Passengers: the 12-day rule and what changed for occasional services

Anyone running occasional passenger services knows the so-called 12-day rule: the option to postpone the weekly rest for up to 12 consecutive 24-hour periods, so a tour is not broken up halfway through.

The derogation has existed since 2010 and applied only to international occasional services. Regulation (EU) 2024/1258 extended it and adjusted the conditions, recognising that a ten-day circuit inside one country raises exactly the same operational problem as a cross-border one.

What the derogation allows

On an occasional service, the driver may postpone the weekly rest for up to 12 consecutive 24-hour periods counted from the end of the previous regular weekly rest.

In exchange, after that period they must take:

• two regular weekly rests (45 hours each); or
• one regular and one reduced of at least 24 hours, with the shortfall compensated in one block before the end of the third following week.

The conditions that still apply

The derogation is not automatic. It depends on the service being genuinely occasional — it cannot be applied to regular services — and it leaves in force every rule that has nothing to do with the weekly rest:

• the daily driving limits (9 hours, 10 hours twice a week);
• the 45-minute break after 4h30 of driving;
• the daily rest of 11 hours, or 9 hours when reduced;
• the limit of 90 hours of driving in two weeks.

In other words: 12 days without a weekly rest are not 12 days without stopping. They are 12 days in which the weekly rest has been pushed to the end of the circuit, with every other limit running normally.

What to check before accepting the job

Is the service really occasional? A circuit with the same itinerary and timetable repeated weekly is a regular service, whatever the contract calls it.

Is the tachograph in order for the whole period? Twelve days of continuous activity leave little room for badly made manual entries.

Is the rest at the end actually planned? The derogation is only lawful if the compensating rest is genuinely scheduled. A circuit ending on a Friday with a load booked for Saturday does not comply.

Before applying the derogation to a specific job, check the text in force on EUR-Lex and with your national transport authority — the 2024 changes altered details that older guidance still does not reflect.