UK clean air zone charges by vehicle

The car table above answers the question most people arrive with. This one answers it for everything else on the road, reading each operator's published charge list line by line. A cell reads "Not charged" where the operator lists the vehicle and sets no charge, "Barred below standard" where a Scottish council refuses entry instead of charging, and "No separate rate" where the operator publishes no line for that vehicle at all.

Outside London and Oxford, every English charging zone is built on one of four classes defined by the government, and each class takes in everything the class below it charges. Class A covers buses, coaches, taxis and private hire vehicles. Class B adds heavy goods vehicles. Class C adds vans and minibuses. Class D adds cars, and a council running class D can choose to bring motorcycles in too.

None of the English charging zones uses class A. Portsmouth is the only class B, Bath, Bradford, Sheffield and Tyneside are class C, and Birmingham and Bristol are class D. That split is why only two English clean air zones charge a private car at all, however old it is; Oxford's pilot is the only other place outside London where a car pays.

A diesel van below Euro 6, or a petrol van below Euro 4, is charged in the ULEZ and in every English clean air zone except Portsmouth, whose class B scheme stops at lorries. Where a van does pay, the figure runs from £8 in Birmingham to £12.50 in the London ULEZ and Tyneside. In full: £8 in Birmingham; £9 in Bath, Bristol and Bradford; £10 in Sheffield; and £12.50 in the London ULEZ and Tyneside.

The London LEZ measures a van differently. It looks at weight rather than body shape, and at particulates rather than the Euro 6 line, so a diesel van over 1.205 tonnes unladen that misses Euro 3 for particulates owes £100 a day there.

In Scotland a van below the standard has no price at all: it is refused entry, and driving in anyway brings a penalty notice. Oxford sets a van's charge by its carbon dioxide figure, the same way it sets a car's, so the van column there shows the band range rather than one number.

Heavy vehicles carry the biggest daily charges and the strictest standard, Euro VI. In the English zones outside London a lorry below Euro VI pays £50 in Birmingham, Bradford, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Tyneside; and £100 in Bath and Bristol. Buses and coaches pay the same figure as a lorry in each of those cities.

London splits the work between two schemes. The ULEZ does not charge a lorry, bus or coach at all; the LEZ does, at £100 and £300 a day depending on how far below Euro VI the vehicle falls. The higher LEZ figure is the £300 top charge in the UK.

Motorhomes and horseboxes are where a private owner meets the heavy vehicle rules. Bath charges a private vehicle over 3.5 tonnes £100 unless it is registered with the council, Bradford charges £50 above 3.5 tonnes, and Sheffield lets a campervan or motorhome pay £10 like a van.

In every class B and class C zone, yes, because a licensed taxi or private hire car is charged where the same model driven privately is not. The lowest rate is £7 in Bradford; across England the figures are £7 in Bradford; £8 in Birmingham; £9 in Bath and Bristol; £10 in Portsmouth and Sheffield; and £12.50 in Tyneside.

Tyneside is the one zone with a cheaper way to pay for regular work: a driver licensed by Newcastle, Gateshead or North Tyneside can buy seven consecutive days for £50 rather than paying £12.50 each day. The licence, not the vehicle, is what qualifies, so a driver licensed by another council pays the daily rate.

Only in London's ULEZ, where a motorcycle, moped or motor tricycle below Euro 3 pays £12.50 a day. Class D lets an English council charge motorcycles, and neither Birmingham nor Bristol has done so. The London LEZ and the Congestion Charge leave motorcycles alone, and the Scottish zones place them outside the rules altogether.

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee sell no day passes. A vehicle below the standard is simply not permitted, and each camera capture is a penalty: £60, halved to £30 if paid within 14 days, then doubling for each repeat by the same vehicle in the same zone within 90 days. A car or van tops out at £480; a minibus, bus, coach or lorry can reach £960.

Oxford is the only zone that grades every vehicle by what comes out of the exhaust, charging from 07:00 to 19:00. A zero emission vehicle pays nothing, and the charged bands run from £2 to £10:

Charges do not carry over from one city to the next, and neither does a payment. These three trips use each operator's own figures.