eFTI 2027: why invest now in digitising transport documents?
From 9 July 2027, inspection services across the EU must accept electronic freight information that you make available through a certified eFTI platform. Your company will not be obliged to go digital; you will have the right to. This article explains exactly what the regulation sets out, and gives the planner or office manager who needs to persuade the board a checklist for weighing waiting against digitising now.
From 9 July 2027, inspection services across the EU must accept electronic freight information. Your company is not obliged to, but waiting costs the same paper document flow every month.
What Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 actually sets out, what an eFTI platform is, and a checklist for weighing waiting against digitising now.
eFTI obliges the authorities in 2027, not your transport business
The foundation is Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 on electronic freight transport information, known as eFTI. The regulation entered into force on 20 August 2020 and has applied since 21 August 2024. The core provision is in Article 5: competent authorities must accept mandatory freight information that a carrier makes available electronically, from thirty months after the entry into force of the first implementing acts.
Those first implementing and delegated acts entered into force on 9 January 2025, as the European Commission announced that day. Thirty months later is 9 July 2027, which is also the date the Commission gives in its eFTI timeline as the point at which the regulation fully applies and member state authorities must accept electronically shared information. According to that same timeline, authorities have been able to do so voluntarily since January 2026.
For your business, the other side matters more. Recital 7 of the regulation expressly states that the option of providing the information on paper remains unaffected. So in 2027 there is no ban on the paper CMR or the paper ADR transport document. Article 16 does provide that the Commission will evaluate by February 2029 whether carriers should be obliged to provide information electronically after all. Anyone investing now is therefore not doing so to avoid a fine, but for the work it saves and the position it gives you if that obligation ever arrives.
In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is responsible for implementation and for the national eFTI gateway, the access point through which inspection services can view your data. According to TLN, the ILT, the police, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, Rijkswaterstaat and the port authorities are involved.
An eFTI platform is a certified place where your freight data is held, and it may already be part of your TMS
The regulation defines an eFTI platform as an ICT solution intended for processing electronic freight transport information, and an eFTI service provider as a party that offers such a platform as a service under a contract. This could be a module within your TMS, an e-CMR provider or a standalone service.
If you want to provide the information electronically, Article 4 requires doing so via a certified platform: the inspector gets access to the machine-readable data over a secure connection, and on request you show the information in readable form on a screen of your own, for example the driver's phone. The platform must log every processing action and retain the original data if anything is changed. Certification is carried out by accredited conformity assessment bodies; certified platforms carry a certification mark, and each Member State publishes a list. The detailed functional requirements for platforms have applied since November 2025 under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2243; the Commission expects to adopt the remaining specifications, including the certification rules, by December 2026 at the latest. According to the Commission, providers can prepare from January 2026.
Which documents are covered? The regulation covers information requirements from several European rules, including the transport documents for dangerous goods (ADR, chapter 5.4), waste transport, combined transport and evidence for cabotage, plus national requirements that Member States have notified in Annex I. Recital 6 explicitly mentions information that is also requested under international conventions such as the CMR Convention. This is where eFTI touches e-CMR: the electronic consignment note is one of the documents whose data can be shown to inspectors via an eFTI platform. For how an integration with an e-CMR provider works, see our page on eCMR integration.
Every month spent waiting until 2027 is a month with the same paper document flow
Management often hears "not mandatory" when eFTI comes up and puts the subject off indefinitely. The stronger argument is not about the regulation, but about what the paper document flow already costs you today. The checklist below sets out, factor by factor, what happens if you wait and what happens if you start now. Fill it in with your own figures; we deliberately do not quote amounts.
Waiting until 2027 versus digitising now, factor by factor.
| Factor | Waiting until 2027 | Digitising now |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative hours | CMRs, weighbridge tickets and ADR documents will still be printed, scanned and retyped until 2027 and beyond. The same hours every month. | The document data sits digitally in the TMS from day one. Hours fall from the moment of introduction, not from a date in the regulation. |
| Double data entry | Order, consignment note and invoice remain three separate entry points, each with its own chance of a discrepancy. | A single order number carries the data through the chain; the consignment note is generated from the order rather than filled in again. |
| Cost of errors | An incorrectly transcribed weight or a missing signature only surfaces at invoicing or when a claim is made. | Fields are checked against the order at entry; missing signatures are flagged immediately in the app, not weeks later in a folder. |
| Checks on the road | The driver searches the folder for the right paper; if a document is missing, delays follow. | The driver shows the documents on his phone. After 9 July 2027 this can be done via a certified platform, and until then you can practise the process now, with the paper version as a fallback. |
| Integrations with clients and customs | Every new client asking for status data or digital documents becomes a separate manual process. Customs declarations continue to rely on retyped data. | Structured consignment data is the foundation for an integration with the client's portal and for automated customs processing. |
| e-CMR | The paper CMR remains the proof; when a claim arises, administration has to dig the signed copy out of the archive. | The e-CMR is signed digitally and archived, and its data is the same data you can show to inspectors from 2027 via an eFTI platform. |
To work out what the administrative hours cost per year, use our manual administration calculator. That figure is usually the argument the management board actually listens to.
