The Italian market for trailers and semi-trailers with a gross weight above 3.5 tonnes continued to perform well in October 2025. According to figures processed by Unrae’s Centre for Studies and Statistics using data from the Ministry of Transport, registrations reached 1,350 units for the month, up 12.4% from the 1,201 recorded in October 2024. In the first ten months of the year, new plates amounted to 12,945 units, a 13.4% increase on the 11,419 registered between January and October 2024, adding more than 1,500 vehicles.
The expansion posted in October therefore reinforces the positive trend observed throughout the year. Despite an economic backdrop still marked by uncertainty, the market’s trajectory suggests, according to Unrae, a year-end result for 2025 in positive territory. The assessment, highlighted by Michele Mastagni, coordinator of Unrae’s Trailer, Semi-Trailer and Bodywork Group, reflects demand driven by the need to renew existing fleets.
Yet the structural challenge of fleet age remains, with vehicles in circulation averaging 17.5 years. The association notes that the resources currently available for renewal, totalling 3.8 million euro, are insufficient to make a meaningful impact on such an ageing fleet. The decree concerning the Investment Fund has been published in the Official Gazette, but the sector is still waiting for the implementing measure required to activate the incentive mechanism and set out the timetable and procedures for applications. Unrae welcomes the plan, outlined in the Budget Bill notes, for a multiannual fund of 590 million euro to support road transport investment between 2027 and 2031, but stresses the urgent need to clarify how the additional 6 million euro already allocated by the Government for 2025 will be used.
On the regulatory front, the circulation ban on 18.75-metre vehicle combinations also remains in place, despite the change introduced by Law 156 of 2021, which aligned the Highway Code with the European standard. The lack of updates to the implementing regulation prevents towed units from meeting all technical requirements, effectively making it impossible to use articulated vehicles with the length permitted by EU law. According to Unrae, this situation, ongoing for more than four years, is causing technological lag and inefficiencies in freight transport, putting Italy at a competitive disadvantage compared with other European countries where these configurations circulate routinely. The association is calling for swift action to remove what it describes as an increasingly outdated obstacle, harmful to the competitiveness of the national logistics system.
