Guide
Tachograph basics: cards, modes, manual entries and downloads
Updated
The tacho is the legal record of your hours. Get the modes and manual entries right and the rules guides on this site take care of the rest.
What it records, and the four modes
- Driving
- Set automatically when the vehicle moves. This is what the 9/56/90-hour limits count.
- Other work
- Loading, checks, paperwork, yard shunting. Not driving time, but it is working time and it is not break.
- Period of availability (POA)
- Waiting time whose length you know in advance, such as sitting at an RDC. Counts for neither driving nor working time.
- Break/rest
- Yours, and only yours. Any work during a recorded break invalidates it.
Vehicles in scope (broadly, goods vehicles or combinations over 3.5 tonnes on EU/GB-rules work) must use a tachograph, and drivers must hold their own driver card. Never drive without your card inserted, and never use anyone else's (gov.uk/tachographs).
Manual entries
When you insert your card, the unit asks what you were doing since it was last pulled. Enter it honestly: rest, other work or POA. Missing manual entries are one of the most common infringements DVSA finds at the roadside, and 'I forgot' is not a defence, the record is yours to keep complete.
Downloads and record-keeping
- Driver cards must be downloaded at least every 28 days, and vehicle units at least every 90 days; your operator carries that duty but you must make the card available.
- Carry your card plus enough record to cover today and the previous 28 calendar days at the roadside, including any manual records and printouts; on international journeys to and from an EU country it is 56 days.
- Lost, stolen or damaged card: report the problem to DVLA and apply for a new card within 7 calendar days, and you can drive without it for up to 15 calendar days (printouts at the start and end of each shift, or of each vehicle), then you need the replacement.
- From 1 July 2026, the assimilated rules apply to light goods vehicles over 2.5 tonnes used to carry goods on international transport operations, including cabotage, within the UK and the EU, which brings them into tachograph scope. Purely domestic van work is unaffected, and there is a separate exemption for own-account carriage where driving is not the driver's main activity. Verify your own operation's position on gov.uk before relying on an exemption.
The calculator on the home page works from the same driving-time figures your tacho records, so use your card data, not memory, when you fill it in.