Activity of road haulage companies in nine selected EU Member States in 2019 and 2022-2024

– analysis based on Eurostat data published on July 29, 2025.

Introductory remarks

Every year, Eurostat publishes data on the situation in the road freight transport market in EU member states, Norway, and Switzerland. The data comes from national statistical offices, including the Central Statistical Office in Warsaw. When analyzing Eurostat data, it is important to note that data from different countries is not fully comparable. Data for individual countries is aggregated using a combination of two procedures. One is the processing of data obtained from companies and other organizations that are subject to statistical reporting requirements. The other is the estimation of data to reflect the economic situation and activity of entities omitted in the first procedure.

The stability of the procedures means that each year, data that is undoubtedly incomplete is aggregated in the same way. This ensures the comparability of data reflecting activity in individual countries in successive reporting years.

It is important to take the above comments into account when assessing the accuracy of the analysis of these data.

The analysis takes into account all data published by Eurostat, but its in-depth analysis and the comments below concern only a group of selected EU Member States. The omission of data from certain countries where the volume of transport activity is low, which is associated with low economic potential or a specific geographical location (Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta as islands), facilitates understanding of the main changes in the European road freight transport market. This simplification makes it possible to eliminate secondary phenomena from the market description.

The data analysis includes data on transport performance (measured in million tkm) in the domestic transport segment and the international transport segment, taking into account the following sub-segments: transport in bilateral foreign trade (export-import), cross-trade (between two countries by carriers registered in a third country) and cabotage (domestic transport in a country other than the one in which the carriers performing such transport are registered).

The market for transport services provided by carriers from selected EU member states

The countries were selected based on two criteria. The following were verified: (1) the potential of the economy, and (2) whether the territory of the country is large enough for domestic and international road transport activities to reach significant dimensions. The minimum criterion was a transport volume exceeding 30 billion tkm in 2024 by road carriers from a given country in all segments of the services market.

The data analysis covers two periods: (1) 2019, when economic activity in Europe was at its highest level in the period preceding the lockdown introduced in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic, and (2) 2022-2024, when activity again reached a level comparable to that before the pandemic.

Table 1 includes data from both periods for nine selected European Union member states.

Table 1 Volume of freight transport by road in 2019 and in 2022-2024 in the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Italy [million tkm]

Source: own study based on Eurostat data.

Among the selected nine countries, five stand out, with carriers performing annual transport work exceeding 100 million tkm. These are carriers registered in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Italy. The most active carriers in this group were those from Germany, which performed transport work exceeding 200 million tkm in 2024.

In this group of five countries, only carriers from Poland performed most of the transport work in international relations. In 2024, carriers from Poland performed almost two-thirds of all transport work abroad. Carriers from Spain performed almost one-third. Carriers from Germany and Italy performed only over 10%, and carriers from France performed only 7.6% of all transport work outside their country.

The data in Table 2 reveal that in four countries with high economic potential, shippers are focused on importing transport services, while in Poland, their activity is largely related to the export of transport services.

Table 2 Share of international transport in the total transport work performed in 2024 by carriers from France, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Italy [%]

Source: own study based on Eurostat data.

The position of Polish carriers on the European market has been built thanks to the consistent development of human resources and fleets by carriers registered in Poland. At the end of 2023, 45,565 carriers held international carrier licenses (their number decreased slightly in the following months and fell to 44,301 carriers as of June 30, 2025). Three groups of entities dominate among international carriers: (1) companies with foreign capital, which are branches of international logistics and transport organizations, (2) companies with domestic capital, which have achieved a large scale of operations in the past three decades (i.e., in 2023 the value of road transport services exceeded PLN 12 million) and (3) companies with domestic capital belonging to the group of small and micro enterprises. The third group is the most numerous and has the greatest contribution to the performance of transport tasks in Poland and abroad.

Road transport in domestic relations

Dynamic economic development and structural changes in Poland after 1988 became factors in the growth of the role of road transport in the national transport system. As a result, the volume of transport work performed in domestic relations approached the level of transport work in Italy, France, and Spain, while remaining significantly below the volume of transport work performed by carriers in Germany. A significantly lower level of transport performance was achieved in domestic transport by carriers in the Czech Republic and Romania, as well as in Slovakia and Lithuania, i.e. the four countries whose carriers are active in international transport. The volume of transport performance in these countries is shown in the charts in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 Transport performance in 2019 and in 2022-2024 in domestic relations in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Italy, as well as in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia.

