Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation: the rules for dealers and workshops until 2028 and the status of the review as of November 2026

What MVBER means for dealers and workshops: parts, technical information, data and warranties. Valid until May 2028; review status as of November 2026.

Key findings

The Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation, known as MVBER, applies until 31 May 2028. It mainly concerns agreements on servicing and spare parts; the distribution of new cars falls under the general regime for vertical agreements.
The exemption provides a conditional "safe harbour" from the prohibition of anti-competitive agreements. It does not guarantee a dealer the continuation of their contract, nor does it guarantee a workshop admission to the authorised network on any terms it likes.
The manufacturer's warranty cannot be made conditional across the board on the customer having all paid maintenance carried out within the authorised network and using only parts of the vehicle manufacturer's brand.
Since 2023, the guidelines have also explicitly covered vehicle-generated data where it is necessary for repair and maintenance. Security restrictions on access must be proportionate.
As of 2 November 2026, the Commission has completed its evaluation of the rules and launched an impact assessment of future options. The form of the regime after 2028 has not yet been adopted.

The Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation sets the competition law boundaries for relationships between manufacturers, their authorised partners and the independent aftermarket. For the management of a dealership or workshop, it is of practical importance when buying parts, accessing diagnostics and explaining warranty terms to customers. However, a distinction must be made between the regulation itself, the interpretative guidelines and the commercial contract with the manufacturer. Each of these documents plays a different role, and the existence of the exemption alone does not resolve every contractual dispute.

What is the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation and how long does it apply?

MVBER is the abbreviation of Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation. It is Commission Regulation (EU) No 461/2010, which has applied since 1 June 2010. In 2023, its validity was extended until 31 May 2028.

Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union prohibits certain agreements that restrict competition. The block exemption sets out the conditions under which the agreements concerned can benefit from a block exemption from this prohibition. For servicing and parts, it combines general conditions with additional sector-specific rules.

Which rules govern sales and which govern servicing?

Area	Applicable framework	Significance for operations
Distribution of new cars	General regime for vertical agreements since 1 June 2013; the current Regulation (EU) 2022/720 has applied since 1 June 2022	A sales contract cannot be assessed solely on the basis of MVBER
Repair, maintenance and distribution of spare parts	MVBER together with the general regime for vertical agreements	Special rules for the aftermarket apply in addition to the general conditions
Interpretation of competition rules in the sector	Supplementary Guidelines published in May 2010 and amended in April 2023	They explain, for example, access to repair and maintenance inputs, how networks operate and warranty conditions

The legal framework and its amendments are set out in the European Commission's overview. The Supplementary Guidelines help to interpret the legislation; they are not a further regulation.

What does the 30% threshold mean?

The basic market share threshold for benefiting from the block exemption is 30%. For servicing agreements and parts, the relevant aftermarket is assessed. A brand's share of new car sales therefore cannot simply be carried over to the market for repairing its cars.

Exceeding the threshold does not mean that the agreement is prohibited. It means that its admissibility must be assessed individually. Even below the threshold, market share alone is not enough: the agreement must meet the other conditions and must not contain hardcore restrictions that rule out the application of the exemption.

What do the rules mean for authorised partners and independent workshops?

MVBER is intended to preserve competition in repairs and parts supply. For an authorised workshop, the ability to buy parts from multiple sources is important. Besides parts, an independent workshop also needs information, equipment and other inputs without which it cannot complete a job.

Market participant	What the rules protect	What cannot be inferred from them
Independent workshop	The ability to obtain parts and access to necessary repair and maintenance inputs	Free and unlimited access to all of the manufacturer's information
Authorised workshop	The ability to use alternative parts suppliers within the limits of competition rules	Freedom to ignore the network's qualitative requirements
Supplier of parts or equipment	The ability to supply the independent market and authorised workshops as well	A guarantee of purchases or a certain sales volume
Authorised dealer	Assessment of the distribution relationship under the applicable competition rules	An entitlement to permanently represent the brand or to a certain trading margin

Article 5 of MVBER excludes from the safe harbour, in particular, agreements that restrict:

the sale of spare parts by members of a selective distribution system to independent repairers;
the supply of parts, repair tools and other equipment by their suppliers to the aftermarket;
the ability of a component manufacturer to place its own visible trade mark on the part supplied.

The way an authorised repair network is organised is also relevant to admission. According to the Commission's interpretation, outside the safe harbour, authorised repair networks should generally admit businesses that meet the relevant qualitative criteria. However, this is not an unconditional entitlement to authorisation.

