Freight forwarding Bilbao – transport to and from the Czech Republic

Heavy cargo needs the right trailer

For decades the Nervión valley between Bilbao and the sea was the heart of Spanish steelmaking. The blast furnaces are gone, but metalworking remains: rolling and sheet processing, tube, casting and forging plants, engineering workshops and suppliers to the energy sector. The Basque Country is also Spain's leading region for machine tools. In practice, freight from Bilbao tends to be heavy, often single pieces, and not always palletised.

• Steel coils travel in coil-well trailers that hold them in a recess and stop them shifting.
• Sheet and sections need plenty of lashing points; long bars need side or top loading.
• Machines and large parts are craned in from above, so we book trailers with a sliding roof and need dimensions, weight and centre of gravity.
• Castings, forgings and fasteners in crates can go by groupage if the weight per pallet is acceptable for the depots.

With steel, the legal weight limit is reached quickly – a single coil can weigh more than twenty tonnes – so we plan by weight and axle load rather than pallet count.

The Port of Bilbao

Bilbao is one of the main ports on Spain's Atlantic coast. Its outer harbour at Santurtzi and Zierbena handles containers, steel products, liquid bulk and ro-ro vessels. For Czech importers it matters mainly as an entry point for cargo from the Americas and as a place where metal and construction materials are transferred to trucks.

For container cargo we need to know whether it has been released for free circulation in the EU. If so, it travels as a normal domestic EU shipment; if not, it moves under a transit document and is cleared in the Czech Republic. Terminals use booked entry slots, so pickup must match the release of the goods.

The shortest way to France

Of all large Spanish cities, Bilbao is closest to the French border: about 120 km along the AP-8 via San Sebastián to Irun / Biriatou. From there the route runs via Bayonne and Bordeaux, then either via Paris and Metz or via Lyon into Germany and on through Nuremberg to the Waidhaus / Rozvadov crossing. The total distance to Prague is approximately 1,950 km, so a full truck usually arrives within 4 working days; groupage takes around 5–7 working days.

The Basque Country manages its own road traffic and publishes its own calendar of truck restrictions, separate from the rest of Spain. French weekend and holiday bans and the German Sunday ban also apply. Tolls are charged on parts of the Basque motorway network and in France, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Food and wine from the region

Besides metal, Biscay and its neighbouring provinces ship canned fish from the coastal ports, cheese and baked goods. The Rioja wine area lies about a hundred kilometres south, and trucks heading out via Bilbao often collect wine on the way. In summer we recommend a temperature-controlled trailer for wine; chilled food always travels with temperature logging.

From the Czech Republic to the Basque Country we mostly move machine parts, semi-finished metal products, electrical equipment and automotive components.

Before you book

• Check whether the shipper loads by crane, forklift or from a dock – older plants in the valley often have no dock.
• For coils, state the diameter, width and weight of each piece.
• Confirm opening hours; many smaller workshops load only in the morning.

For heavy or bulky consignments we arrange a full truckload with suitable equipment; single crates go by pallet groupage. Check the price in our freight calculator.