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eFTI from 9 July 2027: electronic transport documents

From 9 July 2027, EU enforcement authorities must accept transport information in electronic form. What it means for carriers and freight forwarders, and what it does not change.

AuthorArtem ShevchenkoFounder and systems architect
  • 6 min read

Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 on electronic freight transport information, eFTI for short, has applied since 21 August 2024. The most important date for the industry comes later, though: from 9 July 2027 enforcement authorities in EU countries must accept the information required by law in electronic form, made available by certified eFTI platforms.

An obligation for the authorities, not for companies

This is an important distinction. The regulation obliges the authorities to accept electronic data, but for a carrier or a freight forwarder using eFTI remains a choice. The Commission has until 21 February 2029 to assess whether to introduce an obligation. Paper documents therefore do not disappear in 2027.

The requirements that the regulation sets for companies (Art. 4) apply to the situation in which a company itself decides to make information available electronically. Whoever stays with paper can go on using it. Whoever chooses eFTI makes the data available under the rules of the regulation, through a certified platform.

A platform is certified by a conformity assessment body, not by the company that writes the software. That is why you should be careful with offers that promise “guaranteed eFTI compliance”. We, too, do not promise to build a certified platform. What we can do is organise the data so that it can be passed on once it is known how to do it.

What already exists and what does not yet

The implementing and delegated acts of 2024 entered into force on 9 January 2025, and in November 2025 the functional requirements for eFTI platforms were adopted. The Commission plans to adopt the rules for certifying platforms by December 2026: today there are no certified platforms yet.

The date from the start of this text also depends on these acts. Article 5 of the regulation counts the obligation of the authorities from the entry into force of the first delegated and implementing acts: it begins 30 months later. The first such acts are Regulations 2024/1942 and 2024/2024, hence 9 July 2027.

A separate matter is the electronic consignment note, e-CMR. Poland has applied the Additional Protocol to the CMR Convention on the electronic consignment note since 11 September 2019. This too is an option, not an obligation.

Poland acceded to the protocol on 13 June 2019, and its text was published in the Polish Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw, Dz.U. 2019 item 1487). The protocol concerns international carriage under the CMR Convention. Whether it can be applied to a particular carriage depends on the parties to the contract and on the other states, so before moving to e-CMR it is worth establishing this with your counterparties. This text does not cover domestic consignment notes issued under the Polish Transport Law Act (Prawo przewozowe).

What follows from this today

Before certified platforms appear, a company can organise what it will need anyway: data from consignment notes and delivery documents in one system, rather than in photos on drivers’ phones. In the system we can build, AI makes a first reading of a document, an employee checks and approves the data, and the document is attached to the order. When the certification rules are known, such data is easier to pass on.

What data to organise

The exact scope of the information that an authority may check follows from the rules for the given type of carriage, and we will not guess at it here. Putting things in order, however, starts with the data that the company already has today in orders and documents:

  • the parties to the carriage: who orders it, who sends the cargo and who receives it;
  • places and dates of loading and unloading;
  • description of the cargo, weight and number of pallets;
  • the vehicle and the driver assigned to the run;
  • document numbers, that is of the CMR consignment note, the WZ delivery note and the proof of delivery, and the document itself attached to the order;
  • who checked the data read from the document and when they approved it.

When this data lies in one system and is linked to the order, every next step is simpler: a report for the client, an invoice, or passing the data on when it is needed.

How the document flow can work

We build systems with AI, integrations and document reading for other industries. We have not yet built a system for logistics, but we can carry the same division of work over to transport documents:

  1. the document gets into the system: the driver takes a photo in the app or the document arrives by email;
  2. AI will make a first reading of the data and suggest which order the document belongs to;
  3. an employee will check the fields that were read next to a preview of the document, correct mistakes and approve the data;
  4. the approved data stays with the order together with the document and can be used for a report or an invoice.

AI can make mistakes, especially with handwritten entries and a poor photo, which is why data does not go further without approval by a person. From the same data the system can prepare an invoice for the run and send it to KSeF (Krajowy System e-Faktur, Poland’s National e-Invoice System), which is mandatory from 2026.

There is no need to change the software the company already uses. If your TMS or WMS has an API or a file import, approved data can go into it without retyping.

Checklist

  1. List the documents you handle on every run and check where they lie today: in a binder, in email or on drivers’ phones.
  2. Check whether every document can be linked to a specific order.
  3. See in what form the documents arrive: as photos, scans or PDF files. How much work reading will take depends on that.
  4. Establish who in the company checks the data from documents and who approves it.
  5. Ask your regular counterparties whether they use e-CMR or plan to.
  6. Follow the European Commission’s announcements on the certification of eFTI platforms, and before choosing a platform check whether it has a certificate.
  7. Calculate how much time the team spends retyping data from documents. This is a good basis for deciding whether automation pays off.

This is not legal advice; it is worth checking the details of your situation with a lawyer.

If you would like to talk about documents in your company, describe your process.

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