An authorised workshop that buys parts from multiple sources needs to keep their origin, status and reservations in a single record. In Omnetic, this is handled by the Warehouse module: it manages parts stock across stock locations and branches on a single stock card and reserves parts for open service jobs.

When can a customer use an independent workshop without losing the warranty?

Routine maintenance paid for by the customer does not have to be carried out exclusively within the authorised network for the customer to keep the manufacturer's warranty. To benefit from the competition law exemption, the warranty cannot be tied across the board to the exclusive use of parts of the vehicle manufacturer's brand for such replacements either.

This is a different situation from a repair paid for by the manufacturer under warranty. For warranty repairs, free servicing and recall campaigns paid for by the manufacturer, the use of parts supplied by the vehicle manufacturer may be required.

Typical servicing situation	How to tell it apart
The customer pays for routine maintenance at an independent workshop	Choosing an independent workshop is not in itself grounds for cancelling the manufacturer's warranty across the board
The customer pays for the replacement of a part from an alternative supplier	The brand of the part alone is not enough to refuse all future warranty claims
The fault claimed under warranty was caused by the failure of an alternative part	The manufacturer may refuse warranty cover related to that failure
The workshop carries out a repair or recall campaign paid for by the manufacturer	The manufacturer may require the use of parts it supplies

This distinction is based on the Commission's interpretation of the competition rules in the sector.

This creates an operational requirement for the workshop: the job should clearly record the work carried out, the parts used and who pays for each item. In the event of a warranty claim, there is then a record to distinguish routine maintenance, warranty repairs and the possible cause of the fault.

Omnetic Workshop manages the service job from the quote through vehicle reception and parts to invoicing. It allows line items to be split between the customer and warranty, so the workshop does not have to keep these different payment types in separate spreadsheets.

What access do workshops have to technical information and vehicle data?

Today, a spare part and mechanical tools are often not enough for a repair. The workshop needs diagnostic procedures, technical information, training and access to the data needed to carry out the work.

The 2023 update of the Supplementary Guidelines explicitly extended the principles of access to repair and maintenance inputs to vehicle-generated data where it is necessary for repair and maintenance. According to the European Commission, this adapted the rules to the growing importance of such data for competition in servicing.

In practice, three obstacles need to be distinguished:

Information is missing: the workshop does not have a procedure or data needed for the repair.
Access is discriminatory: the independent repairer obtains a necessary input on terms that put it at a disadvantage compared with the authorised network.
Access is blocked by a security requirement: the question is whether the restriction corresponds to a genuine security risk.

Cybersecurity may restrict access, but according to the guidelines, such a measure must comply with the principle of proportionality. A security argument is therefore not a universal reason for closing off repair and maintenance access.

Operational records should capture which input the workshop requested, for which repair it needed it and what conditions or refusal it received. A general statement that "diagnostics isn't working" does not distinguish between a technical fault, a missing authorisation and a restriction of access.

How does agency sales fit into the rules?

The sale of new cars falls under the general regime for vertical agreements. The term "MVBER 2028" therefore cannot be used as a catch-all label for all rules governing dealer and agency contracts.

The Commission's 2026 evaluation describes agency sales as a model in which the agent sells on behalf of the manufacturer, does not own the car before the sale, does not bear the relevant commercial risks and receives a commission. The manufacturer sets the selling price and bears the costs of stock holding and transport.

For dealership management, besides the commission, what matters is therefore the allocation of risks and costs: who finances the stock, who pays for transport and who bears the commercial risk of an unsold car. The label given to a new sales model does not in itself answer how it is assessed under competition law.

What did the Commission find in the evaluation published in 2026?

The evaluation of MVBER and the Supplementary Guidelines covering the period 2021–2025, published on 25 June 2026, reached two main conclusions:

Overall, the rules achieved their objectives. They contributed to legal certainty and reduced the cost of assessing the compliance of vertical agreements.
They were not fully effective in removing restrictions on access to necessary repair and maintenance inputs. Independent repairers and parts suppliers continue to face problems with non-discriminatory access to vehicle data.

This is how the Commission's evaluation report summarises its conclusions. The outcome is not a conclusion that sector-specific rules are no longer needed. The evaluation shows both the benefits of the current framework and the area where it lags behind developments in the aftermarket.

What changes are the different parts of the market calling for?

Organisation and its role	Public position	Period
CECRA, representing dealers and repairers	Speed up sector-specific legislation on access to vehicle data and ensure a level playing field	March 2025
FIGIEFA and FEDA, independent aftermarket and parts distribution	Modernise MVBER, keep the regime after 2028 and strengthen enforcement	2025 consultation position
GVA, German independent parts trade	Reflect technological progress directly in the regulation	April 2026
ACEA, representing manufacturers	Support implementation of the Data Act and evaluate its effects before introducing further legal requirements	May 2025

The difference mainly concerns the next steps on data. Representatives of dealers and the independent market are calling for faster or stronger sector-specific regulation. ACEA emphasises first implementing and evaluating the general regulation on data, known as the Data Act. These are the positions of participants in the debate, not the adopted wording of future rules.

