German road toll to cost foreign drivers up to €130 a year

The German government has introduced a controversial road toll which will force foreign car drivers to pay up to €130 (US$162) a year for using Germany's autobahn motorways.
November 3, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

 The German government has introduced a controversial road toll which will force foreign car drivers to pay up to €130 (US$162) a year for using Germany's autobahn motorways.

The plan, intended to help the country fund the upkeep of its transport infrastructure which is used by millions of foreign vehicles, may yet face a legal challenge in Brussels for discriminating against foreign motorists.

After months of heated debate between Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CSU), Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt dropped an original idea to raise the fee on all roads.

However, he stuck to the plan that the toll will not lead to extra costs for German drivers by allowing them to offset the levy against an already existing motor vehicle tax. Dobrindt, a leading member of the CSU, said he was convinced that his draft law does not discriminate against foreign motorists and therefore would stand if challenged in court.

“The infrastructure fee is sensible, fair and just,” the minister said, adding that the revenues of the toll would only be used to modernise Germany’s motorways and main roads.

The toll is expected to be introduced in 2016. Motorists have to register their vehicle details via the internet. Foreign drivers can also pay the levy at petrol stations. The fee will take into account the vehicle’s cylinder capacity and environmental compatibility with a maximum toll of €130 a year. Foreign drivers can pay a ten-day levy for €10 (US$13) or two month for €22 (US$27).

Dobrindt’s CSU wants foreign motorists to pay tolls on motorways because they think it is unfair that foreigners travel for free in Germany while German drivers have to pay tolls in neighbouring countries like Austria, Switzerland and France.

The CSU pressed the motorway toll issue in coalition talks after last year’s German federal elections. But Merkel’s CDU and its other coalition ally, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), said they would only back the toll if it did not lead to extra costs for German motorists and if it complied with 1816 European Union rules that prohibit discrimination against foreign motorists.

Germany has already introduced a satellite-based toll system for lorries that obliges truck drivers to pay on motorways. This toll depends on the number of kilometres actually driven.

Charging, Tolling & RUC

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • IRF World Congress 2024: road user charging is the future
    October 16, 2024
    Environmental emergency has put transport at the heart of policymakers’ agendas
    Read More
  • Cross border enforcement a logical step
    January 30, 2012
    The logic supporting a cross-border enforcement Directive for the European Union (EU) is both detailed and compelling. The White Paper on European transport policy published in 2001 included the ambitious objective of reducing by 50 per cent by 2010 the number of people killed on the roads of the EU. But since 2005 the reduction in the number of road deaths has been slowing down: overall, the period from 2001 until 2009 saw the number of fatalities decrease by 36 per cent. According to Community indicators,
    Read More
  • Mileage based charging offers secure future for funding
    August 10, 2016
    HNTB’s Matthew Click sets out why a move to mileage-based pricing is inevitable. Infrastructure is the most neglected yet the most critical engine of our society, and our continued indifference could lead to a dystopian future. Our roads, bridges and highways have been largely passed by in the digital age—marginalised in an era when funding is limited and stewardship of physical assets has given way to our preoccupation with technological innovation and data—the stuff of the virtual realm.
    Read More
  • Time for a rethink on road user charging
    February 1, 2012
    There is no value in further US VMT charging trials, except to delay the inevitable. These trials should end after completion of the University of Iowa's National Evaluation of a Mileage-based Road User Charge. There is far greater promise in unleashing private operators to commence profitable, non-tolling services, then using these for toll assessment and collection as fuel distributors are currently used to collect fuel taxation. Bern Grush writes
    Read More

Highlighted Content