Driving and rest times for bus and coach drivers

A bus driver can drive a maximum of nine hours a day, which can be ten no more than twice a week; 56 hours a week and 90 over two consecutive weeks. After four and a half hours at the wheel they must stop for at least 45 minutes, and rest for at least 11 hours a day and 45 a week, with strictly limited reductions.

These are the limits of Regulation (EC) No 561/2006, which has been reformed several times; the reform of Regulation (EU) 2024/1258 added specific rules for occasional passenger transport services. Here they are, ordered and explained for planning a coach, with one warning: Bus Center does not calculate these times.

How many hours a bus driver can drive

The daily limit is nine hours of driving. Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 sets it as follows: daily driving time must not exceed nine hours, although it may be extended to a maximum of 10 hours no more than twice during the week (our paraphrase of the official text).

Mind the scope: the regulation itself does not apply to vehicles used for passenger transport on regular services where the route of the service does not exceed 50 kilometres. Those drivers are governed by other rules; if that is your case, check with your adviser.

Weekly, the cap is 56 hours, and driving time must also not cause the maximum weekly working time set by Directive 2002/15/EC to be exceeded. Over two consecutive weeks, the accumulated total must not exceed 90 hours.

The regulation's “week” is the calendar week: it runs from 00.00 on Monday to 24.00 on Sunday. And driving time is what the tachograph records, not what appears in the service timetable.

Breaks: 45 minutes every four and a half hours

After four and a half hours of driving, the driver takes an uninterrupted break of at least 45 minutes, unless they take a rest period. That break can be split into one of at least 15 minutes followed by another of at least 30, interspersed within the driving period.

For passenger transport there is one more option since the 2024 reform. Regulation (EU) 2024/1258 allows a driver providing an occasional passenger transport service to replace that break with two breaks of at least fifteen minutes each, spread over the driving period.

A break is time in which the driver cannot drive or do any other work and which serves exclusively for their rest. Loading luggage or attending to passengers is not a break.

Daily rest

A regular daily rest is at least 11 hours in one go. The regulation allows it to be taken in two parts, the first of at least three uninterrupted hours and the second of at least 9 uninterrupted hours. It also allows a reduced daily rest, of at least 9 hours but less than 11, and no more than three times between two weekly rests.

The new daily rest must be taken within 24 hours of the end of the previous rest. With two drivers on board, the count changes: each must have taken a daily rest of at least 9 hours within a period of 30 hours.

For long passenger trips, the 2024 reform added an exception. A driver carrying out a single occasional passenger transport service lasting at least six consecutive 24-hour periods may take the daily rest once within a maximum period of twenty-five hours, provided that on that day they have not driven more than seven hours in total. On a service of at least eight 24-hour periods, it can be used twice.

Weekly rest and the twelve-day rule

A regular weekly rest is at least 45 hours; a reduced one is under 45 hours, but with a minimum of 24 consecutive hours. After the reform of Regulation (EU) 2020/1054, in two consecutive weeks the driver must take two regular weekly rests, or one regular and one reduced rest of at least 24 hours, and the weekly rest will begin before six consecutive 24-hour periods have ended since the end of the previous one.

The part that is reduced is compensated by an equivalent rest, taken in one go, before the end of the third week following. And the regular weekly rest cannot be taken in the vehicle: it must be in suitable accommodation, and all accommodation costs away from the vehicle are borne by the employer. On a multi-day tour, this changes the quote.

The “twelve-day rule” is an exception for passenger trips. As worded by Regulation (EU) 2024/1258, a driver carrying out a single occasional passenger transport service may postpone the weekly rest period for up to twelve consecutive 24-hour periods after a previous regular weekly rest. Before, the text that introduced the exception spoke of an international occasional passenger transport service; the 2024 reform also removed point (a) of those conditions.

The conditions that remain are demanding. After using the exception, the driver must take two regular weekly rests, or one regular and one reduced rest of at least 24 hours; the vehicle must have a digital tachograph; and if driving between 22:00 and 6:00, there must be several drivers or the driving period must be cut to three hours.

To justify these exceptions at a check, the driver carries on board a completed journey form (the EU document for occasional services) with the information required by Regulation (EC) No 1073/2009, which the company hands them before each trip, and the copies of the journey forms of the previous days: 56 days from 31 December 2024. It is a different document from the Spanish electronic route sheet, which has its own rule.

What falls to the company

The company is responsible for how it organises the work. Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 provides that transport companies will organise drivers' work in such a way that they can comply with these provisions, and that contractually agreed transport schedules must respect the regulation. In other words: the timetable you agree with the customer must already fit within the limits.

How to plan with these limits

Planning is where these limits are won or lost. Some useful checks before closing each driver's week:

• How many hours of driving each service adds up to, including the empty outward leg.
• Whether the day goes over nine hours of driving, and how many times it already has this week.
• Whether the daily rest fits between the end of one service and the start of the next.
• When the weekly rest falls due and where the driver will take it if away on a trip.

What Bus Center does in this area is conflict-free planning: a coach or a driver cannot be on two services at once, and quoting three weddings on the same Saturday is possible, because only the confirmed one blocks. We explain it in planning coaches and drivers.

What it does not do, and it is worth being clear: Bus Center does not calculate driving or rest times and does not detect infringements. The actual departure and arrival time the driver enters from the mobile is useful to the office, but the driving time that counts is the one the tachograph records. To check it you use tachograph analysis software with the driver card downloads and the vehicle downloads, which Bus Center logs in order to watch their deadlines.

Sources consulted

Checked on 11 October 2026. We link to the original source so that you can consult the current text.

• Reglamento (CE) n.º 561/2006 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, relativo a la armonización de determinadas disposiciones en materia social en el sector de los transportes por carretera. BOE (copia del DOUE).
• Reglamento (UE) 2024/1258 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, sobre pausas y descansos en el transporte discrecional de viajeros. BOE (copia del DOUE).
• Reglamento (UE) 2020/1054 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, por el que se modifica el Reglamento (CE) n.º 561/2006. BOE (copia del DOUE).
• Reglamento (CE) n.º 1073/2009 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, sobre el acceso al mercado internacional de los servicios de autocares y autobuses. BOE (copia del DOUE).