What is the status of the review as of November 2026, and what should be monitored until 2028?

As of 2 November 2026, the evaluation has been completed and preparation of the future regime is under way. The Commission launched an impact assessment of future options for MVBER on 29 October 2026 and plans consultations with stakeholders. The status of the process is shown on the European Commission's review page.

The impact assessment compares possible next steps. It is neither an adopted extension nor a new regulation. For contracts and operations, the current framework therefore continues to apply, with MVBER expiring on 31 May 2028.

Until then, the management of a workshop or dealer group should monitor in particular:

The form of the proposal: whether the Commission proposes continuing, amending or replacing the current regime.
The status of repair and maintenance data: whether the rules on access and their relationship to other legislation are clarified.
Security conditions: how proportionality will be reflected in access to diagnostics and service functions.
Enforcement: whether a more effective way of resolving access barriers will be created.
Transitional provisions: how any change would affect existing agreements.

When preparing long-term investments, it is not advisable to base a business plan on the assumption that today's exemption will continue unchanged after 2028.

Pitfalls in contracts and day-to-day operations

The greatest risk is mistaking a competition rule for a universal contractual entitlement.

Common mistake	What it can lead to	The correct distinction
Assessing new car sales solely under MVBER	Overlooking the rules on the distribution or agency relationship	Sales and servicing have different legal frameworks
Treating exceeding 30% as a prohibition of the agreement	An incorrect conclusion about whether the contract is permissible	Outside the safe harbour, an individual assessment follows
Promising the customer that the warranty will be kept regardless of the cause of the fault	A dispute over liability for a defective part or workmanship	The choice of workshop and the cause of the fault claimed are separate questions
Confusing access to data with unrestricted use of it	Mistaken expectations about the scope of entitlement	The guidelines deal with data necessary for repair and maintenance
Confusing a software connection with the manufacturer's authorisation	The job runs into missing access	Operational integration and the right to use a repair and maintenance input are two different things

Checklist for workshop management

Separate customer-paid work from warranty repairs and recall campaigns.
Record the operations carried out and the parts used on each job.
Keep a record of refused access to repair and maintenance information, tools and data.
Distinguish between sales, servicing and agency contracts.
Before entering into a contractual commitment extending beyond 2028, include the ongoing review in the legal assessment.

Omnetic links the service job, parts and invoicing

Competition rules define the conditions for relationships in the market. Alongside this, a workshop needs to maintain continuous records of work, parts and payments. If the job, parts and invoicing are in separate systems, staff re-key the same data and find it harder to trace how it fits together.

Omnetic links these operational areas in a single cloud platform:

Workshop manages the job from the quote and vehicle reception through parts and planning to invoicing. It splits line items between the customer, warranty and the insurer and is suitable for both franchised and independent workshops.
Warehouse records stock levels, movements, reservations and orders for parts across stock locations and branches. It reserves parts for open jobs and releases them when jobs are changed or cancelled.
DMS Core provides the modules with a shared record of the car, customer, jobs and money. Data is not re-keyed between modules.

Linked records do not replace authorisation to access repair and maintenance data or a legal assessment of the contract. They do, however, make it possible to manage successive operational steps using the same data instead of a combination of separate systems, spreadsheets and paperwork.

An Omnetic demo lets you walk through how the service job, parts reservations and invoicing fit together for your business.

FAQ

Does MVBER guarantee a dealer a certain margin or compensation for investments?

No. MVBER sets out the conditions of the competition law exemption for the agreements concerned. It does not set a guaranteed margin or a general entitlement to compensation for a dealership's investments.

Is it enough to call a contract an agency agreement for the manufacturer to set the selling price?

No. When assessing an agency relationship, the actual allocation of commercial risks and costs is examined. The name of the contract does not replace its content and how it works in practice.

Does access to repair and maintenance data mean the right to use all of a car's data for marketing?

No. The extension of the Supplementary Guidelines concerns data necessary for repair and maintenance. No general entitlement to use all data for other commercial purposes can be derived from it.

Will Omnetic provide a connection to every manufacturer system?

Omnetic allows existing systems to be connected through its open platform, API, webhooks and manufacturer integrations. The availability of a specific integration is confirmed for the relevant market and brand; it is not a blanket promise of access to all manufacturers' systems.