France's heavy-goods hauliers: who holds a licence communautaire
In France, carrying goods by road for hire or reward (transport public routier de marchandises) is a regulated profession. Under the Code des transports and EU Regulations (EC) 1071/2009 and 1072/2009, a company must be entered in the Registre électronique national des entreprises de transport par route before it may operate, and it must hold a transport licence for every vehicle it runs. The register is kept by the regional services of the Ministry in charge of transport: the DREAL in each region, the DRIEAT in Île-de-France and the DEAL overseas. The ministry publishes a national extract of the goods register (file SITR, source SDES) under the Licence Ouverte.
Two licences, three kinds of copy
The register distinguishes the licence de transport intérieur (LTI), used only for domestic work with light vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes, from the licence communautaire (LC), required for heavy vehicles and for any international or cabotage operation inside the EU. The licence itself is issued to the company; each vehicle must carry a copie conforme. Since the revision of Regulation 1071/2009 under the 2020 Mobility Package, the register also flags LC copies marked “≤ 3,5t”, which light commercial vehicles above 2.5t need for international journeys. Subtracting those from the total LC copies gives the number of copies usable on heavy trucks, which is the scope of this page: companies (not sole traders) at their head office with at least one valid LC copy for vehicles over 3.5t.
| Register field | What it tells a buyer |
|---|---|
| Numéro LC and validity dates | The licence is granted for up to ten years; the end date marks when the DREAL reviews the file again |
| Copies LC valides | Upper bound on vehicles the firm may run under the licence, a practical proxy for fleet size |
| Copies VUL ≤ 3,5t | Share of the fleet that is vans rather than trucks |
| SIRET and Siège O/N | Links the entry to the Sirene business register and separates head office from secondary depots |
The four conditions behind every entry
- Établissement: an effective and stable seat in France where core documents are kept.
- Honorabilité: no disqualifying convictions for the company or its transport manager.
- Capacité financière: equity and reserves of at least €9,000 for the first heavy vehicle and €5,000 for each additional one (€1,800 and €900 for light vehicles), checked again on the annual accounts.
- Capacité professionnelle: a designated gestionnaire de transport holding the attestation de capacité professionnelle, obtained by exam or recognised diploma, who effectively manages the transport activity.
Losing any condition leads the DREAL to suspend or withdraw the licence, which is why the active file changes week to week.
Reading the numbers
The extract dated 29 October 2026 has about 62,700 establishment rows for the goods activity. Keeping head offices of companies with at least one heavy-vehicle LC copy leaves roughly 25,000 firms. Most are small: close to half hold fewer than five heavy-vehicle copies, while about 650 hold 100 or more. Large groups often appear several times, once per subsidiary, each with its own SIRET and licence number. Waste and recycling operators, construction-material hauliers and tanker firms appear beside general carriers, because any company moving goods for third parties with trucks must be registered. The licence number's middle digits encode the issuing region (for example 84 for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, 93 for Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 11 for Île-de-France), so regional density is visible straight from the register.
Freight forwarders that subcontract haulage sit in a separate register (commissionnaires de transport), and own-account transport (a manufacturer moving its own goods) needs no licence, so neither appears here.