Consignment notes: CMR, eCMR and the administrative control document

The contract of carriage, issued from the shipment you already have

The consignment note is the document that proves the contract of carriage by road: who hands the goods over, who carries them, what is carried and under what conditions. DGAssistant issues it from the shipment that is already in the application, so the parties, the goods and the packages do not have to be typed again.

The international version is governed by the Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road, signed in Geneva in 1956 and known as the CMR, which applies when the place of taking over and the place of delivery are in two different countries. Its electronic version comes from the additional protocol of 2008, which gives the same value to a note issued and signed electronically.

Four documents, one operation

Whatever the journey is, the data are declared once and each document takes what it needs:

• International consignment note (CMR): for carriage between two countries, with the boxes of the convention and the reservations of the carrier.
• National consignment note and administrative control document: for domestic carriage in Spain, where the DeCA has to be electronic since 5 October 2026.
• Electronic consignment note (eCMR): issued, signed and followed without paper, with the evidence of what happened during the journey.
• consignment note for hazardous materials: with the ADR transport document attached, so the driver carries one set of papers and not two.

What the note carries with it

Beyond the parties and the goods, the note keeps what usually gets lost between a phone call and an e-mail: the successive carriers with their vehicles and drivers, the places and times of taking over and delivery, the instructions and the documents that travel with the load, the charges and who pays them, the declared value and the special interest in delivery.

It also keeps the seals of the transport unit and the references of the loading and unloading docks, which is what allows a delivery to be proved afterwards without anyone having to remember it.

The step by step is in the guide of consignment notes.