France — The protocole du 30 avril 1974 (Protocol of 30 April 1974): the text that decides your travel expense allowances

1. What does being "away from base" actually mean?

Article 2 sets the basis: you are away from base when your shift forces you to leave both your place of work and your home at the same time. For a goods-vehicle driver, the place of work is the company's head office or the establishment the vehicle is attached to — including a temporary assignment site where you usually start and end your shift.

The protocol's allowances are flat-rate amounts: they compensate for the extra cost of eating and sleeping away from home, with no receipts required. If your employer already fully reimburses your actual expenses against receipts, the protocol does not apply.

2. The meal: it's not "I was driving at noon"

This is THE rule almost nobody knows. Article 3 states that the right to the meal allowance arises when your shift span fully covers the window:

• 11h45 → 14h15 for the midday meal;
• 18h45 → 21h15 for the evening meal.

"Fully covers" means: your shift must start before the start of the window and end after its end. Starting at 12h00 or finishing at 20h30 is not enough, even if you actually ate on the road. It is a presumption: within the window, you were on duty, so you ate away from home — the text requires no further proof.

Many employers pay more generously than this rule requires — that is their right (article 16: more favourable practices remain in place), and it is even common. But in the event of a dispute, it is the full window that counts.

3. The early-morning allowance (Casse-croûte): shift starting before 5h00

Article 5: if your assignment forces you to start your shift before 5h00, you are entitled to the early-morning allowance (casse-croûte). Not "before 6h00", not "an early start": before 5h00, on the clock.

Watch out for the non-cumulation rules written in black and white: the early-morning allowance cannot be combined either with the overnight allowance (découcher) or with the night-shift allowance under article 12. It can, however, be combined with a meal allowance when both conditions are met — the Cour de cassation (France's supreme court for civil and criminal matters) has confirmed this.

4. The overnight allowance (Découcher): unable to get home

Article 6: the overnight allowance is due when you are actually unable to get home to take your daily rest. That is the criterion — not the number of hours spent in the truck.

And a point every driver should know by heart, from article 14: the truck's bunk is not accommodation provided by the employer. Sleeping in the cab does not remove your right to the overnight allowance. However, if the employer pays for the hotel or the meal, the corresponding allowance may be reduced or removed — logical: the flat rate compensates for an expense you no longer have.

5. The night shift: 4 hours of actual work

Article 12: a specific allowance — the goods-transport pay scale calls it "repas unique nuit" (single night meal) — is due if you carry out at least four hours of actual work between 22h00 and 7h00, and you are not already receiving another allowance for that shift. Four hours of work, not shift span: a rest break within the window does not count.

6. The 2026 pay scale (avenant n° 81, amendment no. 81)

Amounts are revalued by avenant (amendment) — the latest, avenant n° 81 of 2 December 2025, has applied since 1 January 2026. Abroad, article 13 increases all flat-rate amounts by 18% (unless a more favourable company agreement applies).

The overnight allowance "alone" is derived from the flat rate: 52.31 − 16.36 = 35.95 € (42.42 € abroad). These amounts are collectively agreed minimums: your company can pay more, never less.

7. The traps that cost you money

• The "repas unique" at 10.07 € is not a nationwide flat rate. Article 4 reserves it for the camionnage zone around Paris. An employer who pays it everywhere instead of the 16.36 € meal allowance is short by 6.29 € per meal.
• The bunk does not replace the overnight allowance (article 14). Sleeping in the cab does not extinguish your right.
• Currency exchange costs abroad are borne by the employer, against receipts (article 13).
• Tolls imposed by regulations or by the employer are reimbursed against receipts (article 14 ter) — and the company must grant you advances proportionate to the expenses to be incurred (article 14 bis).
• A more favourable practice remains in place (article 16): if your company has always paid the early-morning allowance for departures before 7h00, it cannot revert to the bare text overnight.

8. Check, don't guess

Each of these conditions can be read on your driver card: the shift span that does — or does not — cover the meal window, the shift starting before 5h00, the night spent away from your base. That is exactly what TruckerMaster calculates, day by day, from the certified tachograph data — and it also shows you what your employer pays beyond the text, so you know how to tell the collective agreement apart from company practice.

Source: protocole du 30 avril 1974 relatif aux frais de déplacement des ouvriers (Protocol of 30 April 1974 on workers' travel expenses), CCNTR (IDCC 16), consolidated version — full text on Légifrance. Amounts: avenant n° 81 of 2 December 2025. This guide is informational and does not replace either the official text or legal advice.

9. And elsewhere in Europe?

The 1974 protocol is French. Almost every neighbouring country also compensates travel, but through an entirely different mechanism — and two things get constantly confused: what your employer must pay you, and what it may pay you free of contributions. The second obliges no one. Two French features are found nowhere else: the rule that the working day must fully cover the meal window, and the flat 18% uplift abroad. Elsewhere, entitlement opens on a duration of absence or on a night spent away.

This table summarises; each row links to the official text. Amounts and conditions change often — check the date of the version cited before relying on it. And remember that it is your employment contract that decides which law applies, not the country you drive in.