A proposed age limit of 70 under Italy's Highway Code reform, no maximum age in Germany or France, and five-year renewals even after the age of 60 in Austria. The rules for renewing category C and CE driving licences as drivers get older vary across the European Union. Meanwhile, the common European framework, revised by EU Directive 2025/2205, establishes renewal periods while leaving national governments to decide how to regulate older drivers. The Directive, which entered into force on 25 November 2025, requires Member States to adopt implementing legislation by 26 November 2028 and apply it from 26 November 2029. It repeals Directive 2006/126/EC and confirms a five-year administrative validity period for categories C, CE, C1, C1E, D, DE, D1 and D1E, compared with 15 years for cars and motorcycles. At each renewal, drivers must demonstrate that they continue to meet the minimum physical and mental fitness requirements set out in Annex III.
Regarding the maximum age for driving commercial vehicles, the Directive gives individual Member States some flexibility, allowing them to shorten the validity of licences held by residents aged 65 and over in order to require more frequent medical examinations, self-assessments or refresher courses. Below that age, validity may be reduced only for individual drivers whose health conditions require more frequent checks. The legislation specifies that licence withdrawals, suspensions and restrictions must be decided on a case-by-case basis, without age discrimination. On medical matters, the European legislation identifies continuous glucose monitoring systems as a means of reducing driving risks for people with diabetes. It also requires the European Commission to review the provisions on obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome once sufficient research becomes available.
Austria has recently relaxed its restrictions: the 23rd amendment to its driving licence legislation, which entered into force on 1 September 2026, abolished the rule that reduced the validity of category C and D licences and their subcategories to two years once drivers turned 60. Even beyond that age, licences can once again be renewed for five years, subject to a medical certificate. In Germany, category C and CE licences remain valid for five years regardless of age, with fitness assessed through medical documentation. For each renewal, drivers must submit a medical certificate issued no more than one year earlier and an eyesight examination carried out within the previous two years. Between renewals, responsibility for reporting any medical conditions rests with doctors and with drivers' own assessment of their fitness.
France does not impose a maximum age for driving commercial vehicles but shortens renewal intervals as drivers get older. Category C licences are valid for five years up to the age of 60, two years between 60 and 76, and one year beyond 76. Renewal requires an examination by an authorised doctor, who may prescribe psychometric tests and certify a driver as fully fit, temporarily fit or fit subject to restrictions. Spain follows a simpler system, with five-year validity up to the age of 65 and three-year renewals thereafter. Poland, meanwhile, links the fitness of category C and CE drivers to psychometric assessments conducted by accredited traffic psychologists. These include instrument-based tests measuring attention, reaction times, coordination and the ability to cope with stress. If results fall below the minimum thresholds, drivers are declared unfit even if they hold a favourable medical certificate.
The Directive also addresses entry into the profession, lowering the minimum age for category C and CE licences to 18 throughout the EU for drivers holding a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC), while retaining the age of 21 for those without the qualification. Member States will be able to extend the new European accompanied-driving scheme to categories C1, C1E and C. The scheme is compulsory only for category B licences and allows drivers to obtain a licence before the standard minimum age, meaning at 17 for category C, provided they are accompanied by an experienced driver. Licences issued under this arrangement will be recognised only between countries that have adopted the same extension. All newly qualified drivers will also face a probationary period of at least two years, with stricter rules on driving after consuming alcohol. Meanwhile, EU Directive 2025/2206, adopted on the same day, extends the effects of certain driving disqualifications imposed in one Member State to all other EU countries.
P.R.
