Truck driver travel expenses: how much are your meal, breakfast and overnight allowances worth?
Updated on 13 June 2026
Travel expenses are not wages, but they make a significant difference at the end of the month. And it is one of the most frequently underpaid items, especially when driving abroad: an overnight stay outside France can be worth almost twice as much as a domestic one.
You know the drill: at every meal break, every night spent in the cab, every pre-dawn departure, you accumulate travel allowances (also known as "frais de route" or IGD). They cover your expenses when work prevents you from eating or sleeping at home. The problem: these items are rarely checked, and discrepancies can easily hide there.
1. Expenses ≠ wages: why it matters
Meal, breakfast and overnight allowances are reimbursements for professional expenses, exempt from social contributions and tax within the set scales. In practice, they are paid net, without deductions. That is why they are governed by the CCNTR "travel expenses" framework agreement (France's national road transport collective bargaining agreement) rather than your hourly rate. They are not negotiable bonuses: they are due as soon as the trigger condition is met.
2. The 4 basic allowances and their conditions
- 🥐 Early morning meal allowance (Casse-croûte) : due when your shift starts early in the morning, generally before 5h00.
- 🍽️ Lunch allowance : due when your shift fully covers the 11h45 – 14h15 window away from your home depot.
- 🌙 Evening meal allowance : due when your shift fully covers the 18h45 – 21h15 window away from your depot.
- 🛏️ Overnight allowance (Découcher) : due when you take your daily rest period (long rest, > 9h) away from home, generally on board the truck.
3. France vs. Abroad: the number-one trap
This is the point that most drivers never check. The moment you cross the border, the same allowances switch to a higher foreign rate. A meal taken in Germany, an overnight in Spain: it is not worth the France rate.
The problem is that many payroll software packages lump everything under "France" by default, or do not break down days spent abroad. The result: you are compensated at the national rate for days that entitled you to the higher international rate. Over a month of international driving, the cumulative gap can represent several dozen euros in net losses.
4. Indicative rates (France vs. Abroad)
Here is an order of magnitude for the amounts commonly observed. These are indicative benchmarks: the exact amounts depend on your collective agreement and company agreement — always check the figures on your own payslip.
| Allowance | France | Abroad |
|---|---|---|
| Early morning meal (Casse-croûte) | ~9 € | ~11 € |
| Meal (lunch / dinner) | ~17 € | ~20 € |
| Overnight (Découcher) | ~28 € | ~50 € |
Indicative amounts subject to annual change and company agreements. To be compared with your collective agreement and payslip.
5. The most common pitfalls
- Abroad expenses paid at the France rate: the international day is counted but compensated as a domestic day.
- Forgotten overnight allowance: a night spent in the cab not recorded because the rest period was not correctly read.
- Meal allowance not triggered even though your working time fully covered the window away from your depot.
- Early morning allowance ignored on recurring very early starts.
🛠 How to check your travel expenses in seconds?
TruckerMaster reads your driver card, identifies via country codes the days spent in France or abroad, then compares line by line with your payslip. France and foreign allowances are broken down separately: you immediately see whether an international overnight was paid at the domestic rate.
Audit my travel expenses for free →