London Congestion Charge

The zone is the core of central London. On TfL's own zone map, dated October 2021, the red boundary line runs along Marylebone Road and Euston Road across the top, turns down City Road and Commercial Street on the eastern side, reaches the river at Tower Bridge and follows Tower Bridge Road and New Kent Road to Elephant & Castle. From there it heads west to Vauxhall Bridge, north-west up Vauxhall Bridge Road past Victoria, then by Hyde Park Corner and Park Lane to Marble Arch before cutting back to Marylebone Road. Soho, Mayfair, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell, the City, Westminster and Waterloo all sit inside it.

You are told when you cross in. Signs on the main approach roads give the operating hours, and some also give the price; a red C painted on the carriageway usually marks an entry point; and a sign showing the red and white logo crossed out means the zone has ended. Inside, further signs remind drivers that cameras are operating. If you are unsure about a particular street, the zone page on the TfL site has a postcode checker and a map search.

Today's hours date from 21 February 2022. During the pandemic TfL stretched charging to 7am to 10pm, seven days a week, from 22 June 2020. Its December 2021 announcement took the evenings out again, saying this would help shift workers and the culture, hospitality and night-time businesses still recovering.

Often, yes. The Ultra Low Emission Zone is a different scheme that covers every London borough and the City, so it takes in the whole Congestion Charge zone. TfL's ULEZ page sets its daily charge at £12.50 for a vehicle that does not meet the emissions standards, and it runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year except Christmas Day. A compliant petrol car in the central zone pays the Congestion Charge alone; a non-compliant one owes both.

The clocks are different as well. The Congestion Charge switches off overnight and before noon at weekends, while ULEZ never does. And TfL's January 2026 notice to private hire drivers says that the new yearly uprating process, which lets road charges rise in line with Tube fares, would apply to the Congestion Charge and not to the ULEZ.

For an ordinary car every route costs £18, provided the money arrives in time. What moves the price is when you pay and whether the vehicle is on Auto Pay. Electric vehicles only get the Cleaner Vehicle Discount through Auto Pay: pay for the same electric car on the website or by phone and TfL takes the full £18.

You can pay up to 90 days ahead. Once the day of travel has passed the price rises to £21, and TfL keeps taking payment until midnight on the third charging day afterwards. Weekends count as charging days, so a Friday trip has to be settled by midnight on the Monday.

It costs nothing. TfL charges no fee to register or to add vehicles, and once a car is on the account every chargeable day it spends in the zone is billed to you, so there is no deadline to miss and no PCN for forgetting. It is also the only way an electric vehicle gets its discount, and Residents' Discount holders need it to pay the £1.80 rate online.

The same account settles ULEZ and LEZ charges for a vehicle that does not meet those standards, which is handy for a household or small firm with a mix of old and new vehicles.

Cameras in the zone photograph number plates. If no payment for that vehicle and day has reached TfL by midnight on the third charging day, a PCN goes to the registered keeper on the DVLA record. From its date of service you have 28 days to pay or challenge it, and paying within the first 14 of those halves it to £90.

Ignore it and the amount rises by half. Once an Order for Recovery has been served, you have 21 days to pay or to file a statutory declaration with the Traffic Enforcement Centre, on one of three grounds: you never received the PCN; you made representations within 28 days and never got a Notice of Rejection; or you appealed to London Tribunals within 28 days of a rejection and heard nothing back.

The declaration goes to the TEC, not to TfL, and must be signed in front of a commissioner for oaths such as a solicitor, a County Court officer appointed to take affidavits, or a Justice of the Peace. Having it witnessed can cost money, but not at a County Court. Success does not cancel the penalty: on the first ground TfL reissues the PCN, and on the other two the case can go to an adjudicator.

There are two tiers. First you make representations to TfL, which says it weighs mitigating circumstances and its own discretion. If TfL rejects you, you can appeal to the Road User Charging Adjudicators, an independent tribunal supported by London Tribunals that also hears ULEZ, LEZ and tunnel penalty appeals. Appealing costs nothing, but the adjudicator decides on the evidence, the facts and the law, and cannot take mitigation into account.

TfL accepts six grounds: you were not the keeper at the time; you had paid for that date and vehicle; no penalty was payable, for example because the vehicle was exempt or registered for a 100% discount; the vehicle was used without your consent, such as after a theft; the penalty is more than the regulations allow; or you are a hire firm holding a signed statement of liability from the hirer. If none of those fits, you can still write in and explain what happened.

