Tolls in southern Europe: booths, tags and cameras

For cars, Europe has two systems. With a vignette you pay for a period and drive as much as you like — as in Austria, Switzerland and much of eastern Europe. With distance-based tolls you pay for each section you drive, and the amount depends on the distance and the vehicle class — as in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Greece.

Tolls are mostly collected by concession companies that operate individual motorways. Within one country there are therefore often several operators with their own toll plazas, their own websites and their own rules for late payment. Some roads use a closed system: you take a ticket on entry and pay by distance at the exit, as mostly in France, Italy and Croatia. Others are open, with plazas along the route that each charge a fixed amount; this is common in Greece.

The class depends on height, number of axles and any trailer. Motorhomes, vans and car-and-trailer combinations therefore often pay more than a car on its own. If you bring a car you bought home on a trailer, you land in a higher class and should factor that into the cost. In all of these countries, incidentally, you pay in euros.

A toll plaza has several lanes, and not every lane takes every means of payment. The sign above each lane shows what it accepts, and the signs differ from country to country:

The most common mistake is a tag lane without a tag. The barrier stays shut, and reversing out of the lane is prohibited and dangerous. Press the call button on the machine instead and explain what has happened; the operator will open up or tell you how to pay afterwards.

Lose the ticket in a closed system and you usually pay the longest distance that can lead to that exit. If your card is declined, a second means of payment helps; not every machine takes every card. If you cannot pay at all, in Italy you receive a slip at the booth and pay later, on the operator's website or at a payment point — the deadline is printed on the slip.

A toll tag behind the windscreen opens the barrier in its own lane, often without your having to stop completely, and bills later through an account. In the peak travel season, when queues build up at the booths, that saves noticeable time.

Each country has its own tag: Telepass in Italy, Via Verde in Portugal, ENC in Croatia, the tags of the French and Spanish operators. There are also providers whose tag works in several countries, frequently France, Spain and Portugal, with some also covering Italy and further countries. The EU has created the framework for this with the European Electronic Toll Service, but a single tag for all of Europe is not yet everyday reality for cars.

Before signing up, check:

What is new are roads with no toll plazas at all. Gantries above the carriageway read the plate and the tag, and billing happens without stopping. With a tag you pay automatically. Without one you have to act yourself — and that is exactly where most demands for payment come from.

In France some motorways already work this way, including the roads between Paris and Normandy. Without a tag you pay the operator after the journey, online using the plate or at its partner outlets, within a short deadline. Portugal has had such roads for a long time, signposted as electronic-only. Tolls on several of them have since been abolished, on others they still apply. For foreign plates the operators offer their own options: linking the plate to a payment card at terminals near the border or online, a prepaid card, or paying afterwards through the official channels.

In Italy some newer roads work without barriers, and Croatia has announced that it will switch its whole network to billing without stopping; until then the plazas remain. In Spain and Greece plazas still predominate. In Spain, several motorways have also become toll-free in recent years as their concessions ended.

At a booth the plate does not matter: you pay and the barrier opens. That makes plazas the simplest model for a transfer drive.

With camera tolling the plate is everything. Without a tag you pay using exactly that plate — on a transfer drive, one that has only just been issued and whose format a form may not recognise. Enter it character by character, choose the right country of registration and keep the receipt. If a form will not accept the plate, ask the operator rather than trying a similar spelling.

The tag from your other car can help if the contract allows use in another vehicle of the same class or lets you add the transfer plate. Ask before the collection. The bill for an unpaid passage goes to the keeper of the plate; on a transfer plate that is you, with a hire car it is the rental company, which passes it on to you with an administration fee.

Most demands for payment have few causes: a camera toll nobody paid, a tag that was not recognised or whose account was empty, a hire car — and a sold car with your own tag still stuck inside.

If a demand arrives anyway, check it calmly. A genuine one names the operator, road, date and plate, often with a photo, and it frequently arrives months after the trip, sometimes via a collection agency acting for the operator. Compare the details with your receipts and pay through the channels the operator itself lists on its website. If something is wrong, submit the receipt that shows otherwise.

Text messages or emails about supposedly unpaid tolls that urge you to pay via a link are a widespread scam. Do not follow such a link; go to the operator's website yourself and look there for any amounts outstanding on your plate. That is also why toll receipts are worth keeping for longer than feels necessary.

To keep it from getting that far, a short routine helps: