Lithuania’s trucking boom draws migrant drivers, but some end up trapped by debt

Driver shortage remains one of the sector’s biggest challenges. According to the Employment Service, employers registered around 3,000 vacancies for HGV drivers in the first quarter of this year alone, with roughly two-thirds linked to international transport, TV3.lt reports. Over the same period, only about 1,200 people in Lithuania were looking for this type of work, and only a small share of them were willing to take on international routes.

With demand outstripping local supply, transport companies are increasingly recruiting from outside the EU. In 2025, Lithuanian firms hired more than 25,000 drivers from third countries. In the first quarter of this year, the number had already reached almost 7,000.

The drivers working in Lithuanian fleets most often come from Belarus, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, India, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines.

Prosecutor: this is not isolated misconduct

Law enforcement authorities are taking an increasingly firm stance on alleged abuse involving migrant drivers. Edyta Ignatavičiūtė, a prosecutor at the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office who handles cases involving foreign drivers, says she is seeing more than isolated breaches.

In her view, part of the logistics sector shows signs of a broader, repeatable pattern.

“In a labour camp, a person was treated as an add-on to a shovel. Here, an immigrant is treated as an add-on to a vehicle,” the prosecutor said.

Ignatavičiūtė says investigators have become better at understanding how parts of the transport business operate — from working-time records and money flows to the practical grey areas surrounding the EU Mobility Package. But, she adds, the underlying problem has not gone away.

Prosecutors are currently examining more than six logistics companies operating in Lithuania, with pre-trial investigations underway.

Debt, dependency and fear of dismissal

The Alliance of Lithuanian Trade Unions warns that some migrant drivers face exploitation built into the recruitment and employment model itself, rather than simply the actions of a few rogue employers.

Its representatives say foreign recruits are often attracted by promises of pay of around €2,600 a month. Compared with earnings of €400–€500 in their home countries, the offer can appear life-changing. But the alliance argues that the reality often falls far short of those promises.

To secure a job, many prospective drivers pay intermediaries between €3,000 and €5,000, usually with borrowed money. Once they arrive in Lithuania, further costs can also appear, including training, accommodation and paperwork.

“For them, these are enormous sums, which makes drivers completely dependent on the employer,” representatives of the Alliance of Lithuanian Trade Unions say.

Ignatavičiūtė also warns that foreign drivers can become “just a number on a spreadsheet”, with little practical ability to defend their rights.

“He is treated as second-class, with no real rights: ‘Be glad we hired you, and we’ll decide how much work to give you and how much to pay you for it,’” she says.

On paper, she notes, documents submitted to authorities may appear compliant. But the day-to-day reality can be very different. Workers may not have access to their own documents, while some information may be kept out of investigators’ reach.

Living in the truck cab

The Alliance of Lithuanian Trade Unions has also shared individual accounts which, it says, show what some migrant drivers experience in practice. One example is the case of Juan, a driver from the Philippines.

At home, he was promised work in Europe: modern trucks, decent pay and a chance to provide a better future for his family. To make the journey possible, he borrowed money and signed documents in English that he barely understood. Before he had even reached Lithuania, he had already taken on debts amounting to thousands of euros linked to securing the job.

According to the alliance, when Juan arrived in Vilnius, his passport was taken “for document processing”. A few days later, he was sent on routes in Western Europe. One assignment lasted six months, during which the truck cab effectively became his home.

“He ate there, slept there, got sick there. He washed at fuel stations, did laundry by hand, and waited for wages that kept shrinking because of deductions — for fuel, administration, phone charges or insurance,” the alliance wrote on Facebook.

It says that in some months, after all deductions were applied, the driver was left with only a few hundred euros. When he tried to complain about the conditions, he was reminded of his debts in the Philippines and told he could “go home” if he did not like it.

According to the alliance, this is what makes migrant drivers particularly vulnerable: financial obligations, dependence on the employer and fear of losing the chance to work in Europe.

The organisation stresses that Juan’s experience is not being presented as an isolated case, but as one example of the problems reported by some third-country drivers after arriving in Lithuania. Similar stories, it says, are widely shared within the industry.

