Code 95 and your periodic training

First, something almost everyone gets wrong

Search for Code 95 and nearly every page points to Directive 2003/59/EC. That directive has been repealed.

Since 23 December 2022, Directive (EU) 2022/2561 applies. The substance is largely the same, but anyone quoting the old text is quoting a directive that no longer exists. The article numbers below come from the text that applies now.

The 35 hours, and how you can split them

Annex I, Section 4 states it directly:

Compulsory periodic training courses must be organised by an approved training centre. Their duration must be of 35 hours every five years, given in periods of at least seven hours, which may be split over two consecutive days.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Annex I, Section 4. Accessed 26 August 2026.

Two things in there that you rarely hear. A module is at least seven hours, so shorter than a day isn't possible. And that seven-hour module may be split over two consecutive days. For anyone who struggles to get a whole day off, that second point is genuinely useful.

At least one of your modules has to cover road safety. That's not a recommendation, it's stated as a requirement.

Online is allowed, but capped at twelve hours

E-learning is permitted, with a hard limit:

The maximum duration of the e-learning training shall not exceed 12 hours.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Annex I, Section 4.

Twelve of the 35, the rest is classroom or practical. The directive also requires the training centre to ensure reliable user identification and appropriate means of control. Providers that let you click through a course without checking who's actually there don't meet that bar.

Hold ADR? Read this

This is where there's time and money to be saved. Training you already have to complete under other EU rules can count towards your periodic training. That includes ADR (transport of dangerous goods), animal transport, and for passenger transport, disability awareness.

And then comes the sentence most drivers don't know:

Member States may decide that completed specific training as required under Directive 2008/68/EC for the transport of dangerous goods counts as two of the seven-hour periods, provided that this is the only other training that is taken into account in the periodic training.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Annex I, Section 4.

Your ADR can cover fourteen of your 35 hours instead of seven, on condition it's the only other training you count. Note the word may: it's a choice for each Member State, not an automatic right. Check with your training centre before enrolling, it can save a full day.

When you're due

The directive distinguishes your first time from every time after.

The first time. Within five years of your CPC being issued. Member States may shorten or extend that period to make it coincide with your licence's expiry date, but never shorter than three years and never longer than seven.

After that. Every five years, and always before your certificate's expiry date. Not after, and there's no grace period in the text.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Article 8(2) and (3).

Your Code 95 has expired

This is the question most people are stuck on, and the answer sits in Article 8(4). Anyone who has stopped practising the profession and no longer meets the requirements has to complete periodic training before resuming the profession.

In plain terms: your licence C or D stays perfectly valid, you just can't drive for hire or reward until you've completed the training. You don't retake an exam and you don't start from zero. You catch up on the 35 hours.

What driving anyway costs varies by country and falls under national criminal law there. Those amounts are deliberately not stated here, because we haven't been able to verify them in the legal text itself. Check with your employer or training centre before you get in the cab.

Driving both C and D

Then one round of periodic training is enough. Anyone who has completed periodic training for one driving licence category is exempted for the other categories. You don't do the 35 hours twice.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Article 8(5).

Where the code appears

Union code 95 goes alongside the relevant licence category on your driving licence. If the authority can't do that, it has to give you a driver qualification card. Those cards are mutually recognised across all Member States, so a card from another EU country holds up just as well at a check.

Driving on a driver attestation also counts as proof, provided Code 95 appears in the remarks field.

Directive (EU) 2022/2561, Article 10.

Also read

• Your Code 95 has expired
• Becoming a truck driver

Sources

• Directive (EU) 2022/2561 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 on the initial qualification and periodic training of drivers of certain road vehicles for the carriage of goods or passengers, Official Journal L 330 of 23 December 2022, p. 46. Articles 8, 9 and 10 and Annex I, Section 4. EUR-Lex
• Directive 2003/59/EC, repealed by the above directive as of 23 December 2022.

All quotes are taken verbatim from the official English version on EUR-Lex and checked against the text in force on 26 August 2026. National penalty amounts are deliberately omitted because they don't appear in the directive itself.