4.25-tonne motorhomes on a car licence: what the EU directive changes

What the directive says, word for word

4,250 kg. For years, that figure has done the rounds of motorhome forums like a promise: the chance to drive a well-equipped low-profile motorhome on an ordinary car licence. On paper, it has now been adopted. Directive (EU) 2025/2205 on driving licences was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 5 November 2025 and entered into force on 25 November 2025 [1] [2]. It is addressed to EU member states, Ireland included; the UK, which has left the EU, is not bound by it [1]. What remains is to read what it says, and above all from when.

Its Article 6 defines category B: vehicles whose maximum authorised massThe most the vehicle may weigh when fully loaded, passengers included. In the UK it is often shortened to MAM, or called gross vehicle weight. does not exceed 3,500 kg. It then adds an opening, with a condition attached: on a category B licence, you will be able to drive ‘a motor caravan with a maximum authorised mass exceeding 3,500 kg but not exceeding 4,250 kg, including in combination with a trailer, if the maximum authorised mass of the combination does not exceed 5,000 kg’ [1]. In EU legal vocabulary, a motor caravan is a motorhome.

The condition fits in one sentence of the same article: you must have completed a training course, or passed a test of skills and behaviour, or both. Each country chooses. Annex V sets the minimum: a course of at least 7 hours, on public roads or on a closed circuit, with particular attention to vehicle dynamics, loading and safety, and practical exercises in braking, reversing, evasive action and parking [1].

Once the course is done, the licence will carry an EU code, 96.02, defined as follows: ‘Motor caravan driven with a category B driving licence, where the maximum authorised mass exceeds 3,500 kg, but does not exceed 4,250 kg or, combined with a trailer, does not exceed 5,000 kg’ [1].

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When? Not before 26 November 2029

This is where the excitement fades. Article 29 of the directive gives member states until 26 November 2028 to adopt and publish their rules, then specifies that they apply them ‘from 26 November 2029’ [1]. One exception to this timetable matters here: the alternatively fuelled vehicles covered by Article 9, electric ones included, whose rules apply from 26 November 2027. Motorhomes are not among them.

Could a country in a hurry open the door earlier? In reply to a petition to the Bundestag, Germany’s federal transport ministry said these rules only apply from 26 November 2029, citing Article 29 itself. The European Commission sees this as a safeguard: identical application dates, so that the same entitlement to drive is recognised everywhere, including when you cross a border [4]. A ‘4.25-tonne’ licence valid in Ireland but not in France would do nobody any favours.

In Ireland, the current rules still apply. The country is bound by the same directive and the same timetable [1], and as of 22 October 2026 the National Driver Licence Service still listed campervans and motorhomes of over 3,500 kg and up to 7,500 kg under category C1 [10].

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Two misconceptions doing the rounds

‘You’ll need to have held your licence for two years.’ Not in the text, for motorhomes. The two-year condition is in Article 9: two years after a category B licence is first issued, it will also cover certain alternatively fuelled vehicles up to 4,250 kg. But the same point specifies that ‘motor caravans shall not be covered by the equivalence’ [1]. For a motorhome, the only EU condition is the course or the test. Each country can still set its own arrangements when transposing the text: in Ireland, the national rules will have the final word.

‘An electric motorhome won’t need the course.’ Wrong again under the directive, and for the same reason: the exclusion of motor caravans applies whatever the engine. A 4-tonne electric motorhome will also have to go through the course, or the test, and code 96.02.

What still holds until then

Until the directive applies, nothing changes; in the UK, it does not apply at all. In Great Britain, a car licence (category B) covers petrol and diesel vehicles, hybrids included, up to 3,500 kg MAM [11], and GOV.UK is explicit: to drive a motorhome with a MAM of between 3.5 and 7.5 tonnes, you need a category C1 licence [12]. There is one notable exception. If you passed your car test before 1 January 1997, GOV.UK says you can usually drive a vehicle and trailer combination up to 8,250 kg MAM [11], and on licences issued before June 1990 the old car group A became several categories, C1 among them [13]. View your driving licence information to check what yours covers. In Ireland, the National Driver Licence Service sets the same thresholds for motorhomes: category B up to 3,500 kg, category C1 above that, up to 7,500 kg [10].

And the threshold is judged on paper, not on how the motorhome feels at the wheel: what counts is its maximum authorised mass, listed in the owner’s manual and normally shown on a plate or sticker fitted to the vehicle [14]. If you tour France, its highway code prohibits driving a vehicle whose actual weight exceeds the authorised mass on its registration certificate [5]; the offence can be established by weighing it, or by adding what you carry to the unladen weight shown on the certificate [6].

Let’s do the maths: why 3.5 tonnes is often tight

If the change is so eagerly awaited, it’s because 3,500 kg goes quickly. Your registration certificate gives two useful figures. In the EU format, field F.2 shows the maximum permissible laden mass of the vehicle in service; field G, the mass of the vehicle in service [7]. The difference is your payloadWhat you can carry without exceeding the authorised mass: passengers, luggage, bikes and any accessories added later..

Take an example registration certificate, invented for the sum: 3,500 kg at F.2, 3,050 kg at G. That leaves 450 kg. The mass in service already counts the driver, at 75 kg. Water and gas depend on the manufacturer: Camping-Car Magazine counts one gas bottle and 90% of the fresh water [8], but a manufacturer may count as little as 20 litres, as our guide to payload shows. Check the spec sheet before treating a full water tank as free. Three passengers at 70 kg take 210 kg. That leaves 240 kg, minus any water the manufacturer does not count, for four people: luggage, food, crockery, folding chairs, the bike rack and the bikes themselves. And every accessory added later, from the awning to the solar panels, comes off that margin too.

Should you wait until 2029 to buy?

The question mostly concerns anyone eyeing a model over 3.5 tonnes. In Ireland, a 4.25-tonne motorhome bought today will need category C1 until the country has published its rules and the course exists, so not before 26 November 2029 if the EU timetable holds. In the UK, the directive changes nothing: between 3.5 and 7.5 tonnes, GOV.UK requires category C1, unless your licence already includes it [12]. Conversely, a 3.5-tonne model keeps its current payload: nothing in the directive raises the mass recorded on an existing registration certificate.

A vehicle’s maximum mass is set when the authorities approve it, then recorded on its registration certificate [5]. Some manufacturers already offer motorhomes built on a chassis designed for 4.25 tonnes but down-plated to 3,500 kg for now, a lower weight shown on the vehicle’s plate [14]; how their mass will later be raised on the registration certificate, and who will handle it, is not yet known [9]. That step will depend on the manufacturer and the approval rules, not on your licence. Before buying on the strength of the future code 96.02, ask in writing for the mass that will appear on the registration certificate.

Heavier motorhomes also raise the question of on-board power and comfort in winter, which we cover separately: how to size a leisure battery and what a camper conversion needs when it freezes.

For now, one simple rule will do: on a car licence, 3,500 kg of maximum authorised mass is your limit, and only a weighbridge can tell you how much of it you have left.

Julien de Jurquet

Campervans, motorhomes, cycling and calculators

Julien de Jurquet writes for Outfarer about campervans, motorhomes, cycling and calculators. He reads instruction manuals to the very end and never lets a figure through without its unit, so that your choices rest on sums rather than promises.

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