When 1 July 2026 comes up in conversations about vans, the focus almost always falls on tachograph installation. It is the visible part, but also the easiest to handle: book the workshop, pay the invoice, fit the device. The rules that actually change how routes are planned and how LCV fleets are run are three other ones: the driving and rest times of Regulation (EC) 561/2006, the driver posting declaration through IMI, and the new constraints on cabotage.
For anyone running 2.5–3.5 t vans in international transport or cabotage, ignoring these three regulatory blocks exposes the company to penalties from €41 to €10,000 per single breach, administrative vehicle stoppages and loss of commercial routes. For the general framework of who is in scope we refer to the pillar article Tachograph mandatory on vans from 1 July 2026. Here we go into the operational substance: what it means in practice to manage a driver under Regulation 561, what the minute-by-minute limits look like and how to plan a route that respects them all.
The regulatory landscape in three lines
The rules entering into force on 1 July 2026 for 2.5–3.5 t vans in international transport or cabotage stem from three texts:
- Regulation (EC) 561/2006 (as amended by 2020/1054): driving and rest times.
- Regulation (EU) 165/2014 (as amended by 2020/1054): smart tachograph G2V2.
- Directive (EU) 2020/1057: posting of drivers in road transport and its national implementation.
Each of these texts is interpreted through circulars by the national transport ministries and Commission communications dealing with the operational detail: summer derogations, split-break management, recording of manual activities on the tachograph. The main Italian operational reference is the April 2026 MIT circular, a document worth keeping close at hand in the coming months.
Daily driving times: the 9-and-10 rule
The base rule is easy to memorise: 9 hours of driving per day, extendable to 10 hours no more than twice a week. It sounds generous, but in practice for cross-border LCV operations it has precise implications.
The “day” under Regulation 561 does not coincide with the calendar day: it is the 24-hour window starting at the end of the last daily or weekly rest. A driver who begins a shift at 14:00 on Monday after 11 hours of rest can drive up to 9 hours of effective driving time within the 24 hours that follow (until 14:00 Tuesday), distributed as they prefer, provided breaks and the next rest are respected.
The 10-hour extended drive is a strictly limited flexibility: maximum twice between two weekly rest periods. It is not “rotating freely”, it is not “if needed”. If a driver uses it on Monday and Thursday, they cannot use it again on Wednesday or Friday, even if the delivery schedule would call for it.
Practical example: Bologna–Lyon route
A driver leaves Bologna at 06:00, unloads in Lyon and returns. The leg distance is 750 km. At an average 70 km/h on motorway, total driving time for the round trip is 10–11 hours, loading and unloading excluded. To stay within the 9-hour standard limit, the round trip cannot be done in a single day: it requires an intermediate stop, an overnight outside, and an 11-hour daily rest before driving back. If the company planned the route as “one working day”, it got it wrong. With the G2V2 tachograph the breach is recorded automatically.
Breaks: after 4h30 of cumulative driving
Regulation 561 requires a break of at least 45 minutes after every cumulative driving period above 4 hours and 30 minutes. The break can be split into two parts:
- First part: at least 15 minutes.
- Second part: at least 30 minutes.
In that order. It is not allowed, for example, to do 30 + 15. The first of the two must be the shorter.
During the break, the driver cannot perform “other work activities” (loading, unloading, document waiting). It must be an actual break, recorded on the tachograph as rest time. This is one of the most disputed enforcement points at the roadside: the G2V2, by recording vehicle position and movement, makes it far harder to report as a break what was in fact operational time.
The difference between “break” and “other work”
The tachograph distinguishes four time categories:
| Category | Symbol | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Driving | wheel | Vehicle in motion |
| Other work | hammers | Loading, unloading, manoeuvring, operational waiting |
| Availability | crown | Time at employer’s disposal without having to work |
| Rest / break | bed | Actual break, free from work |
Only time recorded as “rest/break” counts toward the 45-minute mandatory break and toward daily/weekly rest. “Other work” is not driving for the purposes of the 4h30 calculation, but is part of working time and counts toward other limits.
Daily rest: 11 hours by default, 9 hours by exception
Between two work periods there must be a daily rest of at least 11 consecutive hours. It is the main rule and the one that forces precise planning when routes span more than a day.
The rule allows for three flexibilities:
- Split daily rest: 3 hours + 9 hours continuous (for a 12-hour total, not 11), within 24 hours.
- Reduced daily rest of 9 hours: allowed at most 3 times between two consecutive weekly rests.
