Vignette vs Toll vs ENC: How Europe's Road Charges Differ

A vignette is a time-based road pass. You buy a period, and inside that period you can drive the covered network as much as you like, whatever the distance. Most vignette countries have moved fully online: the vignette is a record against your licence plate, and cameras check the plate as you pass. Our guide to digital versus sticker vignettes covers what that switch means for drivers.

The network differs by country: Czechia charges on motorways only, while Romania and Bulgaria also charge on national roads between towns. A 1-day vignette often ends at midnight rather than after 24 hours. And the vehicle class matters: in Slovenia, buying class 2A for a vehicle that belongs in class 2B (most vans and campers) counts as having no vignette, a flat €300 fine under the DARS rules.

Penalties are the reason to sort this early. Switzerland charges CHF 200 plus the vignette you still have to buy (ch.ch). Austria's on-the-spot substitute toll is €200 for a car and €100 for a motorcycle; if it is not paid, an administrative penalty of €300 to €3,000 follows (ASFINAG). Our page on the penalty for driving without a vignette compares the countries.

Vignetim sells the e-vignette for Bulgaria, Czechia, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland, registered against your plate in English, with the start date you choose. Start with the Czech Republic vignette or the Romania rovinieta, or see every country on our vignettes and tolls page.

A toll charges for the distance you drive, or for a single crossing. On a classic closed system you take a ticket at the entry plaza and pay at the exit, by distance and vehicle class. France, Italy, Croatia and Serbia work this way on most motorways. Greece uses an open system: you pay a fixed amount at each frontal plaza for the section it covers, so the bill grows plaza by plaza.

Plaza tolls rarely produce fines, because the barrier does the enforcing. The traps are elsewhere:

• Lost tickets. In Croatia, a lost entry ticket, or one more than 24 hours old, means paying the double toll for the longest route (HAC).
• Single crossings. Some countries with free motorways still toll one bridge or tunnel. Denmark charges cars only on the Storebælt and Øresund links, and Sweden charges congestion tax in Stockholm and Gothenburg plus a few bridges.

Vignetim does not sell French, Italian, Croatian, Serbian or Greek motorway tolls; you pay them on the road.

ENC is the Croatian name for electronic toll collection: elektronička naplata cestarine. The ENC device is a windscreen transponder that pays in a dedicated lane without stopping. Elsewhere the same idea is the Liber-t badge in France, Telepass in Italy, the ENP tag in Serbia and the AutoPASS tag in Norway. Where each one works depends on its issuer, and none of them pays a vignette. Coverage can stop even inside one country: Croatia's A2 towards Slovenia has no ENC at all, so drivers there pay at the barrier whatever box is on the windscreen.

Free-flow tolling goes one step further: no booth and no barrier, only cameras that read your licence plate. You pay online, before the passage or within a deadline after it. Nothing stops you, which is why foreign drivers miss the deadlines:

• Ireland, M50 around Dublin. Pay before your journey or by 8pm the day after (eFlow and TII). Miss it and a default toll is added in three automatic steps, +€4, then +€51, then +€128. See our Ireland M50 toll page.
• Netherlands, A24 Blankenburg connection. Pay up to 7 days in advance or within 72 hours afterwards (e-tol). Late payment brings a €9.00 reminder fee. See our Netherlands A24 toll page.
• Iceland, Vaðlaheiðargöng tunnel. The payment window for a single trip is 24 hours before or after the passage (veggjald.is). See our Iceland tunnel toll page.
• France, a few motorways. The A79 and the A13 and A14 between Paris and Normandy have no barriers. Pay within 72 hours online or at a partner shop, or a surcharge follows (Sanef, VINCI Autoroutes). Vignetim does not sell French tolls.
• Norway. Every toll station is barrier-free and cashless. Do nothing, and an invoice follows the vehicle home, with a register lookup fee added for foreign plates unless you register with Epass24 (autopass.no).

Turkey sits between the two models. Its motorways, bridges and tunnels have toll plazas, but you pay through HGS, an electronic toll account linked to the vehicle, and a pass without HGS or balance is logged rather than stopped. You then have 15 days from the passage to set up HGS with enough balance; after that, penalties of multiples of the toll apply. Our guide to how tolls in Turkey work explains the system.

Croatia is moving into this group as well. Under its Toll Collection Act, the motorway network switches to free-flow, branded CROLIBERTAS, on 1 March 2027. Unlike Ireland or the Netherlands, the Croatian system is built on enrolling before you drive, not paying afterwards.

Vignetim sells the free-flow tolls where a pay-ahead window exists: the M50 in Ireland, the A24 in the Netherlands and the tunnel toll in Iceland, plus HGS for foreign-plated vehicles in Turkey, set up on the Vignetim website or in the app against your plate with no PTT branch, Turkish bank account or e-Devlet login needed. See our HGS for foreign vehicles page.

The Eurovignette is the most searched term in this topic, and it is the one charge a car driver never needs. It is a time-based road user charge for heavy goods vehicles of 12 tonnes and more. Hauliers book it online for one day up to one year, and the plate goes into a shared database that is checked at the roadside. It does not apply to cars, vans, motorbikes or caravans.

The scheme has also been shrinking:

What this means in a car: there is no Eurovignette to buy for a car in Luxembourg or Sweden, and no Europe-wide car vignette either. Vignetim does not sell the Eurovignette; hauliers book it on the official portal.

Most countries move heavier vehicles out of the vignette and into a distance-based toll, counted by an on-board unit (OBU) or by gantries. The threshold is usually 3.5 tonnes:

Vignetim does not sell any of these kilometre tolls. The one heavy-vehicle product we do sell is time-based: Estonia's road toll for goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, the Estonia Teetasu. Cars in Estonia pay nothing.

Motorhomes are the grey zone. In Bulgaria and Slovakia, an M1-registered motorhome stays on the car vignette whatever its weight. Germany's truck toll applies only to goods transport, so a private motorhome over 3.5 tonnes does not pay it. Switzerland moves heavy motorhomes into its heavy-vehicle charge. Check the country page for your vehicle before you buy.

Low-emission-zone stickers look like vignettes, but they pay for no road. They prove your emissions class so you may enter a city zone.

• France, Crit'Air. Required in French low-emission zones (ZFE) and valid for the life of the vehicle. The official fee is €3.11 plus postage (Légifrance), ordered at certificat-air.gouv.fr. That site calls its product the "vignette Crit'Air", which is why many drivers think France is a vignette country. It is not: French motorways are tolled by distance.
• Germany, Umweltplakette. The green sticker most German low-emission zones require (Umweltbundesamt). Germany has no car vignette and no general car toll; only two private tunnels, in Rostock and Lübeck, charge cars.

Vignetim does not sell either sticker. Order from the official channels, and beware of resellers charging many times the official fee.