Seven of Europe's nine vignette countries are now digital-only: your licence plate is the vignette, and nothing goes on the windscreen. Only Austria and Switzerland still sell a windscreen sticker, and Austria is selling its last one in 2026. Wherever you are heading, buying a plate-linked e-vignette before you leave is the fastest way to be covered from the first kilometre.
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If you last drove through Central Europe a few years ago, the routine was familiar: buy a sticker at the border, scrape the old one off, press the new one against the glass and hope it went on straight. That routine is ending. New to the concept entirely? Our guide to what a vignette is explains the product itself, and the full list of vignette countries in Europe covers where you need one. This page is about the two formats it comes in, and what changes when the sticker disappears.
The headline for 2026: Austria's Klebevignette is being sold for the last time this year. ASFINAG, the state motorway operator, puts it plainly on its own toll page: "As an alternative to the digital vignette, we are offering the traditional toll sticker for the last time in 2026. From 2027 onwards, only the digital vignette will be available." The law behind it, BStMG § 11 Abs 2 as amended in December 2025, says that for vignettes entitling use from 1 December 2026 the toll is paid exclusively by registering the licence plate. When that date passes, Switzerland will be the only country in Europe still selling a vignette you stick on the glass.
Which Countries Are Digital, and Which Still Sell a Sticker
Country
Formats available in 2026
Sticker status
Austria
digital or sticker
final sticker year; plate-only from 1 December 2026
Switzerland
digital or sticker
both formats still sold
Bulgaria
digital only
withdrawn, digital since 2019
Czechia
digital only
withdrawn in 2021
Moldova
digital only
never a sticker system for visitors
Romania
digital only
long since withdrawn
Slovakia
digital only
long since withdrawn
Slovenia
digital only
e-vinjeta from 1 December 2021; stickers void since 1 February 2022
The direction of travel is one-way. No country in this set has gone back to paper, and none has announced plans to. Hungary and Slovakia dropped the sticker long ago, Bulgaria went digital in 2019, Czechia and Slovenia in 2021, Switzerland added a digital option alongside its sticker in August 2023, and Austria closes the era at the end of 2026. In Austria the drivers voted first: by January 2026, 78 % of annual vignettes sold were already digital.
What none of this changes is where a vignette is required in the first place: the nine countries that require one, and the roads each one covers, are the same whichever format you hold.
Vignetim registers plate-linked e-vignettes for seven of the nine countries in one English-language checkout. Austria is one we do not sell; the official ASFINAG shop is the right place for that one, and we say so plainly below.
A digital vignette, usually written e-vignette, is a database entry, not an object. You buy it against your registration number and country of registration, the toll operator stores that pairing with a validity window, and camera gantries and patrol units read your plate and query the database as you drive. There is nothing to display, nothing to print and nothing that can peel. (The word "vignette" turns up in photography and in immigration paperwork too; everything on this page is about motorway vignettes.)
Three consequences follow, and they explain most of the differences further down:
The plate is the product. Change the plate and you have changed the thing the vignette is attached to. This is the single most important mental shift from the sticker era.
The check is automatic and constant. Bulgaria runs several hundred fixed and vehicle-mounted plate-reading cameras, Romania around 110 fixed units plus mobile teams, and Austria uses a relocatable camera network that photographs the plate and re-checks suspected cases by hand. Nobody waves you down to look at your windscreen.
Proof lives online, not in the car. In Bulgaria drivers are not even required to present proof of purchase at a roadside check, because the system is plate-based. Several countries publish a public checker where anyone can enter a plate and see the status.
How the Sticker Works, in the Two Countries That Still Sell One
Where the sticker survives, it survives with strict rules, and those rules void more vignettes than drivers expect.
In Austria, the sticker goes on the inside of the windscreen, outside the tint strip, undamaged, with the backing film removed. Films, suction cups and adhesive tape are not allowed. It may be stuck once only: peel it off to reposition it and it is invalid. On a motorcycle it must sit on a clean, non-replaceable part such as the fork tube or the tank, so a sticker on a top box or a side bag does not count. The 2026 edition is fire-red and has been on sale since 20 November 2025 at more than 6,000 outlets.
