IN Brief:
- EU road freight reached 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres during 2025.
- National transport increased by 2.2%, while cross-trade and cabotage declined.
- Poland remained the largest national market, accounting for 20.2% of EU activity.
Eurostat has recorded a 0.9% increase in European Union road freight during 2025, taking total activity to 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres, although the overall growth was concentrated in domestic transport rather than the market’s more internationally mobile operations.
The physical weight of goods carried reached 13.3 billion tonnes, an increase of 1.8% from 2024. Tonnes therefore grew more quickly than tonne-kilometres, indicating that the weight moved increased faster than the distance-adjusted measure of activity.
National transport accounted for 62.2% of EU road freight tonne-kilometres and increased by 2.2%. International transport represented 24.4% and rose by 0.3%, while cross-trade fell by 3.7% and cabotage declined by 3%.
Cross-trade covers movements conducted by a haulier registered in neither the loading nor unloading country, while cabotage covers domestic work performed by a foreign-registered vehicle. Both activities can improve equipment use across borders, but they are exposed to enforcement, driver availability, wage rules, customer demand, and the cost of repositioning vehicles.
Five countries account for two-thirds of activity
Poland recorded 381 billion tonne-kilometres, equivalent to 20.2% of the EU total. Germany followed with 277.4 billion, ahead of Spain at 272.6 billion, France at 172.9 billion, and Italy at 161.7 billion. Together, those five markets accounted for 67.1% of EU road freight activity.
Poland’s position reflects the scale of its haulage industry and its role in international European transport, while Germany remains central as a large industrial origin, destination, and transit market. Spain’s figure also illustrates the effect of distance, with long routes between the Iberian Peninsula and central Europe generating substantial tonne-kilometres.
The largest country-to-country flow by physical weight was between Germany and the Netherlands, at 86.9 million tonnes. Germany and Poland followed with 68.4 million tonnes, while Belgium and France accounted for 55.9 million tonnes. Germany appeared as either origin or destination in six of the ten largest intra-EU flows.
The 0.9% aggregate increase does not describe conditions on every lane. Capacity can tighten on one corridor while remaining available elsewhere, and national totals do not distinguish between equipment type, service requirement, seasonality, or empty mileage.
A modest rise in tonne-kilometres can also coexist with weak carrier profitability when wages, fuel, tolls, insurance, finance, maintenance, and compliance costs rise faster than freight rates. The dataset measures transport activity rather than the commercial return earned from performing it.
The contraction in cross-trade and cabotage may require attention from companies operating multi-country networks. Those services provide flexibility when demand shifts between factories, distribution centres, and national markets. Reduced activity could leave buyers more dependent on locally managed capacity or encourage them to adjust routing guides and backup arrangements.
Domestic growth may reflect shorter industrial, construction, retail, and distribution movements, while weaker cross-trade points to a less buoyant market for hauliers designed around complex international utilisation. The figures therefore show a road freight sector that expanded in aggregate, but relied more heavily on work conducted inside national borders.
Road transport remained the dominant operating layer across much of the EU freight system during 2025. The headline growth was modest; the more revealing movement was the retreat in the activities that depend most heavily on cross-border flexibility.