EU commercial vehicle market showing signs of recovery

European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) latest report on the first nine months of 2026 shows the EU commercial vehicle market is showing signs of recovery with 205,857 new trucks over 16 tonnes registered, putting overall growth at 8.5%.

The figures show an uneven recovery, suggesting that Central and Eastern European countries such as Lithuania, Poland and Romanian economies are recovering faster than most of Western Europe’s largest economies. France was the only major EU market in decline, with a 1% fall in registrations, whereas the UK, (although outside the EU is still included in ACEA figures for comparison), shows the largest contraction with a fall in new registrations at -2.3%, arguably a sign of wider market difficulties in the UK.

The report reveals some notable macro-economic statistics, Lithuanian new trucks registrations rose by 24.9% compared to the UK’s contraction of -2.3% during this year, despite the UK economy being approximately 42 times larger than Lithuania’s.

Despite its small size, Lithuania has become one of Europe’s most active road transport hubs, particularly for transport between Western Europe, the UK and the Baltic states. For a relatively little-known country, with a small domestic market, in the two decades since it joined the EU in 2004, Lithuania has developed a international transport industry carrying other countries goods.

Growth in service value to the country in 2025 was 6 billion euros, an increase of +276% since 2004, with road transport as service contributing 23.8% to the countries total export revenue.

Competitive operating costs, mainly due to lower labour and industry taxation costs than Western European countries, has allowed carriers to become huge players in cross border transport both within the EU and beyond, turning road haulage into an export industry in its own right, a sector that UK hauliers dominated until the 1990’s.

Lithuanian hauliers employ thousands of drivers from outside the EU, particularly:
- Uzbekistan
- India
- Philippines
- Ukraine
Third country drivers require work and residence authorisation, generally arranged by the employer to arrive in the country, followed by multiple checks in order to drive a HGV, such as licence exchange, Code 95 qualification, driver digital card, medicals and driver attestation for international haulage.

Job boards are advertising in the above countries estimated monthly earnings for experienced international drivers at 2,500 to 3,500 euros p/m.

Having EU membership does not restrict Lithuania to only employing EU drivers, it is allowed to recruit third country drivers so long as immigration and professional driver requirements are met. Interestingly Lithuania and the UK have a similar legal mechanism for employing non-EU HGV drivers, the biggest difference is not the driver attestation itself but in immigration policy, with HGV driving not normally an eligible occupation for a UK Skilled Worker visa.