The Congestion Charge Is £18. A Minute Later It Is £180.

The Congestion Charge is £18 if you pay on the day. It is £21 if you pay by midnight on the third charging day after. It is £180 one minute later.

That is the whole risk in one line, and it is a cliff rather than a slope: £3 for being three days late, and then £159 more for being a minute later than that. Transport for London publishes every figure, across six different pages, and contradicts itself on one of them.

Here is what it costs, when it applies, what changed for electric cars, and the payment sites TfL warns you about on its own website.

The rate and the hours

£18 a day, paid on the day of travel or in advance. £21 if paid within three days after.

The charge applies 07:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, and 12:00 to 18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays.

So the weekend is not free, it is shorter. Drive into the zone at eleven on a Sunday morning and leave before noon and you pay nothing. Arrive at ten past twelve and you pay £18.

There is no charge at all from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day bank holiday, inclusive. That is the only stretch of the year when the central zone is free, and this year it runs eight days, from Friday 25 December to Friday 1 January.

The electric car discount that used to be everything

The 100 percent Cleaner Vehicle Discount has ended. An electric car that paid nothing now pays something.

Electric cars registered for Auto Pay get 25 percent off, so £13.50 instead of £18.

Electric vans, HGVs and quadricycles on Auto Pay get 50 percent, so £9.

The discount exists only on Auto Pay. TfL states it plainly: if the vehicle is not registered for Auto Pay, the discounted rate does not apply. There is no separate application and no retrospective claim. An electric car driven into the zone by an owner who never set up Auto Pay pays the full £18, the same as a diesel.

It is scheduled to shrink again on 4 March 2030, to 12.5 percent for electric cars and 25 percent for electric vans, HGVs and quadricycles.

One 100 percent discount survives. Electric car club vehicles picked up and returned to the same bay inside the zone pay nothing.

The residents’ discount closes to petrol cars in March

This is the time critical one, and it is five months away.

Residents in the zone get 90 percent off, paying £1.80 a day.

From 1 March 2027, new applicants will only get that discount for an electric vehicle.

Existing holders keep the 90 percent for any vehicle type, including new and replacement cars, electric or not, provided the discount is renewed each year. That conditional is the part worth reading twice. The protection is attached to an unbroken renewal, so letting it lapse after March 2027 means reapplying under the new rule, and the new rule does not cover a petrol car.

There is one route in for non electric vehicles after that. Residents receiving Attendance Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, State Pension Credit or Universal Credit can add a non electric vehicle, as long as they apply before 4 March 2030.

ULEZ is a different charge with different rules

People treat these as one thing. They are two, and almost nothing about them matches.

The Congestion Charge is £18, central London only, and only during charging hours.

The ULEZ charge is £12.50, across every London borough, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day.

A non compliant car in central London on a weekday pays both. £18 plus £12.50 is £30.50 for the day.

Note what the Christmas rule does. The Congestion Charge is free from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day. The ULEZ is free on Christmas Day only. So on 28 December a non compliant car pays £12.50 and nothing else.

ULEZ covers cars, motorcycles, vans and specialist vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes and minibuses up to 5 tonnes. Anything heavier falls under the Low Emission Zone instead, and pays its charge only if it misses that standard. The ULEZ zone stops at the London boroughs and does not include the M25.

Non UK registered vehicles must register with TfL even if they meet the standards. Meeting the standard is not the same as being recognised as meeting it.

What happens if you do not pay

The penalty is £180, reduced to £90 if paid within 14 days, and rising to £270 if it is not paid within 28.

Set against an £18 charge that is five times, ten times and fifteen times respectively.

You get 28 days to pay or to challenge. After that a Charge Certificate is issued, the amount rises by half, and you can no longer make a representation. Then comes an Order for Recovery with a debt registration fee, then enforcement agents.

An Order for Recovery is not a County Court Judgment and does not affect your credit rating, which TfL states explicitly and is worth knowing before panicking.

TfL’s own advice is not to ignore a PCN even if you believe you paid, are exempt, or hold a 100 percent discount. The grounds for challenging include that you were not the keeper, that you had paid, that the vehicle was exempt or registered for a 100 percent discount, that it was taken without consent, or that it was on hire to someone else.

The payment sites TfL warns you about

This is the most useful page on TfL’s site and almost nobody finds it.

Unofficial websites sell the Congestion Charge, and TfL says they can charge a premium of up to £8 extra. That turns an £18 charge into £26 for a service TfL provides for nothing.

TfL admits why you end up on them. In its own words, internet search engines do not always put its payment pages at the top of their results. A public body is publicly stating that it is outranked for its own charge.

