Moving goods across Europe by van costs more than it did before 1 July 2026. On that date, international freight vans between 2.5 and 3.5 tonnes came under mandatory tachograph and EU driving and rest-hour rules. Rates on affected routes now sit 35 to 80 per cent above pre-July levels, having eased back from an initial spike of 100 to 200 per cent.

The mechanism is simple enough. A driver who could previously run a long leg in one stretch now has to stop. A 1,500km movement that took around 27.5 hours needs more than 42, which forces either a two-driver team or a slower delivery. Neither option is free, and roughly 40,000 Polish-registered light vans working the Central and Eastern Europe to Germany and Western Europe corridors are inside the change.

German authorities began enforcing on day one. That matters because those same corridors carry a large share of the pallet and parcel movements feeding German and Dutch distribution, which is where most US brands hold their European stock. If your 3PL quotes you a rate for inbound movements into or across Germany, this is sitting inside the number.

Pressure is building from other directions too. German haulage association BGL reports its members' freight volumes down roughly 24 per cent over twenty years and fleets cut by 10 to 15 per cent in the past two years, and it is pushing for stricter EU-wide enforcement of the Mobility Package. It has also proposed that Smart Tachograph 2 border-crossing data be sent automatically to a European Commission database, though that remains a proposal and nothing more. Separately, carriers from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia planned a blockade of Croatian and Hungarian crossings and Serbian rail terminals for 14 September 2026, over automatic enforcement of the Schengen 90-day rule since the Entry/Exit System went fully live on 10 April 2026.

None of this reverses. Road freight inside Europe is becoming a regulated, enforced, more expensive business, and the cost lands on whoever is paying for the movement.

• Ask your carrier which of your lanes use vans in the 2.5 to 3.5 tonne band, because those are the lanes repricing.
• Rebuild transit-time assumptions around 42 hours for a 1,500km leg, not 27.5.
• Check whether your inbound European movements route through the Central and Eastern European corridors most affected.
• Treat a single long road leg from one European hub as a cost risk, not a simplification.

Stock held in our Netherlands warehouse ships to European customers on short domestic legs rather than long international road runs.