Source: own study based on Eurostat data

The domestic transport services market is, to a certain extent, a sub-segment of the activities of carriers exporting services in the form of cabotage transport. If there is a shortage of local carriers on the domestic market in individual countries, a gap arises that can be filled by carriers from other countries. This gap also includes domestic transport services that carriers from another country acquire in order to utilize the capacity of a vehicle traveling long distances (e.g., from Hamburg to Munich) without cargo. The acquisition of orders and the performance of cabotage transport in accordance with EU regulations is subject to administrative restrictions. For this reason, cabotage transport is and remains only a small part of domestic transport.

International road transport – export and import

After 1988, political changes in Poland created conditions for an explosion in the export and import of goods. The abolition of the state monopoly of the road transport company PEKAES and the opening of the international road transport market to private carriers led to the rapid development of this market. Thirty-five years after these changes began, carriers registered in Poland have come to dominate the European road transport market for bilateral trade between EU member states. The data from 2024 presented in Fig. 2 illustrate the significant gap between the level of transport work performed in the service of Polish exports and imports and the level of this work performed by carriers from other European countries. The result is the elimination of carriers from EU countries and Poland's neighbors from providing transport services to and from Poland.

Fig. 2 Transport volume in 2019 and in 2022-2024 in international transport for exports and imports in France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia.

Source: own study based on Eurostat data.

In 2024, Spain ranks second (after Poland) among the selected nine countries. Carriers from this country dominate the transport services for bilateral trade with other countries. The development of their potential is linked to the employment of immigrants (mainly from Latin America) as drivers who transport goods to and from Spain. Both Poland and Spain are examples of how the development of international transport facilitates the recruitment of drivers from non-EU countries.

Road transport in international relations – cross-trade and cabotage

International road transport of goods carried out in third countries (i.e., in one or more EU countries by carriers registered in a country outside the route of the cargo transport) is formally classified as cross-trade services (cross-border transport) or cabotage services (within a single country). At the end of the 20th century, services in these relations were provided by carriers who were registered in the country where the transport was carried out or in a country participating in bilateral trade. In the third decade of the 21st century, the volume of transport work performed in Western Europe by carriers from Central Europe confirms the profound changes in the structure of the supply side of the European road transport services market. Since 1988, two processes of change have overlapped in Europe. On the one hand, in many countries of the “old Union,” the potential of registered carriers was declining, and there were fewer and fewer local drivers willing to work away from home for many days at a time. On the other hand, the development of the potential of carriers from countries that joined the EU in 2004 and later created conditions for them to offer services outside their own country on a large scale.

The volume of transport work in the cross-trade and cabotage subsegments performed in 2024 in nine EU countries is illustrated in the charts in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3 Transport volume in 2019 and in 2022-2024 in international transport in the cross-trade and cabotage market subsegments by carriers from France, Spain, Germany, and Italy, as well as from Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia.

Source: own study based on Eurostat data.

In 2024, we observe the following phenomena on the international market.

Firstly, the position of carriers from Poland is very strong, but the increases in transport performance in 2022-2024 were insignificant. Secondly, the activity of carriers from Lithuania is growing dynamically. Thirdly, there is also growth in Spain, but this is at a much lower level of Spanish carriers' share in transport operations in third countries than that of Polish and Lithuanian carriers.

Summary

An analysis of data illustrating the road freight transport market in Europe, including a selected group of nine EU member states, shows that demand remained relatively stable between 2022 and 2024. On the supply side, however, there is a noticeable decline in the willingness of private carriers to invest in fleet development, i.e., the potential is being adjusted to the existing demand. In 2025, we can therefore expect to see more and more situations where shippers are looking for carriers who are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit young employees to replace the large number of drivers who are retiring. The data from 2024 does not reveal a breakthrough in the market that cannot be seen in the analysis of past data. One can consider what changes will occur in the European market in the coming years if the scope of the analysis is expanded to include other factors (than past results) that determine the formation of supply and demand in the market.