What EU trucks carried in 2025: Eurostat goods data

The overall picture

Eurostat puts total EU road freight transport at 1,886 billion tonne-kilometres in 2025, compared with 1,869 billion in 2024. The weight of goods carried rose to 13,291 million tonnes, from 13,057 million tonnes, an increase of 1.8%.

Tonne-kilometres combine weight and distance, so they are the better measure of how much truck capacity the market used. Tonnes alone overstate short local work, such as construction materials, and understate long-distance work.

The goods that filled EU trucks

Four goods groups each accounted for more than 7% of EU road freight tonne-kilometres in 2025:

Together these four groups made up 47.9% of the total (our sum of the published shares). Grouped goods is the category Eurostat uses for mixed consignments, the kind of freight that moves as part loads and groupage.

What grew and what fell

Eurostat lists the goods groups with the biggest year-on-year changes in tonne-kilometres between 2024 and 2025.

Increases:

• Unidentifiable goods: +18.8%
• Coal and lignite; crude petroleum and natural gas: +11.7%
• Coke and refined petroleum products: +8.2%

Decreases:

• Furniture and other manufactured goods not elsewhere classified: −11.8%
• Chemicals, chemical products and man-made fibres; rubber and plastic products; nuclear fuel: −4.1%
• Goods moved in household and office removals: −3.3%
• Transport equipment: −3.2%

The groups with the largest percentage swings are not the biggest groups by volume. A double-digit change in a small category can matter less to overall truck demand than a change of a few percent in food or grouped goods. Eurostat's article does not give year-on-year changes for the four leading groups.

What it means for carriers and brokers

The goods mix tells a carrier which equipment and which kinds of loads make up the bulk of the market:

• Food and drink, the single biggest group, covers both temperature-controlled and ambient freight. Fleets with reefers and curtainsiders both draw on it.
• Agricultural products move with harvest seasons, so demand for that freight is uneven through the year.
• Grouped goods are a reminder that a large share of European road freight is not one shipper filling one trailer. Part loads and groupage need good matching between shippers, forwarders and trucks with spare space.
• Falls in furniture and manufactured goods, and in transport equipment, point to weaker demand in those supply chains in 2025; carriers that specialise in them may have felt it more than the overall figure suggests.

For a broker, the same data is a check on where to look for capacity. If a lane is dominated by food or agricultural freight, trucks with the right equipment may be committed during peak seasons, and planning ahead pays off. Our guide on how to post loads covers what a clear listing should include, and the guide to finding truck loads in Europe covers the carrier side.

Reading the data with care

These are annual EU totals by goods group. They do not show rates, margins or which lanes grew, and a national market can move differently from the EU total. Eurostat reported that 13 countries saw road freight decline in 2025 and 11 saw it increase, so the EU figure hides real differences between countries.

The data describe 2025. They are not a forecast for 2026.