In Switzerland, the sticker must be glued directly to the inside of the windscreen. Mounting it on a film or any removable support makes it invalid, and a sticker taped up or left on the dashboard is treated as no vignette at all: CHF 200 on the spot, plus buying the vignette you should have had.
The Austrian sticker also carries a set of anti-counterfeit features worth knowing if you buy one from a shop rather than an official counter: a tilt hologram showing the federal eagle and the motorway symbol, the year number inside that hologram, opacity against strong light, a reflective surface, and no adhesive residue left on the backing film. There is also an online check by vignette number and check digit.
What Actually Changes When the Sticker Goes
Format sounds like a detail until something happens to your car, your plate or your plans. These are the nine situations where the answer genuinely differs.
1. Buying at the last minute
This is the one that catches people, and it is counter-intuitive: in Austria, the digital vignette can be the slower option. A digital 2-month or annual vignette bought online is valid from the 18th day at the earliest, because the statutory 14-day right of withdrawal applies and ASFINAG adds a three-day postal allowance on top. The digital 1-day and 10-day vignettes are exempt and start immediately, and buying a digital vignette in person, at a toll station, a vending machine, a Trafik, a petrol station or a motoring-club office, also makes it valid straight away.
So a driver leaving tomorrow should buy the short digital tier, or buy in person, or buy a sticker while 2026 still allows it. From December 2026 the sticker fallback disappears, which makes the other two routes the ones to remember.
In the seven digital-only countries there is no such delay: validity starts at purchase, or on the future date you choose.
2. Selling the car, or changing the plate
A sticker belongs to the glass. Sell the car and the vignette goes with it; there is no way to move it, and peeling it off destroys it.
A digital vignette belongs to a registration number, which is better and more fragile at the same time. Austria allows a plate change free of charge for defined qualifying reasons, plus one change without any reason per validity period against an expense reimbursement of €18. Switzerland is stricter: its e-vignette is bound to the plate and cannot be transferred to another vehicle at all. In the digital-only countries the practical rule is the same everywhere: buy against the plate you will actually be driving.
3. A broken or replaced windscreen
Here the digital format wins outright, and it is the reason many Austrians switched before they had to. Replace a windscreen with a digital vignette and there is nothing to do: the database never knew about the glass.
With a sticker, a windscreen replacement destroys the vignette. Austria publishes replacement forms for windscreen breakage and for total loss, and Switzerland issues a replacement through the federal customs office, where a windscreen replacement is also the moment you can swap a sticker for an e-vignette.
4. Two cars, one plate
Austria's Wechselkennzeichen system lets one interchangeable plate serve up to three vehicles, and a single digital vignette covers all of them, because it is registered to the plate rather than to a car. A sticker cannot do this: it is glued to one windscreen. If you run a classic car alongside a daily driver on the same plate, the digital format is not a preference, it is the only sensible option.
5. Hire cars
With a sticker you could at least look at the windscreen. With a plate-linked vignette, the paperwork in the glovebox tells you nothing useful, and rental terms are frequently vague about which countries are covered.
The reliable move is to check the plate itself in the country's official checker before you drive. A car hired in Italy or Austria and driven into Slovenia very often has no Slovenian vignette, and the fine lands on the driver, not on the rental company.
6. Proving you have one at a roadside check
Public plate checkers exist, but they are not identical, and this is a distinction almost nobody explains:
Austria runs the Vignettenevidenz: enter a plate and its country of registration and you see the vehicle class, which vignette or section-toll ticket is on file, and the exact validity window.
Slovenia publishes an official plate-based validity check that anyone can use.
Switzerland is the exception to plan around: its public check works only for e-vignettes that the buyer marked "publicly viewable" at purchase. A perfectly valid Swiss e-vignette can be invisible to a third party, so keep the confirmation email.
