The driver keeps a copy of it, along with evidence of the transport operations and the tachograph records, and produces them when asked at the roadside.

Continue

The rest of this cluster.

Sources

Read in full on the date shown. The cabotage limits are cited from the consolidated text of 21 February 2022, because that is the wording in which they read as quoted.

Legislation

Authority guidance

A consolidated text is an editorial version produced by the Publications Office. It is not legally binding; the Official Journal is.

Applies from 21/02/2022: Regulation (EU) 2020/1055 amending Regulations (EC) No 1071/2009, (EC) No 1072/2009 and (EU) No 1024/2012 in order to adapt them to developments in the road transport sector

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