Tick what applies to your business. This won't give you advice, but it will show which side carries more weight.
Argues for waiting until 2027
Argues for digitising now
Tick above what applies to your business.
Argues for waiting until 2027: 0Argues for digitising now: 0
Convince the management board with a count of your own document flow
A presentation on European legislation rarely persuades. A count of how much paper the office handled last month does. Four steps you can take without a budget.
- Count the documents per trip
Take one week and tally which documents each trip generates: CMR, weighbridge ticket, ADR document, pallet note, customs document. Note who enters each document and how often someone has to chase it up.
- Convert the hours into an annual cost
Use the calculator above with your own hours and labour costs. Deliberately leave the slider for the share to automate low, so the figure isn't up for debate.
- Ask your TMS and e-CMR supplier about their eFTI roadmap
Are they working towards certification as a platform or service provider, and when? That answer determines whether you'll connect to what you already have, or need something new.
- Start with the document that occurs most often
For most road hauliers, that means the CMR. Document recognition that reads the CMR and links it to the order can be introduced separately from eFTI and immediately reduces manual re-keying. See AI document processing for freight papers and CMR.
If you want to tackle the wider administration, why transport administration takes so much time covers the seven causes, and transport company grows, but the administration grows with it sets out the order in which to intervene. eFTI is not a separate project in this respect, but an extra reason to tackle the document step first.
the date on which the eFTI Regulation fully applies (Article 5, thirty months after the implementing acts of January 2025).
the number of the regulation, in force since 20 August 2020.
obligations for hauliers: paper remains permitted, electronic becomes a right.
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions transport companies ask us most often about this.
Will eFTI be mandatory for transport companies from 2027?
No. The regulation requires competent authorities to accept electronic freight information; for hauliers it is a right, not an obligation. Recital 7 of Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 expressly leaves untouched the option of providing information on paper. The Commission will evaluate by February 2029 at the latest whether an obligation for hauliers is still needed.
From which date must inspection services accept electronic freight information?
From 9 July 2027. Article 5 of the regulation ties the acceptance obligation to thirty months after the entry into force of the first implementing acts, which entered into force on 9 January 2025. The European Commission cites 9 July 2027 in its eFTI timeline as the date on which the regulation fully applies.
Is e-CMR the same as eFTI?
No. e-CMR is the digital form of the CMR consignment note, an agreement between the consignor, carrier and consignee. eFTI governs how legally required freight information is made available and accepted electronically to the authorities. The data from an e-CMR can be presented to inspectors via a certified eFTI platform; the two complement each other.
Do we need to buy or build an eFTI platform ourselves?
Not necessarily. An eFTI platform can be a service from your TMS provider or e-CMR provider, provided it is certified. Ask your suppliers about their plans. What you can control yourself is whether your freight data is structured within your TMS; without that foundation, no platform will help you.
What happens at a roadside inspection after 9 July 2027?
If you provide the information via a certified platform, the inspector gets access to the machine-readable data over a secure connection, and the driver shows the human-readable version on their own device on request. If you provide the documents on paper, inspections proceed as they do now.
Does eFTI also apply to domestic transport?
The regulation covers information requirements under specific European rules, such as ADR transport documents and waste transport, plus national requirements that member states have notified in Annex I. Whether a domestic journey falls under it therefore depends on which documents you must carry for that journey, not on the border.
Read more
What does manual administration cost per year?
Enter staff, hours and wage costs to see what the manual work costs and what can be freed up.
Read more AdministrationWhy does transport administration take so much time?
Seven causes, from duplicate entry to manual checks, each with a solution.
Read more GrowthTransport company grows, administration grows with it
Why the pressure in the office grows in a straight line, and the order in which you can break that pattern.
Read moreWould you like to know how to get your document flow ready for 2027?
Briefly describe which documents pass through your office per journey and which TMS or e-CMR provider you use. We will advise you on the first step, free of charge, and whether it lies in document recognition, an integration or your supplier.