What is the hoja de ruta?

From the hoja de ruta to the control document

In Spanish law, the hoja de ruta is the control document for public passenger transport by bus and coach. Order FOM/1230/2013 requires it to be carried on board on occasional and tourist services (scheduled services are exempt while running their trips) and kept for one year (Article 1), and sets out its data (Article 2): operator and hirer, origin, destination and date, the vehicle’s registration number, the driver and the type of service. International occasional services use the journey form of Regulation (EC) No 1073/2009 (Article 12). In road haulage, by contrast, ‘hoja de ruta’ is the everyday name for the control document of Order FOM/2861/2012. Its Article 6 sets out the data: contracting shipper and actual haulier (with Spanish tax ID, NIF), origin and destination, nature and weight of the goods, date and registration number (tractor unit and semi-trailer). The control document must be kept for at least one year, and a consignment note or eCMR counts as a control document if it contains all of that data.

The move to digital: the DeCA

Spain's Sustainable Mobility Act (Ley 9/2025) (eighth transitional provision) requires both to be digital from 5 October 2026: the goods control document and the passenger hoja de ruta. The Resolution of 5 June 2026 sets the requirements of the electronic administrative control document, the DeCA, for both. We explain the haulage side in detail in our DeCA guide.