- Rest in the vehicle: allowed if the vehicle has suitable sleeping accommodation and is stationary.
The 9-hour reduced daily rest is a useful tool, but the “maximum 3 times between two weekly rests” cap is strict: if a driver uses it on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, they cannot use it on Friday or Saturday. Here too the tachograph records it automatically.
Weekly rest: the most underestimated rule
The weekly rest rules are the ones that impact most on driver rotation and multi-week planning. They work like this:
- Regular weekly rest: at least 45 consecutive hours.
- Reduced weekly rest: at least 24 consecutive hours, with mandatory compensation: the missing hours compared to 45 must be recovered by the end of the third following week, attached to another rest of at least 9 hours.
The Mobility Package added two more constraints:
- In every two consecutive weeks, at least one regular weekly rest (≥45 hours).
- Regular weekly rest and compensated reduced rest cannot be taken in the vehicle if 45 hours long.
- For drivers in international transport, the employer must organise work so they can return to their place of residence or operating centre every four weeks.
The last point — the obligation to return home every four weeks — is one of the most debated rules in the Mobility Package: it redesigns long-distance routes and weighs on driver availability, in a context already tight from the driver shortage of 22,000 vacancies in Italy.
Rest times summary
| Type of rest | Minimum duration | Frequency / condition |
|---|---|---|
| Mandatory break | 45 minutes (15 + 30) | After 4h30 cumulative driving |
| Regular daily rest | 11 consecutive hours | Default rule, with exceptions |
| Reduced daily rest | 9 consecutive hours | Max 3 times between two weekly rests |
| Split daily rest | 3 hours + 9 hours | Within 24 hours of the end of the previous rest |
| Regular weekly rest | 45 consecutive hours | At least once every 2 weeks, not in vehicle |
| Reduced weekly rest | 24 consecutive hours | Compensate within 3 weeks |
Weekly and fortnightly limits: 56 and 90
Above the daily limits sit two aggregated ceilings:
- Weekly driving time: maximum 56 hours.
- Driving time over two consecutive weeks: maximum 90 hours.
The 90-hour ceiling over two weeks is what stops abuse: a driver cannot do 56 hours of driving two weeks in a row. If they drive 56 hours in week A, they can drive at most 34 hours in week B.
These ceilings, combined with daily driving and rest limits, define the planning space available to a fleet manager. A driver running at the legal maximum delivers about 220–240 hours of driving per month. That sounds like a lot, but for long-haul work it is not always enough: the waste from unoptimised planning can saturate the limit well before month-end, forcing vehicle stops or driver substitutions.
Driver posting: the IMI procedure
When a driver based in one Member State performs a transport operation in another EU country that does not fall within mere transit or pure bilateral transport, a transnational posting is triggered. The main obligation is the posting declaration, to be submitted via the IMI (Internal Market Information) system before the operation starts.
What goes into the declaration
- Operator identification and contact details.
- Driver identification (including driver card number).
- Vehicle plate.
- Expected start and end dates of the posting.
- Type of transport operation (international, cabotage, combined).
- Address of the consignee in the host country.
The declaration is filed online on the European Commission’s official portal (Road Transport Posting Declaration). Once submitted, an ID is issued that must travel with the driver, alongside the electronic consignment note (eCMR) and the employment contract.
What to guarantee the driver
Beyond the formal declaration, the employer must ensure the driver enjoys the working and pay conditions of the host country for the posting period. This includes:
- Hourly minimum wage (e.g. SMIC in France, Mindestlohn in Germany).
- Travel allowances under local collective agreements.
- Holiday and rest rights of the host country.
For SMEs, especially those operating low-margin niche transport, this is the aspect that most concretely changes the hourly cost of the driver on international legs and feeds into customer contracts.
Penalties for missed declaration
The Italian implementing decree sets administrative fines between €2,500 and €10,000 per company for:
- Missed or late submission of the posting declaration.
- Incomplete or non-compliant documentation.
- Failure to guarantee host-country working conditions.
For repeated breaches, fines accumulate and may trigger suspension of the EU operator licence.
New cabotage rules
Cabotage is a transport operation performed inside a Member State other than the one of establishment, after an inbound international transport. EU Regulation 1072/2009 (as amended) sets the following limits:
- Maximum 3 cabotage operations within 7 days of the inbound international transport.
- The last cabotage operation must be completed within 7 days of the unloading of the inbound leg.
- After completing cabotage in a country, 4-day cooling-off before re-entering the same country for a new cabotage round with the same vehicle.