Bulgaria does not require you to present anything at all, because enforcement is plate-based from end to end.
7. Typing the plate wrong
The sticker era had no equivalent of this failure, and it is now the most common way a paid vignette fails a camera check. A transposed character, a space that should not be there, an O typed where the plate carries a zero, or the wrong country of registration, and the database simply does not contain your vehicle. You paid; the camera disagrees.
Type the plate exactly as printed, in capitals, without spaces or hyphens unless the plate genuinely carries them, then read it back once before you pay. Romania adds a second field to get right on longer validity periods, where the system registers the chassis number alongside the plate.
8. Fakes, and the scam that replaced them
Counterfeit stickers were a real problem, which is why the surviving ones carry holograms and check digits. Digital vignettes cannot be forged in that sense, so the fraud moved: it now takes the form of lookalike websites, and of phishing messages claiming an unpaid toll and asking for card details. Austria's operator warns about exactly that pattern.
The defence is unchanged whichever format you buy: use the state portal or an established seller, and treat any unexpected "unpaid toll" message as a phishing attempt until you have checked your plate in the official register yourself.
9. Motorcycles and trailers
Two format-specific rules are easy to miss. In Austria, a sticker on a motorcycle must be on a fixed part of the bike, not on removable luggage, which is one more reason riders moved to digital early. In Switzerland, every trailer and caravan needs its own vignette, in whichever format you choose, so a car and caravan means two purchases rather than one.
Is the Digital Vignette Better?
For almost every driver, yes, with one qualification.
Digital wins on: surviving a windscreen replacement, covering interchangeable plates, buying from home without finding a shop, being impossible to stick on wrongly, being checkable in a public register, and never being counterfeited.
The sticker still wins on exactly one thing: in Austria, it is instantly valid when you buy it, whereas the online-bought digital 2-month and annual vignette waits 18 days. That advantage disappears in December 2026, and even today it is neutralised by buying the digital vignette in person or by choosing the 1-day or 10-day tier.
The digital format's real risk is data, not paper: a mistyped plate, or a vignette bought against a car you no longer drive. Both are avoidable in the thirty seconds it takes to check.
Common Mistakes in the Transition
Looking for a sticker in a digital-only countryIn Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia there is nothing to display, and no shop will hand you one. An empty windscreen is correct.
Assuming an old sticker still countsSlovenian windscreen stickers stopped being valid on 1 February 2022. A sticker left on the glass from an earlier trip proves nothing anywhere.
Buying Austria's annual online the night before departureThe 18-day rule applies to the 2-month and annual digital vignette. Take the short tier or buy in person.
Believing "18 days" is a refund windowThe statutory right of withdrawal is 14 days; 18 is the earliest validity date after ASFINAG's postal allowance. The two are different things.
Re-sticking a stickerIn Austria it may be applied once. Peeled off and re-attached, it is invalid, however neat the result looks.
Expecting one country's rules to travelFormats, checkers, transfer rules and trailer rules differ country by country, as the sections above show.
Trusting the rental desk over the registerThirty seconds in the official checker beats a verbal assurance at the counter.
How to Get the Right Format for Your Trip
1
Check which countries on your route still offer a choice
Only Austria and Switzerland do in 2026, and Austria only until the 2027 vignette year begins on 1 December 2026.
2
Default to digital
It survives windscreen changes, works with interchangeable plates, and can be bought from home for the whole route at once.
3
Buy against the plate you will actually drive
Capital letters, no stray spaces, correct country of registration, and read it back before paying.
4
Mind the start dates
Most countries let you set a future start date; Austria's online 2-month and annual digital vignette needs 18 days' lead time; Switzerland's annual runs a fixed season rather than a year from purchase.
5
Buy the seven we sell in one place, and Austria from ASFINAG
Vignetim registers e-vignettes for Bulgaria, Czechia, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland directly against your plate, with confirmation by email in minutes. For Austria, buy from shop.asfinag.at or the ASFINAG app, and remember that an in-person purchase is valid immediately.
