Frequently asked questions about Spain's digital DeCA

Spain's electronic administrative control document: the digital-only version of the control document that must accompany every shipment in public road haulage with origin and destination in Spain. Its content is set by art. 6 of Order FOM/2861/2012 and its technical requirements by the Resolution of 5 June 2026.

From 5 October 2026, under the eighth transitional provision of Law 9/2025 on Sustainable Mobility. From that date the paper control document is no longer accepted. No extension has been announced.

Both. The contractual shipper (the party contracting the transport, including freight forwarders that subcontract) and the effective carrier must appear in the document and share access to it for at least one year. In practice one of them issues it; what matters is that it exists before the transport starts and that the driver carries the current version.

Public (for-hire) road haulage with origin and destination in Spain, within the scope of art. 1 of Order FOM/2861/2012. International carriage is governed by the CMR Convention (and can be documented with an eCMR); own-account transport has its own rules. For edge cases, check the Ministry’s official FAQ or ask us.

As the document itself, no: the DeCA must be electronic (a digitally native PDF with a QR and unique URL). However, the driver may carry a printed copy of the electronic document on board, always with its QR visible. What is not valid is a document that only exists on paper — or handwritten annotations on the copy.

It can, if it contains all the art. 6 data and expressly identifies the contractual shipper and the effective carrier — and it must also meet the technical requirements: native PDF, QR, unique direct-download URL, metadata. In practice few templates qualify, which is why most companies issue the DeCA as its own document.

Control-document offences are sanctioned under Spain’s transport act (LOTT, arts. 140-143): fines start at €401 and grow with severity; the most serious repeat cases can reach €18,000. From 5 October 2026, carrying it only on paper counts as not carrying it.

The driver shows the QR (on the phone or printed) and the officer scans it with their own device: the unique URL downloads the current PDF directly, no login, no credentials, no intermediate buttons — as the Resolution of 5 June 2026 requires. With our platform, the issuer also gets a real-time alert whenever the document is inspected.

The document travels with the driver: the link can be opened and the PDF downloaded before departure. The QR is shown on screen or on a printed copy, and at the checkpoint the download happens on the officer’s device. Our inspection endpoint also runs on dedicated infrastructure with failover.

Changes must be recorded. The rule allows two paths: annotate the new data and its reason in the same document (marking the previous value as no longer valid) or issue a new version with a new URL and QR while keeping the original. Either way the driver must receive the current version — our platform does this automatically and logs every change in the evidence history.

No, a signature is not required. If the parties choose to sign, the rule requires an advanced or qualified electronic signature (eIDAS). Our system records a hash-chained operation history in any case: who did what and when, verifiably.

Yes, under two conditions: all shipments must share the same contractual shipper and effective carrier, and each shipment must be individually identified within the document. Our multi-delivery mode handles this with the common data entered once.

At least one year, by both the contractual shipper and the effective carrier. A shared repository qualifies: if one party generates it, it is enough that the other can download it during that year. With us, custody is automatic and exceeds the legal minimum.

Public pricing: document bundles by tier from €0.30 down to €0.18 per document (bigger bundle, lower unit price) and a flat owner-driver plan at €24/month with up to 50 documents. Launch prices, published on the pricing page — no sales calls required.

Yes: you get 10 free documents at sign-up, no card and no lock-in. You can issue real documents with them from minute one.

Bundles do not expire while your account is active, and there is no minimum term: no mandatory annual contracts, no cancellation penalties.

No. The driver receives a link by WhatsApp, email or SMS and opens the document in the phone browser, where the PDF can be downloaded. At a checkpoint, showing the QR is enough.

You send them a link to complete only the fields you enable, with no account required. Every edit is audited in the document’s evidence history: who, when and what changed.

Yes: a REST API for creating, activating and delivering documents, webhooks with automatic retries and a dead-letter queue, idempotency keys and a test sandbox. The full specification is shared with registered accounts on request — the capability overview is on the developers page.

GDPR compliance with a downloadable DPA, database-level tenant isolation and encryption in transit. And every document carries a hash-chained operation history: each change cryptographically references the previous one, so any tampering would be detectable. We do not ask for trust: we hand over verifiable proof.

No. The DeCA is the administrative control document for Spanish domestic transport (mandatory from 5 October 2026); the eCMR is the electronic consignment note for international carriage under the CMR Convention (voluntary, valid in about 40 countries). Different documents, different rules — our platform issues both on the same engine.

No. That is a marketing myth: what becomes mandatory in 2026 is the Spanish DeCA. The eCMR remains voluntary, and what happens on 9 July 2027 is that EU authorities must accept information through the eFTI channel if an operator presents it via a certified platform. For businesses, everything remains optional.

Regulation (EU) 2020/1056 governs how authorities accept transport information electronically through certified platforms, fully applying from 9 July 2027. It is voluntary for operators. Relevant fact: Spain has notified the DeCA into the regulation’s Annex I-B, so the same dataset will serve both channels. Nobody is certified as an eFTI platform yet — neither are we; our honest claim is "eFTI-ready", with the data model already aligned.