Renewing the tachograph driver card

The tachograph driver card is valid for five years at most, and renewal is requested at least 15 working days before it expires. If you apply in time, the authority gives you the new one before the old one runs out. If it is lost, stolen or stops working, you have seven calendar days to request a replacement.

Here are the deadlines set by the European tachograph regulation and the Spanish order, where to apply in Spain, what happens if the card expires and how to keep each driver's date in view in Bus Center.

How long the driver card is valid

The driver card is valid for five years at most. Regulation (EU) No 165/2014, which governs tachographs, provides that the validity period of the driver card must not exceed five years. In Spain, Order FOM/1190/2005, which regulates the introduction of the digital tachograph, sets a validity of five years for driver cards, and a renewed card again has five years of validity.

With a fleet of several drivers, each card has its own expiry date, and they rarely coincide: that is why it is worth having them noted down in one place.

How far in advance to apply for renewal

Renewal is requested at least 15 working days before expiry. Regulation (EU) No 165/2014 provides that, when the holder wishes to renew their driver card, they must apply to the competent authorities of the Member State where they have their normal residence at least 15 working days before the card's expiry date (our paraphrase of the official text).

If that deadline is met, the competent authority will supply a new card before the expiry date of the old one. The Spanish order says the same (our own translation): the competent body will issue a new card before the expiry date, provided the application was submitted within the deadline.

Fifteen working days is about three calendar weeks, and more if there are public holidays in between. In practice, the prudent thing is to apply when a month remains.

Where and with what to apply in Spain

In Spain, the driver card is renewed at the request of the person concerned before the competent road transport body for their place of residence. Order FOM/1190/2005 regulates the application with a form that appears as annex I of the order (our own translation), stating that it is a renewal due to expiry and the number of the card being renewed.

The application comes with the documentation for the first issue. Among other documents, the valid driving licence of class B, B+E, C, C1, D or D1, unless it is registered in the Register of Drivers and Offenders of the Spanish traffic authority (Dirección General de Tráfico), and a current passport-style photograph of the applicant.

Watch out for changes of details: if the home address or another detail on the card changes, the order asks for its renewal to be requested within a maximum of one month from the change.

What happens if the driver card expires

An expired card is no good for driving. The Spanish order says (our own translation) that the driver will not use a driver card that is defective or whose validity period has expired. And the European regulation treats a card that has passed its expiry date as an “invalid card”.

Expiry is also a moment for downloading: the same order includes the card's expiry among the cases in which the driver card data is downloaded. We explain it in how and how often to download the driver card.

If the driver has to keep working, the solution is not to reach that date: with the alert in time, the new card arrives before the old one expires.

If the card is lost, stolen or stops working

In case of damage, malfunction, loss or theft, the holder must request a replacement within seven calendar days. That is Regulation (EU) No 165/2014, which gives the authorities eight working days to supply another; the Spanish order speaks of five working days to issue it, and the new card keeps the same validity period as the old one. Theft is formally reported to the authorities of the State where it occurred.

Meanwhile, the driver may continue driving without a card for a maximum of fifteen calendar days, or longer if needed to bring the vehicle back to the company's premises, provided they can justify that they cannot present or use the card. During those days, the regulation asks them to print the vehicle data at the start and at the end of the journey, with their identification and signature.

A detail of the Spanish order: if the replacement is requested after the expiry date of the lost or stolen card, the application will be treated as a first issue.

The card date in Bus Center

In Bus Center, each driver's record holds their details, documents and expiry dates, and among them the tachograph card's, alongside the licence and the CAP (Spain's Driver CPC). The dashboard gathers whatever expires in 30 days or less, and each alert comes out as overdue, urgent (15 days or fewer) or warning. Alerts are shown on the dashboard.

The driver also sees their papers from their portal on the mobile. If they renew the card, they can send a photo with the new date: that date is a proposal and does not change the record until the office approves it. That way nobody changes on their own the date that determines whether a driver can work.

A card expiring is one thing and its being left undownloaded is another: Bus Center watches the two separately, the expiry in the record and the 28-day download deadline in the tachograph control. If you want to see everything that expires in a coach company, look at fleet and driver expiry date tracking, and for the professional certificate, how to renew the CAP. The portal's functions are in the drivers section (in Spanish).

Sources consulted

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

• Reglamento (UE) n.º 165/2014 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo, relativo a los tacógrafos en el transporte por carretera. BOE (copia del DOUE).
• Orden FOM/1190/2005, de 25 de abril, por la que se regula la implantación del tacógrafo digital (texto consolidado). BOE.