Not since Christmas 2025. The old 100% Cleaner Vehicle Discount ended on 25 December 2025, and from 2 January 2026 electric vehicles pay a reduced charge: 25% off for cars, which makes £13.50, and 50% off for vans, HGVs and quadricycles, which makes £9. Both depend on the vehicle being on Auto Pay, and there is no separate application.

The percentages halve on 4 March 2030, to 12.5% for cars and 25% for vans, HGVs and quadricycles. TfL's reason is volume: since the discount began in 2019, the number of electric vehicles registered for it rose almost sixfold, from around 20,000 to more than 116,000 in 2025.

Buses, coaches and minibuses cannot use the Cleaner Vehicle Discount but can qualify through the 9 or more seats route. Electric car club vehicles get 100% off when they are collected from and returned to the same bay inside the zone. An electric car registered abroad only gets the discount once its keeper registers it with TfL and sets up Auto Pay, because otherwise TfL has no record of what type of vehicle it is.

If your main home is in the residents' discount zone you pay 10% of the charge, £1.80 a day, after a £10 yearly registration. That zone is the charging zone plus a few small pockets just outside the boundary that TfL's map shades separately, for example beside King's Cross and near Victoria. Your name must be on the parliamentary or local government electoral register at that address.

The vehicle can be your own, registered with the DVLA in your name at that address; a company or lease car used only by you; or, if you own no car, a hire or car club vehicle.

From 1 March 2027 new applicants only get the 90% for an electric vehicle. Until March 2030 there is an exception for residents receiving Attendance Allowance, Carer's Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, State Pension Credit or Universal Credit. Anyone already registered keeps the 90% for any vehicle type, including a replacement car, as long as they still qualify and renew every year.

A 100% discount is not automatic: the vehicle has to be registered with TfL first, usually for £10 a year. The Blue Badge discount is the one most drivers need. Anyone holding a valid badge issued in the European Economic Area can register, even if they never drive or own a car, and nominate up to two vehicles they normally use. You send copies of both sides of the badge plus one proof of identity, such as a passport, driving licence or bank statement.

The £10 registration renews in line with the badge's expiry date, and TfL waives the fee if you renew within 90 days. Parents, carers and institutions can apply for someone else with a Declaration of Authority form and name up to five people who may manage the account.

Some vehicles need no registration because the DVLA record already tells TfL: vehicles taxed as buses, ambulances and fire engines in their own tax classes, NHS vehicles exempt from vehicle tax, and vehicles in the disabled tax class. HM Coastguard, port authority, London borough operational, armed forces and Royal Parks Agency vehicles can also be exempt, and TfL asks those operators to contact it.

Black cabs are exempt while actively licensed by TfL, and a cab drops off the exempt register when its licence is surrendered, expires or is revoked. Private hire vehicles lost their exemption in 2019 and pay £18, or £13.50 for an electric car on Auto Pay. The exception is a private hire vehicle designated as wheelchair accessible at its licensing inspection, which is noted on its vehicle licence: it goes free, but only while carrying out a booking for a TfL-licensed operator.

For hire and lease cars, the PCN is sent to the registered keeper on the DVLA record, which for a rental is the hire company. The firm can make representations on the ground that the car was on hire under an agreement in which the hirer signed a statement accepting liability for any PCN, so the renter ends up answerable. Paying the £18 yourself for that registration on the day avoids the whole exchange. A company or lease car that only you use counts as your vehicle for the Residents' Discount.

A car registered abroad pays what a British car pays: £18 on the day or £21 afterwards. TfL cannot see a foreign vehicle's type unless it is registered with TfL, which is required for the electric vehicle discount, and TfL says registration can take up to 10 working days. On unpaid charges, TfL said in freedom of information replies of October 2018 and January 2023 that European Parking Collection plc issues PCNs on its behalf to keepers of vehicles registered outside the UK. The 2018 reply added that no legal framework allows a civil debt from one country to be transferred into another country's courts.

Introduced in 2003 and raised in stages to £15, the level set in June 2020. After a May to August 2025 consultation the charge rose to £18 (£21 late) on 2 January 2026, the old 100% Cleaner Vehicle Discount for EVs ended on 25 December 2025 and a tiered EV discount began 2 January 2026. TfL now has a mechanism to raise the charge annually in line with Tube fares (inflation plus 1%) without consultation; the next reduction in EV discounts is dated 4 March 2030.