Which transports are exempt from the DeCA

Before setting anything up, it's worth checking whether the regulation even applies to you. Article 2 of Orden FOM/2861/2012 sets out four cases where no control document is required, plus a fifth case that isn't an exemption but works in a similar way.

Transports not requiring an operating title

The order doesn't apply to transports for which prior operating authorisation from the Administration isn't required under the rules governing land transport. In practice, the most common case is complementary private transport that doesn't require authorisation, and vehicles below the thresholds that require a transport card.

House removals

Removal transports are excluded with no further conditions. The regulation doesn't define them here, so the sector's general concept of a removal applies: moving furniture and household goods.

Crashed or broken-down vehicles

The exemption covers the transport of crashed or broken-down vehicles on special vehicles. The nuance is in the middle: it has to be done on a special vehicle, meaning a tow truck or car-carrier equipped for it.

Courier services and similar

This is the exemption with the longest wording and also the most debatable at the margins:

Two cumulative conditions: a small number of parcels, and one person being able to handle them with whatever's carried on the vehicle itself. Last-mile parcel delivery fits; a granular pallet distribution requiring a dock pallet jack doesn't.

The case that isn't an exemption: the consignment note

Section 2 of article 2 doesn't exempt you from documenting, but admits another document in place of the control document. If the transport is already documented in a consignment note or other supporting documentation compliant with national, EU or international legislation, that documentation serves as the administrative control document, on one condition: that it contains all the data listed in article 6.

And if I'm not sure

Exemptions are interpreted strictly, and the cost of getting it wrong is asymmetric: issuing a DeCA that wasn't needed has no consequences, while failing to issue one that was needed exposes both loader and carrier at once, under article 7.1. When it's not clearly a fit, issuing it is the cheap option.