New rules affecting the transport of goods using:
- cars and trailers
- vans or other light goods vehicles (for example, if you run a European courier service)
- heavy goods vehicles (HGVs)
The new rules mean that you might need:
- declare you’re transporting goods inside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway (this started from 2 February 2022)
- a vehicle operator licence and transport manager if you use vans or car and trailers to transport goods to or through Europe from 21 May 2022
The rules are effective from 21 May 2022, so you will need to prepare in advance to be able to continue to operate internationally. A standard international goods vehicle operator licence will be needed to transport goods in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland using:
- vans or other light goods vehicles (sometimes called ‘light commercial vehicles’)
- vans towing trailers
- cars towing trailers
An application for an operator licence will need to be submitted, and this will take some time to process, also a qualified transport manager will need to be in place and named on the application. If you do not hold the qualification yourself, you might be able to be temporarily recognised as a transport manager if you have enough experience.
For those already holding a standard international goods vehicle operator licence, the vehicles will have to be added to the fleet list for the licence.
Further information: