You have to have your own: new restrictions have been prepared for carriers
A bill has been submitted to the State Duma providing for additional restrictions for road carriers. It is assumed that companies will be able to transport goods and passengers only in their own or rented vehicles under the control of drivers on the organization's staff. Carriers and industry experts have different views on this initiative. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
Statutory relationships
The Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod Region has submitted amendments to the Statute of Motor Transport and Urban land-based Electric Transport for consideration by the State Duma, providing for additional restrictions for carriers. The document is posted in the legislative support system of the lower house of Parliament. According to the proposed amendments, companies will be able to transport cargo, passengers and luggage only on their own or rented vehicles. At the same time, only drivers who are full-time employees of this organization should be driving.
As follows from the draft law, it is planned to supplement the Charter with a new article with additional requirements for carriers.
"Persons engaged in the transportation of goods, passengers and baggage are obliged, when carrying out such transportation, to allow a driver who is an employee of the carrier to manage vehicles belonging to them on the right of ownership or other legal basis (rent, gratuitous use)," the text of the document says.
The authors of the amendments note that the absence of such requirements in the current legislation has led to the fact that an organization or an individual entrepreneur can act as a carrier, "who do not have their own production and labor resources to provide transport services: drivers on staff and vehicles owned or otherwise legally owned." The accompanying documents to the bill provide data from the State Traffic Inspectorate, according to which 6.95 million trucks were registered in Russia at the end of last year. At the same time, according to the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation for 2023, the number of employees of organizations and sole proprietors under the OKVED code 49.4 "Motor freight transport activities" amounted to just over 495.5 thousand people.
"In practice, this leads to shadow employment, when drivers are not registered in the state or are registered under a civil law contract (GPA), including with the self-employed, in order to minimize tax deductions; substitution of labor relations with civil law and, as a result, lack of labor and social guarantees for drivers; lack of control over the parties of transport owners monitor the observance of the work and rest regime by drivers hired under a civil contract or allowed to drive without any registration, and, as a result, increased accidents on roads involving heavy vehicles," the explanatory note to the bill says.
According to the authors of the amendments, this contributes to the fact that intermediaries act under the guise of carriers, actually performing forwarding or agency functions, as well as "fragmentation of business in order to minimize tax deductions, dumping and unfair competition."
The amendments proposed by the draft law will further formulate requirements for the development of advanced information systems (GosLog) in terms of identifying the cargo carrier by road, deputies of the Nizhny Novgorod Legislative Assembly believe.
— The bill is aimed, among other things, at eliminating the substitution of civil law labor relations and, as a result, the lack of labor and social guarantees for drivers. Thus, if the proposed changes are adopted, drivers as sole proprietors or self-employed will not be able to work for hire under a civil contract, the information policy department of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region told Izvestia.
Truck to truck is different
A number of experts are skeptical about the data provided by the authors of the bill in the explanatory note. For example, the number of trucks listed includes LCV models (category N1— gross weight up to 3.5 tons), a significant part of which are operated for personal purposes and to which, in principle, the requirements for commercial transport cannot be applied, says Taras Koval, President of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists. As of the beginning of 2025, the fleet of N2 and N3 trucks (gross weight above 3.5 tons), which are most often used in commercial cargo transportation, amounted to 2.57 million units, he noted. The expert also has questions about the number of drivers registered in Russia.
— The list of employees indicated in the accompanying documents based on the data of the Federal Tax Service does not include drivers who independently operate vehicles, — said Taras Koval.
At the same time, he admits that the problem of the "gray" trucking business exists. According to him, it is expressed in the widespread use of a scheme in which an intermediary is squeezed in between the cargo owner and the carrier directly performing the transportation.
— In fact, it just brings together the sender, the direct carrier and the recipient of the cargo. For his service, he receives 100% of the payment for transportation, of which he allocates some part to the contractor himself," Taras Koval told Izvestia.
Currently, this is the most profitable part of the trucking business, where costs are minimal and income is substantial, the expert notes. This is done by most market participants, except for the smallest carriers. The use of this particular scheme allows transport companies with leased rolling stock to survive today, he emphasizes.
The proposed amendments only indicate the problem, but do not solve it, Taras Koval believes. In practice, when using such schemes and the mutual interest of the sender and the carrier, it is not entirely easy to identify the latter, he emphasizes.
— Its solution is possible based on the use of foreign experience. In particular, the introduction of a register of carriers with the inclusion of vehicles in it, as in international transportation," said the president of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists.
They will increase confidence in the industry
Representatives of the Russian automobile cargo carrier Iteco believe that the adoption of this bill is a fundamental step towards improving the health of the entire commercial road transportation industry. It is aimed at suppressing shadow employment schemes, splitting up businesses in the transport sector and fictitious carriers, and increasing the social and labor protection of drivers, said Evgeny Babaev, President of Iteco JSC.
— The bill introduces a clear definition of a carrier as a person with the necessary resources: drivers on staff and vehicles owned or otherwise legally owned. Individual entrepreneurs may not have drivers in the state if they carry out transportation on their own. Thus, pseudo-carriers will not be able to carry out commercial transportation of goods or passengers. The draft law does not apply to all legal entities operating vehicles, but only to those that carry out commercial transportation of goods, passengers and luggage," he told Izvestia.
According to Evgeny Babaev, the primary task is to ensure the official registration of all employees.
— Only after that it will be possible to objectively compare working conditions and wages in the industry. In other words, the industry is moving towards a real accounting of the resources and responsibilities of the participants. This is not just a technical change, it is the beginning of systemic changes that will clear the market of fictitious structures, level out competitive conditions and increase confidence in the industry as a whole," said the president of JSC Iteco.
Under control
Situations where drivers do not register with the staff and work according to the GPA are a common practice for both large and small carriers, Vladimir Matyagin, president of the Gruzavtotrans Association, told Izvestia. Moreover, their salary is often divided into two parts.
— Many drivers say that they receive an amount close to the minimum wage on the card, and the rest comes by regular transfer, a kind of "electronic envelope". Well, there will be a driver on staff, what will it change in such a salary scheme? — He wonders.
According to him, it is precisely the established practice, in which the driver's income directly depends on the kilometers he has traveled per shift, the number of loads, etc., that largely contributes to their violations of the work and rest regime. Vladimir Matyagin believes that it is possible to change the situation on the cargo transportation market and improve their safety within the framework of existing legislation by strengthening control over the implementation of existing regulations.
Taras Koval agrees with him. He emphasizes that it is necessary to strengthen control over the activities of drivers through compliance with the norms of driving time and rest time. At the same time, it is necessary to abandon the piecework payment for the driver's work, depending on the distance traveled, and switch to hourly, the expert believes. This will allow truckers not to "chase a penny by sticking matches in their eyes," he believes.
Regions need taxes
Now freight companies provide their services to organizations by subcontracting different sole proprietors for one car, thus reducing the cost, Ilya Zotov, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Transport of Russia, told Izvestia. This is how sole proprietors circumvent tax legislation, not showing real incomes and winning competition from bona fide freight companies, he explained. The proposed amendments are aimed at "restoring order in the provision of freight transportation," the expert believes.
— The bill proposes, as well as in passenger transportation, to introduce a rule that freight transportation should be carried out by companies that employ equipment and drivers. This has been introduced for passenger transportation for a long time, but for cargo the issue has not been regulated. The regions expect from this law, first of all, an increase in tax revenues," Ilya Zotov told Izvestia.
— This bill has just been submitted and has not yet been discussed at the meeting of the transport committee, so it is premature to announce the committee's position. But the topic of cargo transportation regulation is undoubtedly extremely relevant. We will carefully study the position of colleagues from the Nizhny Novgorod region on the definition of the concept of "carrier" and requirements for cargo transportation," Pavel Fedyaev, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Transport and Transport Infrastructure Development, told Izvestia.
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