The real risk is not the £8. TfL records cases where these sites took the payment and never paid the charge, and the driver received a Penalty Charge Notice. So the £26 becomes £206.

An instant confirmation means nothing. TfL is explicit that an SMS or email from an unofficial site confirms only that you paid the website operator, whatever the message says. TfL itself usually confirms an accepted payment within a few minutes.

And a site cannot check your vehicle details better than TfL can, because TfL will not accept a payment at all unless every required registration detail is entered.

TfL contradicts itself on bank holidays

The Congestion Charge page says the charge applies 12:00 to 18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays.

The payment fraud page, warning about unofficial sites, gives as an example that they have taken payment “for a day where no charge applies, such as a bank holiday”.

Both are live on tfl.gov.uk. One of them is out of date, and since the charging hours page is the one that governs enforcement, assume a bank holiday costs £18 between noon and six.

What to know

£18, £21, £180. On the day, within three days, or after that. The gap between the second and third is one midnight.

Auto Pay is free and removes the entire problem. It is also the only way to get the electric vehicle discount.

An electric car is no longer free. £13.50 on Auto Pay, £18 without it.

Residents with a petrol car should apply before 1 March 2027, and should never let the discount lapse afterwards.

Weekends are noon to six, not free. Christmas to New Year is genuinely free.

Pay on tfl.gov.uk and nowhere else. Up to £8 extra elsewhere, and a real chance the charge never reaches TfL.

Everything here was taken from Transport for London’s own published pages and rechecked on 28 September 2026. Where two TfL pages disagree, both are quoted rather than one being quietly chosen. Rates and discount rules change, and TfL can now raise the charge each year in line with Tube fares without a public consultation, so check before you drive.

Where to go next

The London Travelcard and what the tube costs cover the alternative, and the arithmetic is not close: a day of unlimited travel across Zones 1 and 2 caps at £8.90 against £30.50 to drive a non compliant car into the middle.

Santander Cycles is the other way across the zone, at £1.65 for half an hour and nothing to register.

The six airports, Heathrow Express, Gatwick to London and Stansted to London all cover arriving without a car, which is the decision this page usually follows.

Airport drop-off charges is the same trap in miniature: a small charge you cannot pay on site, a midnight deadline, and a penalty ten times the size underneath it.

The Night Tube covers getting home late, and the travel tips cover the rest of the practical arrangements.

Questions we get asked

How much is the London Congestion Charge?

£18 a day if you pay on the day of travel or in advance, and £21 if you pay by midnight on the third charging day after travelling. Electric cars registered for Auto Pay pay £13.50, and electric vans, HGVs and quadricycles pay £9. Residents with the discount pay £1.80. If you do not pay at all the penalty is £180, halved to £90 if settled within 14 days.

What are the Congestion Charge hours?

07:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, and 12:00 to 18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays. There is no charge at all between Christmas Day and the New Year’s Day bank holiday, inclusive. The weekend is not free, it is simply a shorter charging window, so entering the zone at noon on a Sunday costs the same £18 as a Tuesday morning.

Do electric cars pay the Congestion Charge?

Yes, since the 100 percent Cleaner Vehicle Discount ended. Electric cars registered for Auto Pay now get 25 percent off and pay £13.50, and electric vans, HGVs and quadricycles get 50 percent and pay £9. The discount applies only through Auto Pay, so an electric car whose owner has not registered pays the full £18. From 4 March 2030 the car discount falls again to 12.5 percent.

Is the ULEZ the same as the Congestion Charge?

No, they are separate charges with different rates, areas and hours, and a non compliant car in central London on a weekday pays both, which is £30.50. The Congestion Charge is £18 in central London during charging hours. ULEZ is £12.50 across every London borough, 24 hours a day, every day of the year except Christmas Day. The Congestion Charge is also free from Christmas Day to New Year’s Day, while ULEZ is not.

What is the fine for not paying the Congestion Charge?

£180, reduced to £90 if paid within 14 days of service, and increased to £270 by a Charge Certificate if it is not paid within 28 days. After that comes an Order for Recovery with a debt registration fee, then enforcement agents. TfL notes that an Order for Recovery is not a County Court Judgment and does not affect your credit rating.

Where should I pay the Congestion Charge?

Only on tfl.gov.uk, or through Auto Pay, which is free to set up. TfL publishes a warning that unofficial websites sell the charge at a premium of up to £8, and records cases where those sites took payment and never paid TfL, leaving the driver with a £180 penalty. TfL also acknowledges that search engines do not always place its own payment pages at the top of results.