Report and apply for a replacement: within seven calendar days.
You can drive without a card: for up to fifteen calendar days, longer only if you can't reach an issuing office sooner.
Every day without a card: print a record at the start and end of the working day, or write it manually.
How long you can drive without a card
In the circumstances set out in paragraph 4, the driver may continue to drive without a driver card for a maximum period of 15 calendar days or for a longer period if this is necessary for the vehicle to return to the premises where it is based, provided that the driver can prove the impossibility of producing or using the card during that period.
Regulation (EU) No 165/2014, Article 29(5). Accessed 26 August 2026.
Fifteen calendar days, and that limit does not automatically extend, the extension only applies if you can show why returning to base took longer. Keep whatever proof you have of that, a delivery schedule or a route record works.
What you must do on every trip
While you're without a card, you still have to record your activity. Print your driving data at the start and end of each working day if the vehicle allows it, or note your times manually on a temporary sheet, the same requirement as for a genuine equipment fault. This isn't optional paperwork, it's the substitute for what the card would normally record automatically.
Belgium: report to the police first
The loss or theft of a card issued in Belgium is the subject of a declaration of involuntary dispossession made to the police, at the place where the loss or theft occurred or, failing that, at the driver's place of residence.
Royal Decree of 17 October 2016, Article 32, §1.
In Belgium the sequence matters: police report first, then the application for a replacement card. Without the police declaration, the replacement request is incomplete.
The Netherlands: report to Kiwa
The holder shall report the loss or theft of his driver card, workshop card or company card to Our Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management.
Transport Working Hours Decree, Article 2.4:11(3).
In practice that means reporting to Kiwa, the body that issues driver cards in the Netherlands on the minister's behalf. Do this before or at the same time as applying for the replacement, not afterwards.
What it costs if it goes wrong
Miss the seven-day application window, or drive beyond fifteen days without evidence justifying the extension, and you're driving without a valid card outside the rules, which a control officer treats as a real infringement, not a paperwork delay. Rates and fine amounts change; the figures that applied at the time this guide was checked are set out in each country's own enforcement policy, not in the EU regulation itself.
Also read
Sources
- Regulation (EU) No 165/2014 on tachographs in road transport, Article 29. EUR-Lex
- Belgium: Royal Decree of 17 October 2016 on the driver card, Article 32.
- Netherlands: Transport Working Hours Decree (Arbeidstijdenbesluit vervoer), Article 2.4:11.
The EU regulation is quoted verbatim from the consolidated English version on EUR-Lex, accessed 26 August 2026. The Belgian and Dutch national provisions are translated from their original French/Dutch text for this guide; the binding text is the original.
Stuck? See where there is still room.
Drivers report what they see themselves. Parking full, traffic, hazard, roadworks. Open the app and stop driving alone.