TruckerVerse / Guide

Tachograph: the 56-day rule

What a driver has to carry and produce at a roadside check changed in this rule, and the number most people still quote is out of date.

Checked on 26 August 2026 4 minute read
Short answer

What changed: the period you must be able to show went from 28 to 56 days.

What you carry: the current day's record sheets plus the preceding 56 days.

What exactly changed

The older rule required drivers to carry and produce records for the current day and the preceding 28 days. An amendment extended that window.

the record sheets for the current day and the preceding 56 days

Regulation (EU) No 165/2014, Article 36(1)(i), consolidated version of 31 December 2024. Accessed 26 August 2026.

The same 56-day window applies to digital tachograph users for their manual records and printouts, per the same article. Anyone still working from the old 28-day figure is quoting a rule that no longer applies.

What you must be able to produce

Where the driver drives a vehicle fitted with a digital tachograph, he shall be able to produce, whenever an authorised control officer so requests: (i) his driver card, (ii) any manual records and printouts made during the current day and the preceding 56 days, (iii) the record sheets corresponding to the same period as that referred to in point (ii) during which he drove a vehicle fitted with an analogue tachograph.

Regulation (EU) No 165/2014, Article 36(2).

In practice: your driver card, any manual entries and printouts from the last 56 days plus today, and any analogue record sheets from that same window if you switched between vehicle types.

What it costs

The regulation itself sets no fine, that's a national enforcement matter. What matters here is having the right window ready to produce, missing days from the last 56 rather than the outdated 28 is what a control officer actually checks against.

Also read

Sources

  • Regulation (EU) No 165/2014 on tachographs in road transport, Article 36, consolidated version. EUR-Lex

Legal text quoted verbatim from the consolidated English version on EUR-Lex, accessed 26 August 2026.

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