Wage deductions and Mobility Package breaches

The Alliance of Lithuanian Trade Unions also points to regular deductions from wages and per diems. Drivers are reportedly penalised for alleged fuel “overuse” or minor damage, sometimes without documentation to support the claims.

Law enforcement authorities and the Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office say the methods of exploitation are also changing. While confiscating documents used to be more common, institutions are now seeing more economic pressure, including artificially created debts, unlawful fines and wage manipulation.

Inspections carried out in 2025 also uncovered Mobility Package breaches, particularly cases involving drivers not being returned home, or to their normal base, for rest as required under EU rules.

Figures from the State Labour Inspectorate suggest the problem is not disappearing, according to TV3.lt. In 2025 alone, labour dispute commissions — bodies that handle employment-related claims — reviewed more than 1,700 claims, with more than €1.8 million awarded to employees from transport companies.

In the first quarter of 2026, employees had already been awarded more than €500,000. Around 65% of claimants were foreigners, mainly from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Belarus.

Some drivers officially earn only the minimum wage

According to Sodra, the average income of long-haul drivers in March this year was close to €1,750. Yet almost one-fifth of workers in the sector are still officially paid the minimum wage or less. Their average insured income is only about €613.

Experts say part of the gap is linked to the per diem model. A large share of drivers’ earnings is paid as travel allowances, which are typically not subject to social insurance contributions.

Skirmantė Ramoškaitė, a representative of Sodra, warns that this approach can ultimately harm drivers themselves by reducing their future pensions, as well as sickness or unemployment benefits.

TTLA: do not brand the whole sector as criminal

The International Transport and Logistics Alliance, TTLA, says it supports zero tolerance for violations, but argues that investigations into individual companies should not be used to portray the entire transport sector as abusive.

The alliance criticised public remarks by prosecutor Ignatavičiūtė in which the situation of migrants was compared to Balys Sruoga’s Forest of the Gods, a Lithuanian memoir about a Nazi concentration camp. In TTLA’s view, the analogy was too severe and cast a shadow over the whole market.

“Individual cases cannot be the basis for claiming there is systemic exploitation across the entire sector,” TTLA says.

TTLA notes that Lithuania has around 7,000 transport and logistics companies employing about 90,000 drivers. A handful of pre-trial investigations, it argues, should not be treated as representative of the entire industry.

The organisation also urges institutions to act proportionately and neutrally, and to respect the presumption of innocence.

Questions over driver qualification checks

The Alliance of Lithuanian Trade Unions is also questioning how some migrant drivers’ qualification documents and training are verified. It claims that paperwork related to mandatory 140-hour training may, in some cases, be processed only formally, without confirming the driver’s actual competence.

The Migration Department takes a more cautious view. It stresses that legislation does not directly require foreign workers to have completed a specific 140-hour training programme.

Rokas Pukinskas, chief adviser at the Migration Department, says that under the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens, the employer must provide information about a foreign worker’s qualifications or work experience.

“When a foreigner submits an application through an external service provider, we interview them. During that interview, we confirm their identity and purpose of arrival, and we also ask targeted questions about their qualifications and work experience,” Pukinskas says.

He adds that the Migration Department cooperates with the State Labour Inspectorate and law enforcement authorities, while oversight of Lithuanian language proficiency is carried out by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language.

The department also warns that providing false information can have serious consequences for both employers and foreign workers. Due to identified violations, 158 companies have already lost the right to recruit staff from abroad.

Linava says there is no official evidence of systemic exploitation among members

Linava says it has no official data indicating systematic exploitation of drivers within its member companies. Responding to accusations about possible abuse and unlawful intermediary practices, the association says it has not received official information confirming such conduct by its members.

“If such cases exist, it is an inhumane practice that we unequivocally condemn and do not tolerate. If we received substantiated information, we would pass it to the competent authorities,” Linava told a TV3.lt journalist.

The carriers’ association also addressed criticism about unpaid internships, training or requirements for drivers to cover part of their recruitment-related costs themselves. According to Linava, each case should be assessed individually, as training and cost-reimbursement models can differ between companies and are usually set out in employment contracts.

At the same time, the association says it does not support any practices that violate workers’ rights, undermine human dignity or breach Lithuanian or European Union law.