Road freight transport across the EU totalled 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres in 2025, up 0.9% on the previous year.
The weight of goods moved by road reached 13.3 billion tonnes, an increase of 1.8% compared with 2024, Eurostat reported on Friday.
Tonne-kilometres measure freight by combining the weight of goods and the distance travelled — one tonne moved one kilometre equals one tonne-kilometre.
Poland recorded the largest volume of road freight activity at 381.0 billion tonne-kilometres, representing 20.2% of the EU total.
Germany ranked second with 277.4 billion (14.7%), followed by Spain with 272.6 billion (14.5%), France with 172.9 billion (9.2%) and Italy with 161.7 billion (8.6%).
Those five countries accounted for 67.1% of all EU road freight tonne-kilometres in 2025.
National journeys made up most road freight activity
National transport accounted for 62.2% of EU road freight activity in 2025, while international transport made up 24.4%, Eurostat said.
Cross-trade — transport between two countries by a vehicle registered in a third — accounted for 10.7%, while cabotage — domestic transport within a country by a vehicle registered abroad — made up 2.7%.
Compared with 2024, national transport rose by 2.2% and international transport increased by 0.3%, while cross-trade and cabotage fell by 3.7% and 3.0% respectively.
The largest country-to-country flow of goods within the EU was between Germany and the Netherlands at 86.9 million tonnes, followed by Germany and Poland at 68.4 million tonnes, and Belgium and France at 55.9 million tonnes.
Germany was either the origin or destination in six of the top 10 intra-EU road freight flows.