The cheapest format is the valid one. A vignette that is void because it was re-stuck, bought against the wrong plate, or bought online three days before an Austrian holiday costs the same as one that works, plus the fine. Get the format and the plate right once, before you leave, and the cameras never have anything to say to you.
Do I still need a sticker on my windscreen to drive in Europe?
Almost certainly not. Seven of the nine vignette countries are digital-only, where your licence plate is the vignette and nothing goes on the glass. Only Austria and Switzerland still sell a sticker in 2026, and Austria's ends with this year's edition.
Which countries still use a sticker vignette?
Austria and Switzerland, and Austria only until the end of the 2026 sticker. From 1 December 2026 Austria's toll is paid exclusively by registering the plate, which leaves Switzerland as the only country in Europe still selling a windscreen vignette.
Is Austria really getting rid of the sticker vignette?
Yes. ASFINAG is offering the traditional sticker for the last time in 2026 and states that from 2027 only the digital vignette will be available. The change is written into Austrian toll law: for vignettes entitling use from 1 December 2026, the toll is paid solely through plate registration.
What is an e-vignette and how does it work?
It is a record in the toll operator's database linking your registration number and country of registration to a validity period. Camera gantries and patrols read your plate and query that record as you drive. There is nothing to display, print or attach.
Is a digital vignette valid immediately?
In most countries, yes: it starts at purchase or on the future date you pick. Austria is the exception. Its digital 2-month and annual vignette bought online is valid from the 18th day at the earliest, while the digital 1-day and 10-day versions, and any digital vignette bought in person, start straight away.
Do I get anything to print or show?
You get a confirmation email and a receipt, which are worth keeping, but no document has to be shown or displayed. Enforcement reads the plate, and in Bulgaria drivers are explicitly not required to present proof of purchase at a check.
What happens if I type my number plate wrong?
Your vehicle is not in the database, so the cameras treat you as having no vignette, even though you paid. Check every character before paying, including the country of registration, and use the official plate checker afterwards where one exists.
I am selling my car. Can I move the vignette to the new one?
A sticker, no: it is glued to the windscreen it was applied to. A digital vignette depends on the country. Austria permits a plate change free of charge for qualifying reasons, plus one no-reason change per validity period for an €18 expense reimbursement, while Switzerland does not allow its e-vignette to be transferred to another vehicle at all.
Do I need a new vignette if my windscreen is replaced?
Not with a digital vignette, which is unaffected. With a sticker, yes in effect: Austria publishes replacement forms for windscreen breakage, and Switzerland issues a replacement through the customs office, which is also the moment you can switch from a sticker to an e-vignette.
How do I prove I have a valid vignette at a roadside check?
Usually you do not have to, because the check is automatic. Austria's Vignettenevidenz register and the official Slovenian checker let anyone verify a plate. Switzerland is the one to watch: its public check only works if the e-vignette was marked publicly viewable at purchase, so keep the confirmation email.
Are digital vignettes safer than stickers?
They cannot be counterfeited or applied incorrectly, which removes two classic problems. The fraud has moved online instead, to lookalike shops and phishing messages about unpaid tolls, so buy through the state portal or an established seller and verify your plate yourself rather than through a link in a message.
Does my rental car already have a vignette?
It usually has one for the country it was hired in, and often nothing for the countries you drive into. Since there is no sticker to look at, check the registration plate in the official checker before crossing the border; the penalty falls on the driver.
Can I still buy a sticker in Switzerland?
Yes. Switzerland sells both formats: the classic windscreen sticker through post offices, petrol stations and motoring clubs (customs offices sell it only in exceptional cases), and the plate-linked e-vignette online. Whichever you choose, the Swiss vignette is annual only and covers Liechtenstein too.
One checkout, seven countries, registered against your plate before you reach the first camera. No glue, no scraping, no wondering whether the sticker went on straight. Join the 1,000,000+ drivers who sort the whole route before they leave home.
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