Key takeaways
- EU road freight rose 0.9% in 2025, reaching 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres
- Growth was driven by domestic haulage (+2.2%), while cross-trade (-3.7%) and cabotage (-3.0%) both fell
- Poland remained the largest market by tonne-kilometres (381 billion, 20.2% of the EU total), followed by Germany and Spain
- Germany featured in six of the EU’s ten busiest freight corridors, led by the Germany-Netherlands route (86.9 million tonnes)
Transport performed by EU-registered goods vehicles reached 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres last year, according to newly published Eurostat figures. The tonnage carried rose faster still, up 1.8% to 13.3 billion tonnes, meaning the average load travelled a slightly shorter distance than in 2024 — a sign that growth came from shorter, domestic-style journeys rather than long-haul international runs.
That pattern is confirmed once the market is broken down by segment. National transport, which already accounted for almost two-thirds of EU road freight activity, grew by 2.2% and now makes up 62.2% of the total. Conventional international transport, where a vehicle’s country of registration matches either the loading or unloading point, managed growth of only 0.3%.
The segments that fell were the ones with the most cross-border exposure. Cross-trade — a haulier moving goods between two countries neither of which is its country of registration — dropped by 3.7%. Cabotage fell by 3.0%. Together they now account for just 13.4% of total EU road freight activity, having lost ground for a second consecutive year.
Annual change in EU road freight activity by type of operation, 2025. Source: Eurostat; graphic: Trans.info.
Poland’s lead reflects vehicles registered there, not domestic volume
Polish-registered vehicles again recorded the highest transport performance in the EU, completing 381 billion tonne-kilometres in 2025 — 20.2% of the EU total. Germany followed with 277.4 billion tonne-kilometres (14.7%), narrowly ahead of Spain on 272.6 billion (14.5%). France and Italy rounded out the top five, with 172.9 billion and 161.7 billion tonne-kilometres respectively; together, the five largest markets accounted for 67.1% of all EU road freight activity.
It is worth being precise about what Poland’s ranking measures. Eurostat’s figures record transport by vehicles registered in each country, wherever in the EU that transport takes place. Poland’s leading position therefore reflects the scale of its international haulage sector — including cross-trade and cabotage carried out abroad — rather than domestic freight volumes within Poland itself. Given that cross-trade and cabotage were the two segments that contracted in 2025, Poland’s overall ranking sits somewhat at odds with the pressure facing the specific activities that underpin its international fleet.
Top five EU road freight markets in 2025, by transport performance (billion tonne-kilometres). Source: Eurostat; graphic: Trans.info.
Germany’s position at the centre of EU freight flows
Germany’s role becomes clearer when the data is examined corridor by corridor rather than by national totals. The Germany-Netherlands route was the busiest bilateral flow in the EU, with 86.9 million tonnes transported in 2025, ahead of Germany-Poland (68.4 million tonnes) and Belgium-France (55.9 million tonnes). Germany was the country of loading or unloading in six of the ten largest intra-EU flows — underlining that its centrality to European supply chains lies less in the size of its own registered fleet than in its position as the continent’s principal freight crossroads.
Taken together, the 2025 figures describe a market that grew, but not evenly. The expansion in national haulage was enough to lift the EU total into positive territory, while the segments that connect national markets to one another — cross-trade and cabotage — continued to lose ground for carriers that rely on them most.
