French Road Haulage CPC: The Three Routes to Obtaining It

Setting up a road haulage company in France means clearing four regulatory requirements inherited from EU Regulation 1071/2009: establishment in France, good repute, financial standing and professional competence. The last of these takes the form of a certificate issued to a natural person by the regional DREAL. Three routes lead to it — and they differ in duration, cost and likelihood of success.

What the certificate actually is

The attestation de capacité professionnelle in road haulage is the document by which the State recognises that a person has the knowledge needed to run a company’s transport activity. Without it, no entry in the national electronic register of road transport undertakings is possible — and therefore no lawful carriage of goods for hire or reward.

Three points matter before choosing a route.

It is personal. The certificate belongs to a person, never to a company. The holder who actually runs the activity is called the transport manager (gestionnaire de transport). The administration does not merely check a contract: it checks that the person genuinely directs the activity.

It must match the occupation. Freight, passengers and freight forwarding each have their own certificate. A certificate obtained for the wrong occupation is useless for registration.

It distinguishes heavy from light. The “heavy” regime covers companies operating vehicles above 3.5 tonnes maximum authorised weight; the “light” regime covers those using exclusively vehicles at or below that threshold. The word “exclusively” is decisive: a single heavier vehicle tips the whole company into the heavy regime. We cover that boundary in our article on choosing between light and heavy road transport.

Route 1: the annual national exam

This is the main route, and the only one requiring neither a diploma nor prior experience. The exam is national and annual, run under the authority of the transport ministry, with registrations handled by the SIEC (the inter-academic examinations service).

Every year a ministerial order published in the Journal officiel sets the exam date and the registration arrangements. For the 2026 session, the papers are scheduled for Wednesday 14 October 2026, with online registration open from 5 May to 26 June 2026.

Note the mechanics of that calendar: the registration window closes almost four months before the exam, and a failure pushes you to the next session — a full year’s delay for a business plan. That is why preparation is not a luxury. The format, the marking scheme and the subjects assessed are covered in our dedicated article on the road transport CPC exam.

The route’s advantage is decisive: it is open to everyone, including career changers from other sectors. Its drawback is the mirror image: an annual rhythm the founder does not control.

Route 2: diploma equivalence

Certain diplomas, titles and certificates allow the CPC to be issued directly, without an exam. The list is set by ministerial order — the order of 31 January 2012 on diplomas, titles and certificates allowing direct issue of professional competence certificates, in its version in force. It includes higher-education qualifications from transport and logistics programmes.

The procedure is then simply an application on documents to the DREAL: Cerfa form 11414, a copy of the diploma, proof of identity.

Two reflexes are essential. First, check that the diploma appears on the list in force at the time of application: that list has been amended several times, and a forum post or an old article carries no weight. Second, check that the equivalence covers the occupation you need: a diploma may open an equivalence in freight without opening one in passenger transport or freight forwarding.

Where it is available, this is by far the fastest route. Checking with the DREAL costs a letter; a wrong assumption costs a year.

Route 3: validation of professional experience

The third route recognises experience managing the transport activity of a road transport company. It typically suits the manager who has run a haulier’s operations and now wants to set up alone, or the spouse taking over a family business.

The conditions cover two parameters: the duration of the experience and how recent it is — experience interrupted too long ago may no longer be admissible. These conditions differ between the heavy and light regimes and are periodically adjusted by regulation.

Rather than relying on a figure heard somewhere, assemble a factual file: employment contracts, payslips, the company’s registration extract, and above all an employer’s statement describing the functions actually performed — that is the point the administration assesses. Then submit it to the DREAL, which examines it and decides.

The special case of light transport

The light regime does not go through the October national exam. It rests on 105 hours of mandatory training at an approved centre, closed by a written exam combining multiple-choice and written-answer questions. The certificate issued has its own wording: attestation de capacité professionnelle en transport routier léger de marchandises.

One caveat about the legal framework: the order of 2 August 2024 on the arrangements for obtaining light road transport competence certificates was partly annulled by the Conseil d’État in October 2025, because its entry into force had not been deferred. Before enrolling, ask the centre — and if needed the DREAL — which text governs your session.

Which route should you choose?

Route	For whom	Watch out for
National exam	Any candidate, no prerequisites	Annual calendar; registration months ahead
Diploma equivalence	Holders of listed qualifications	Check the list in force and the occupation covered
Experience	Managers who ran a transport activity	Duration and recency; quality of evidence
105-hour course (light)	Projects using vehicles ≤ 3.5 t	Framework currently in flux

The rational order is that of increasing cost: test the equivalence first, then the experience route, and only commit to exam preparation if both doors are closed.

What research says about these entry barriers

The CPC is a textbook case of occupational licensing. Work by Morris Kleiner and Alan Krueger, “Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market”, published in 2013 in the Journal of Labor Economics after circulating as an NBER working paper, documented the scale of these licences to practise and their labour-market effects (see the study). The practical lesson for a founder is direct: a licence protects market quality, but it is also a barrier — one your future competitors will have to clear too.

Preparing for that barrier pays. The meta-analysis by Bruce Martin, Jeffrey McNally and Michael Kay, “Examining the formation of human capital in entrepreneurship”, published in 2013 in the Journal of Business Venturing, finds a positive relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial human capital (see the study). The CPC syllabus — law, management, operations, safety — is exactly that kind of content.

And after the certificate?

The certificate is only one of the four requirements. The company still has to be entered in the transport register and obtain its operating licences — a Community licence or a national transport licence, with certified copies carried on board every vehicle. The full path is described in our article on registering with the French transport register.

Take action

Start with the question that governs everything else: freight or passengers, heavy or light? Then have your DREAL check whether a diploma or past experience opens a direct route, before committing to exam preparation. Our full profile of the French road transport certificate of professional competence brings together the procedures, the competent authorities and the answers to the most common questions.