Example: a van based in Milan unloads in Stuttgart on Monday 6 July. From that moment it has 7 days to do at most 3 cabotage operations in Germany before leaving. If it does so, it cannot return to Germany with that vehicle before 13 July for a new cabotage cycle.
For vans the extension of these constraints is meaningful: the model of “load in Italy, deliver in Germany, pick up whatever I find locally and come back in ten days” was exactly the service model of many operators. It has to be rethought, in a structured way.
Cabotage and the G2V2 tachograph
The novelty is that the G2V2 automatically records every border crossing and every loading/unloading operation declared by the driver. These data are used by enforcement authorities to verify in real time whether the three-operation cap has been respected. It is no longer the regime of “I stop you, I ask for documents, I believe you if they add up”: it is a regime of objective proof recorded on the device.
Penalties: the details that matter
The most frequent infringements, according to records by European enforcement bodies, are four: exceeding daily driving times, reducing daily rest, incorrect use of the driver card, missed posting declaration. Italian orders of magnitude:
| Breach | Administrative fine | Side effects |
|---|---|---|
| Daily drive 9–10h exceeded by up to 1 hour | €41–168 | — |
| Daily drive exceeded by 1–2 hours | €169–849 | Licence points deducted |
| Weekly drive exceeded | €419–1,689 | Possible vehicle stoppage |
| Daily rest reduced below 9 hours | €419–1,689 | Licence points deducted |
| Incorrect use of driver card | €866–1,728 | Possible card withdrawal |
| Tachograph tampering | €1,732–31,200 | Licence suspension, vehicle seizure, criminal exposure |
| Missed posting declaration | €2,500–10,000 | Possible licence suspension |
Values are indicative and follow the Italian Highway Code. Penalties applied by other EU countries can be more severe: Germany, for example, fines tachograph tampering up to €30,000 per vehicle, and France applies prison sentences of up to two years for serious cases.
Automated planning as the only scalable answer
At this point it is clear that planning delivery rounds by hand, on Excel or with generic mapping tools, does not survive the new constraints. There are too many parameters to cross at the same time:
- Driving constraints (9h, 10h, 4h30 break).
- Rest constraints (11h, 9h, weekly 45h or 24h).
- Rotation constraints (max 56h weekly, 90h fortnightly).
- Cabotage constraints (3 ops / 7 days, 4-day cooling-off).
- Posting constraints (countries crossed, host-country wage thresholds).
- Operational constraints (customer time windows, load capacity, urban ZTL/LEZ).
- Fleet constraints (available vehicles, available drivers, electric vehicles and charging constraints).
A planning software that knows Regulation 561 solves the problem structurally: it generates delivery rounds already compliant with all constraints and flags in advance the cases where a customer is asking for a time window that would push the driver into breach. It is exactly what we describe in the article on moving from Excel to automated route planning: the paradigm shift from end-of-day batch planning to real-time planning informed by operational data.
Tachograph data feed the next-day planning cycle: every driver starts with a different residual-hour budget than the colleague, calculated on the actual driving hours of the current week. For those running the numbers on the ROI of route optimization software, the Mobility Package context accelerates payback: the cost of manual planning that recurrently produces 561 breaches is high, predictable and cumulative.
Over the medium term, the convergence of tachograph data, next-generation telematics data, CSRD reporting and algorithmic optimisation becomes the main competitive asset. More precisely: those who consolidate all these data into a single platform gain a unified operational picture that enables faster, better decisions; those who keep them fragmented across systems keep playing catch-up.
Bottom line
- 9 hours of daily driving, extendable to 10 hours twice a week. 56 hours maximum weekly, 90 hours maximum over two consecutive weeks.
- 45 minutes of break after 4h30 cumulative driving (splittable into 15 + 30, in that order).
- 11 hours of daily rest, reducible to 9 hours at most 3 times between two weekly rests.
- 45 hours of regular weekly rest, 24 hours of reduced rest with compensation within three weeks.
- IMI posting declaration before the operation starts, with penalties of €2,500–10,000 for omission.
- Maximum 3 cabotage operations in 7 days, 4-day cooling-off.
- Manual planning does not scale: software that knows Regulation 561 is no longer a nice-to-have, it is the minimum condition to operate in compliance.
To navigate the next months, download our Mobility Package 2026 Compliance Checklist or read the pillar Tachograph mandatory on vans from 1 July 2026 for the full picture. To see how Optivo handles 561 constraints when generating delivery rounds, book a free demo.