The conventions and regulations that govern transport in Europe, with practical summaries. Straight to the official texts.
Defines the common eFTI data set and data subsets: the exact data elements economic operators may share electronically with authorities under the eFTI Regulation. The technical dictionary that platforms and authorities implement.
View details →Updates Annex I Part B of the eFTI Regulation: the list of national requirements on regulatory freight information that member states have notified. Determines which national obligations fall within the eFTI electronic-acceptance regime.
View details →Lays down the common procedures and detailed rules for how competent authorities access and process regulatory freight transport information on certified eFTI platforms, including the link with national enforcement systems.
View details →Sets the detailed functional requirements that eFTI platforms and eFTI service providers must meet for certification: data security, processing, authentication and interoperability. The compliance benchmark for every platform on the market.
View details →The core EU rules on driving times, breaks and rest periods for professional drivers, extended by the Mobility Package. The basis for tachograph enforcement across the EU.
View details →Governs the construction, installation, use and inspection of tachographs in road transport, including the smart tachograph generations used to enforce driving-time and posting rules across borders.
View details →Amends the driving-and-rest-time rules and accelerates the smart tachograph roll-out: return of the driver, ban on regular weekly rest in the cab, and retrofit deadlines for international transport.
View details →Tightens access to the road transport market: real establishment requirements, the return of the vehicle every eight weeks, and the cabotage cooling-off period. Aimed at letterbox companies and systematic cabotage.
View details →The UNECE agreement applying driving-time, break and rest-period rules to international road transport between the EU and non-EU countries such as the UK, Türkiye and the EAEU states. Follows the EU regime closely, including tachograph requirements.
View details →The UNECE agreement governing the international carriage of dangerous goods by road: classification, packaging, labelling, vehicle and driver requirements. The 2025 edition files are the currently applicable texts.
View details →The UNCITRAL convention on contracts for international carriage of goods wholly or partly by sea, designed to modernise the Hague-Visby and Hamburg regimes, with rules for door-to-door transport and electronic transport records. Not yet widely in force.
View details →The UNECE index of all United Nations transport legal instruments: conventions and agreements on road, rail, inland waterway, dangerous goods, vehicles and border crossing. The starting point for finding any instrument's status and text.
View details →The CMR Convention (Geneva, 1956) governs the contract of carriage for international road transport of goods. It standardises the consignment note, fixes the carrier's liability between takeover and delivery (with a compensation cap per kilogram), and sets strict claim and limitation periods. It applies automatically whenever the place of takeover and the place of delivery are in two different countries of which at least one is a CMR party, regardless of what the contract says.
View details →The Additional Protocol to the CMR (2008) gives the electronic consignment note (e-CMR) the same legal force as the paper document. Parties may issue, sign and exchange the consignment note by reliable electronic means, provided integrity and authenticity are guaranteed. It is the legal foundation for paperless road transport documents across the countries that have ratified it.
View details →The CIM Uniform Rules (Appendix B to COTIF) govern the contract of international carriage of goods by rail. They regulate the rail consignment note, the carrier's liability for loss, damage and transit delay, and the handling of claims. They apply to rail journeys crossing borders between COTIF member states, and increasingly matter for combined road-rail transport in Europe.
View details →The Budapest Convention (CMNI, 2001) governs the contract for the carriage of goods by inland waterway. It covers the transport document, the carrier's liability regime including navigational fault defences, and claim periods for barge transport on European rivers and canals such as the Rhine and the Danube.
View details →The TIR Convention (1975) is the international customs transit system for goods moving by road across borders under customs seal. With a single TIR carnet and mutual recognition of customs controls, goods can transit multiple countries without repeated border inspections. This 2024 UNECE Handbook edition consolidates the convention text, its annexes and current best practice.
View details →Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 on electronic freight transport information (eFTI) obliges authorities in all EU member states to accept regulatory freight transport information in electronic form via certified eFTI platforms. It is the EU's legal backbone for digital transport documents, with full application phasing in through 2027.
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