A UIT is valid for 5 calendar days from the declared start date, or 15 for intra-EU acquisitions and two other operation types. After that it is dead, and using it is prohibited (OUG 41/2022, art. 11). Trucks break down, trailers get swapped and loads arrive late, so a dispatcher needs to know two things: is the code still good, and what happens when the vehicle changes?
Who declares the UIT is covered in the first article of this series.
How long it lasts
The 15-day period covers intra-EU acquisitions, transit to storage, and non-transfer or call-off stock. Everything else gets 5 calendar days, weekends included (art. 11(2)). A trip that starts on a Friday has to be finished, unloading included, by the following Tuesday if the standard period applies.
The declarant can declare up to 3 calendar days before the declared start date (art. 11(1)). The UIT is generated after the declaration, but validity counts from the declared start date, whenever the code itself was generated.
The ANAF info service lets an organiser look up the notifications that carry its tax ID, and it returns an expiry date for each UIT. In ANAF's published sample, a transport starting on 24 June has the expiry date 29 June. That is the first day the code no longer works, so the last valid day is 28 June, and a screen that shows the raw expiry date as "valid until" is one day too generous.
Druma takes that day off. It checks each UIT with ANAF when you record it, at departure and again on a truck swap, through your own ANAF connection, and the order pane shows the valid-until date already moved back by one day. An order planned on or after the first expired day raises a warning, and a scan every 15 minutes marks expired UITs, closes their truck assignments and tells the planners who can edit the order, once per UIT.
If the load will not be delivered inside the validity period, the declarant has to invalidate the notification and obtain a new UIT (OPANAF 1.337/1.268/2024, art. 3). The same goes for a return leg or a reload, since a new trip is a new declaration. Druma neither creates nor renews a code; the declarant issues the new one and you enter it.
What you can still change
Once the vehicle has been presented at the border or has started moving, almost everything else in the system is frozen (art. 11(3)). There are two exceptions.
The first is the vehicle, and it is the one a haulier deals with: the organiser of the transport or the transport operator must update the vehicle identification inside the validity period, whenever it changes and before the vehicle moves again (art. 8(1^1)). The second is the goods data after expiry. Name, characteristics, quantity and value of the goods can be corrected after the UIT expires, but no later than the 25th of the month after the transport (art. 11(5)). The OUG treats such changes as information relevant to the taxpayer's risk profile (art. 11(6)), so they are not free, and the correction belongs to the declarant.
Changing the truck or the trailer
In the technical specification a vehicle change is its own message, modifVehicul, in the same XML family as the declaration. The official XSD (version 2) has it carry the UIT, the new plate, up to two trailer plates, the date and time of the change and optional remarks. In ANAF's official sample the message is filed under the tax ID of the transport organiser, which differs from the ID that declared the transport, so a carrier can file its own vehicle change. The ANAF e-Transport application offers the same change by hand.
The timing rule is strict. The text says "before the vehicle is put in motion again", so fixing the plate after a roadside check is too late. Plates are checked as 2 to 20 letters and digits, with no spaces or dashes, and a typo creates exactly the mismatch an inspector will see. The change does not create a new code: the same UIT stays valid on the new truck until it expires.
In Druma, when the truck or trailer on an order changes, the UIT moves to the vehicle now carrying the load, and Druma reports the vehicle change to ANAF. That notice is the only filing Druma makes with ANAF for a UIT (ANAF e-Transport).
Take a concrete case. A truck with a UIT valid until Thursday breaks down at the loading point near Timișoara on Tuesday morning, and the planner sends another tractor with the same trailer. The new tractor plate goes into modifVehicul before it leaves the yard, the driver gets the same UIT, and nothing is re-declared. If the delivery in Hamburg is going to take it past Thursday, though, no vehicle change helps. That needs a new UIT from the declarant.
If the system itself is down when the vehicle is set in motion, or during the trip, the obligations are suspended until it is back. They must then be met by the end of the next working day (art. 8(1^2) and (1^3)).
When the plan moves
At planning, compare the delivery date with the UIT's last valid day, the day before the expiry ANAF returns. On a truck or trailer swap, update the vehicle first and tell the driver second. On a delay, check the UIT again before you promise a slot, and keep it next to the CMR and the proof of delivery on every order so driver and office see the same data.
Sources
Facts last checked October 25, 2026
