Road trains up to 31.25 metres and 75 tonnes: Argentina rewrote the weights-and-dimensions regime for freight transport (Decree 689/2026)

Getting goods from the field, the mine or the wellhead to the port is one of the things that makes exporting from Argentina expensive, and much of that cost was set by a 1995 table. The decree does not tweak it: it replaces it. Article 1 provides that "Annex R of Decree No. 779 of 20 November 1995 and its amendments is hereby replaced" — the weights-and-dimensions regulation of the Traffic Law — with a new annex. Maximum lengths are set at 19.60 metres for a single-articulation tractor-semitrailer and, for double-articulation road trains, at 23.40 metres (B1 configuration), 26.50 (B2) and 31.25 (B3). The gross combination weights reported by the specialised press for those configurations are 60 tonnes for B1 and 75 tonnes for B2 and B3. The decree also expressly extends the same maximum lengths to vehicles running on dedicated CNG and to pure electric and hybrid vehicles — a point the government ties directly to the availability of Vaca Muerta gas. The official argument was summed up by the Deregulation Minister: "we had the absurdity of trucks that could carry more but were not allowed to, because an obsolete rule forbade it", and the official statement adds that the update brings Argentine parameters in line with Brazil's — relevant for anyone moving freight across Mercosur who had been running two different logistics operations on either side of the border. TWO POINTS OF RIGOUR: the body of the decree as published in the Official Gazette sets the lengths but does NOT reproduce the weights table, which is referred to the new Annex R (identified as IF-2026-58308528-APN-SSTAU#MEC) published only in the online edition — so the tonnages are attributed to specialised coverage and not quoted from the operative text; and neither the decree nor the official statement quantifies the logistics saving or the extra tonnes per trip, so no saving figure is published here. The government picked this decree as one of the three highlighted examples in its August 2026 monthly deregulation report.

Legal instrument

Decree 689/2026, published in the Official Gazette on 31 July 2026, notice 53391/26, signed by Milei, Caputo and Santilli. Article 3 provides that "this decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication in the OFFICIAL GAZETTE"

Authority

Executive Branch — replaces Annex R of Decree 779/95 (the Traffic Law regulation); applied by the Transport Secretariat of the Ministry of Economy

Status

In force

Last verified

2026-09-08