eCMR versus eFTI

“Are we moving to eFTI or to eCMR?” is the question asked most often, and the one most often built on a misunderstanding. They are not alternatives. They regulate different things, for different parties, under different law — and you need both.

The difference in one table

	eCMR	eFTI
What it is	An electronic consignment note	A data format plus an access infrastructure
Legal basis	2008 Additional Protocol to the CMR Convention	Regulation (EU) 2020/1056
Governs	The contract of carriage between consignor, carrier and consignee	How authorities may request electronic freight information
Evidential value	Yes — this is the document you rely on in a dispute	No — this is a channel, not a contract
Mandatory?	No, but it is the alternative to paper	Use is voluntary; accepting is mandatory for authorities
Applies where	Only between countries that ratified the Protocol	Across the EU
Since	2011, per country on ratification	9 July 2027

The CMR consignment note is out of eFTI scope

This is the point almost everybody reads past. The scope of Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 (Art. 2 and Annex I, part A) lists which information requirements fall under it: combined transport, cabotage evidence, waste shipments, ADR/RID/ADN and air cargo. The CMR consignment note is not among them.

So eFTI does not replace the consignment note, and will not do so on 9 July 2027 either. Anyone who wants an electronic consignment note needs the e-CMR Protocol — not eFTI.

eCMR: the contract

The CMR Convention has governed international road carriage since 1956. The 2008 Additional Protocol says that consignment note may be electronic too, provided it carries a “reliable electronic signature”: uniquely linked to the signatory, allowing identification, under that person’s control, and such that later changes are detectable. Or any other method the law of the country of issue allows.

That “or” matters. It is why platform_auth — identification through the link, the token and optionally a one-time code — works in practice, and why you do not need a qualified certificate for every signature. See Signatures and trust levels.

The limitation lies elsewhere: the Protocol only applies between countries that ratified it. Drive to a country that did not and the electronic consignment note lacks its treaty basis there, so you carry a paper copy as well. Which countries those are is on Country requirements — with Belgium as the case that bites most often.

eFTI: the channel

eFTI solves a different problem. Until now an officer at the roadside could insist on paper, even if you had everything digitally. Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 turns that round: from 9 July 2027 authorities must accept electronic freight information when it is offered through a certified eFTI platform.

Note the asymmetry: the obligation sits with the authority, not with you. Operators are not required to use eFTI. If you choose to, it has to go through a certified platform — and then the officer has to accept it.

Technically eFTI is three layers:

• The common data set (CMDS) from delegated regulation (EU) 2024/2024, with subsets per information requirement: EU1 (tariffs), EU2 (combined transport), EU3 (cabotage evidence), EU5a/b/c (ADR, RID, ADN) and EU6 (air cargo), plus 27 national subsets.
• The national gates from implementing regulation (EU) 2024/1942: where authorities knock, over XML and eDelivery, with every access logged for two years.
• The platform requirements from implementing regulation (EU) 2025/2243: one CMDS per consignment with a UUID, and a UIL (Unique Identifier Link) of gateId + platformId + datasetId, issued at the carrier’s signature and pushed to the gate’s register.

That UIL is what actually happens at the roadside: the officer gets a reference, not a file, and fetches the data from the gate.

What Cargofollow does

Both legs, from one POST /v1/shipments:

• eCMR today. The consignment note, the signatures, the PDF, the hash chain and the inspection link work now. In Belgium through a recognised provider, via routing — you do not have to do anything for that.
• The eFTI dataset stored already. The CMDS projection is stored with every shipment, with the right subsets for what you carry. That makes 9 July 2027 a switch for you and not a migration: the data is already there.
• Certification follows. There is no certified eFTI platform in the EU today — the certification rules themselves are not adopted yet. Once they are, Cargofollow connects, either as a certified platform or as a “tributary ICT system” attached to one.

Timeline

Date	What happens	Status
5 June 2011	The e-CMR Protocol enters into force; per country from its own ratification	Done
1 March 2018	The Benelux pilot starts: e-CMR in Belgium through recognised suppliers	Done
9 January 2025	The first eFTI acts enter into force; the 30-month clock starts	Done
21 May 2026	DIWASS goes live: waste shipments go digital under Regulation (EU) 2024/1157	Done
2026	Member states may already accept eFTI voluntarily — a national choice	Ongoing
October 2026	Spain makes eCMR mandatory nationally	Expected
December 2026	Certification rules and the service provider act expected	Expected
8 July 2027	Last day of the Benelux pilot	Fixed
9 July 2027	Authorities across the EU must accept eFTI	Fixed

That 8 July and 9 July line up is no accident: the Benelux pilot was extended to exactly the day before the EU regime starts.

What you should do now

1. Run eCMR where you can. In the ratified countries the gain is available today. Check Country requirements for which lanes those are.
2. Carry paper where you must. If your route touches a non-party country, that is not a detail but a blocker at the roadside. The rule register returns it as a finding.
3. Do nothing special for eFTI. The dataset is already stored. There is nothing to connect to right now, because there is no certified platform to connect to.
4. Watch the national front-runners. Spain mandates eCMR before the EU asks for anything, and several member states accept eFTI voluntarily before 2027.

This is not legal advice

The facts on this page come from docs/regulation.md and are dated per source. Ratifications change and national rules run ahead of or behind the EU. Check the status of your own lanes before you build on them — GET /v1/requirements gives you that per trip.