What is it?
Spain’s Sustainable Mobility Law introduces a fundamental change for road transport documentation. As of 5 October 2026, administrative control documents (DCA) must be issued in digital format and be accessible during roadside inspections.
It is important to understand that in Spain:
Carta de Porte serves as contractual evidence under national law.
Documento de Control Administrativo (DCA) serves regulatory and inspection purposes.
eCMR applies to international transport under the CMR Convention.
As highlighted in the legal comparison below these documents differ in legal nature, territorial scope, and purpose. The DCA is mandatory for domestic Spanish transport and, from October 2026, must be digital.
Criteria | Carta de Porte | Documento de Control Administrativo (DCA) | CMR / eCMR (International) |
Legal basis | Ley 15/2009 | Orden FOM/2861/2012; ROTT; Resol. 22/05/2023 | CMR Convention 1956; eCMR Protocol 2008 |
Nature | Civil / commercial | Administrative | International treaty |
Purpose | Contract evidence | Regulatory compliance | Liability and carriage rules |
Mandatory | Yes (>150€ freight) | Yes (unless exempt) | No, unless used instead of DCA for CMR transport |
Territorial scope | Spain | Spain | International |
Contractual effect | Yes | No | Yes |
Administrative control | No | Yes | No |
Digital form | Optional | Mandatory after 5 October 2026 | Optional |
Certified software required | Not required | Not required | Not required |
Evidence of condition | Yes | No | Yes |
Liability regime | National law | None | Uniform international regime |
As of March 2026 Digital Transport Documents supports compliance with Spanish domestic requirements while maintaining legal clarity for international movements.
Why this is important?
This feature ensures that customers operating in Spain can:
Comply with upcoming mandatory digital DCA requirements
Present documents in real time during roadside inspections
Avoid operational disruption or penalties due to non-compliant documentation
Continue using the same structured transport data without process changes
For domestic transport in Spain, DCA serves administrative control purposes and is independent from eFTI. Therefore, businesses must ensure they generate the correct legally aligned document based on the transport route.
Our solution removes ambiguity, manual duplication effort and automates this decision.
Our Carta de Porte/ Documento de Control Administrativo
The feature is rule-based and route-driven, ensuring the correct document is generated automatically if the set up of the account is configured accordingly. When the setting key ‘dtdCartaDePorteEnabled’ is enabled for the owner of the document then the following rules apply:
1. Domestic Transport (Origin = ES, Destination = ES)
The system generates:
“Carta de Porte / Documento de Control Administrativo”
The PDF document is produced in Spanish
The underlying data model remains identical to eCMR
The document fulfills Spanish domestic regulations and administrative expectations
This ensures compliance while maintaining a single data structure in the platform.
2. International Transport (any leg outside Spain and within EU)
The system generates: eCMR only
No Carta de Porte option is offered
This avoids legal confusion regarding liability regimes and treaty applicability
This clear separation reflects the legal distinctions described in the comparison analysis above and protects customers from using an incorrect document type.
How it works?
The functionality operates automatically based on transport routing logic:
The system evaluates origin and destination.
If the movement is fully domestic within Spain, the Spanish Carta de Porte / DCA template is generated.
If any leg is international, eCMR is generated instead.
All documents are created from the same structured transport data.
Signature requirements follow applicable national or international standards.
The experience for users remains consistent — only the generated document type and legal positioning change depending on the route.
How to Activate?
The feature can be enabled via the boolean setting key by Trimble:
dtdCartaDePorteEnabled = true
Once activated:
The routing logic becomes active.
Domestic Spanish transports will generate Carta de Porte / DCA.
International transports will continue to generate eCMR only.
No additional configuration is required.
