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Carrier compliance

Your first international load

The paperwork for a cross-border movement is short, but every item has a different origin and most of it cannot be produced after the truck has left. This is what to have, and where each item comes from.

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

Before dispatch

Assembled by the operator, not by the forwarder. LogisticID does not issue, hold, check or upload any of these.

The undertaking's authority to carry

Certified true copy of the Community licence
Issued for this vehicle by the authority that granted the licence, carried in the vehicle.
Driver attestation, where the driver needs one
For a driver who is neither a national nor a long-term resident of a Member State, issued by the haulier's Member State and valid for 5 years.

The driver

Driving licence of the right category, CPC and driver card
All three, current. The EU driver requirements guide sets out validity, renewal and what to do when a card is lost.
Records for the required period
The driver must be able to produce the record days the tachograph rules require at a roadside check.

The consignment

Consignment note
A CMR consignment note, or its electronic equivalent, completed before the goods move rather than at the first stop.
Cabotage evidence, if the trip includes cabotage
Clear evidence of the preceding international carriage and of each consecutive cabotage operation, with the 7 data elements the Regulation lists.
Posting declaration, where the driver is posted
Submitted through the public interface connected to IMI at the latest when the posting begins.

The consignment note, and what counts as evidence

The consignment note is the document that says who sent what, from where, to whom, and on what terms. For international carriage by road between countries party to the CMR Convention it is the CMR note; an electronic consignment note is accepted where the countries concerned permit it.

Where a movement includes cabotage, the Regulation is specific about what the evidence must contain for each operation: the name, address and signature of the sender; the name, address and signature of the haulier; the name and address of the consignee with signature and date of delivery; the place and date of taking over and the place designated for delivery; the description of the goods and the method of packing, with the number of packages and their marks; the gross mass or quantity; and the number plates of the motor vehicle and trailer. That is 7 elements.

The evidence may be presented or transmitted electronically, using a revisable structured format that can be used directly for storage and processing — an electronic consignment note under the e-CMR protocol, for example. And the Regulation closes the point explicitly: no additional document shall be required to prove that the cabotage conditions have been met. A demand for extra paperwork beyond this is worth questioning with the authority concerned.

Borders and records

Since 2/02/2022, drivers have been required to record border-crossing data manually where the tachograph does not do it automatically: the country symbol is entered at the first possible stopping place at or after the border. The records matter beyond the driving-time rules, because they are how an inspector reconstructs whether a movement was bilateral, cross-trade, transit or cabotage — and that determines whether the posting rules applied.

Smart tachographs that record border crossings and additional loading and unloading activities automatically change the position for the vehicles fitted with them. Whether yours is one is a question for the approved workshop that maintains it.

Keep the reconstruction possible. The single most common avoidable problem on a first international trip is a truck whose paperwork is correct but whose sequence of movements cannot be demonstrated.

At a roadside check

What an inspection may ask to see, where it comes from, and who is responsible for having it. An officer's powers are national; this is the material the Union rules make them entitled to ask for.

Documents commonly requested at a roadside check in international carriage
Asked forWhere it comes fromHeld by
Certified true copy of the Community licenceThe authority of the Member State of establishment.In the vehicle, for the whole journey.
Driver card and tachograph recordsThe Member State issues the card; the vehicle unit holds the records.The driver.
Driver qualification card or licence codeThe Member State, after the initial qualification and periodic training.The driver.
Driver attestationThe haulier's Member State, where the driver is from outside the Union.In the vehicle.
Consignment noteThe sender and the haulier complete it.In the vehicle, paper or electronic.
Cabotage evidenceThe 7 elements above, for the incoming carriage and each cabotage operation.In the vehicle, paper or electronic.
Copy of the posting declarationThe operator's submission through the IMI public interface.The driver, paper or electronic.

The sequence of a first trip

Where the documents actually get used.

  1. Booking
    Agree the movement and the terms, and establish which Member States the vehicle will enter and whether any leg is cabotage or cross-trade. That determination is what decides whether a posting declaration is needed, so it happens before dispatch and not at the border.
  2. Declarations
    Where the driver will be posted, the operator submits the declaration through the IMI public interface at the latest at the commencement of the posting, and keeps it up to date for the duration.
  3. Loading
    Consignment note completed, goods and packing described as the note requires, gross mass recorded, number plates of motor vehicle and trailer entered.
  4. Transit
    Country symbols recorded at borders, driving and rest rules observed, tolls charged on each network. Transit alone — crossing without loading or unloading — is not a posting situation.
  5. Unloading
    Consignee's signature and the date of delivery on the note. If cabotage follows, the seven-day clock starts from the last unloading of the incoming international carriage.
  6. After the trip
    Tachograph data downloaded and retained, the consignment note and any cabotage evidence filed with the trip, and the posting declaration kept current in IMI. An authority may later request documentation through IMI, and the operator has 8 weeks from the request to supply it.

If something goes wrong

A breakdown, a refused delivery, a document left behind: these are operational problems, and the forwarder is the right first call for the freight side of them. LogisticID can re-plan a movement, talk to the shipper and the consignee, and look for an alternative vehicle.

It cannot represent you before an authority, respond to a penalty notice, advise on liability under the CMR Convention or tell you what a national officer is entitled to do. Those are questions for a lawyer qualified in the Member State concerned, or for the authority itself.

A driver stopped at the roadside without a document that should have been in the vehicle is a matter between the operator, the driver and the inspecting authority. We say this plainly because the alternative — implying that a forwarder can smooth over an enforcement problem — is not true anywhere in the Union.

Questions we are asked

Is an e-CMR accepted everywhere?
Not everywhere. The electronic consignment note operates under an additional protocol to the CMR Convention that not every country has ratified. For proving cabotage conditions specifically, the Regulation allows evidence to be presented or transmitted electronically in a revisable structured format.
Does a transit crossing need a posting declaration?
No. A driver transiting the territory of a Member State without loading or unloading is not considered posted, and stops for hygiene reasons do not change that.
What if the consignee refuses the goods?
Contact the forwarder immediately: the freight side can be re-planned. The legal consequences under the contract of carriage are a matter for the parties to it and, if it comes to that, for a qualified lawyer.
Does LogisticID keep copies of our documents?
No. This site has no document upload, and we do not collect or store passport, licence, driver-card or vehicle-document data. The carrier profile form asks about capability and coverage, not about paperwork.

Continue

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Sources

Read in full on the date shown.

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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