Spanish government set to charge yearly motorway ‘tolls’

Spanish government set to charge yearly motorway ‘tolls’ from 2024.

According to reports, the Spanish government is set to charge light vehicles driving on state-owned expressways between 40 and 50 euros each year. The fees are expected to come in from 2024.

Motorcyclists will get off slightly lighter with a payment of between 15 and 25 euros. Lorry drivers can expect to see the highest level of tolls though. According to Heraldo.es: “These are the amounts intended to be charged for the use of liberalised motorways and dual carriageways in order to comply with the commitment made to the European authorities last April to receive the billion-dollar fund from the Recovery and Resilience Plan.”

Speaking to the newspaper sources from the Ministry of Transport confirmed that initially, the tolls would use a vignette. The vignette would be something like the current ITV sticker and would need to be paid each year. Later on, this would be replaced by a more complicated pay-per-kilometre model.

Official sources commented on the pay-per-kilometre model: “It will take years, given that it will have to be decided what technology will be used to charge vehicles according to the kilometres travelled.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hopes to follow the Portuguese model which would see payments automatically controlled via motorway gantries in the future. This would involve a considerable investment to the tune of about 1 billion euros though.

Many autonomous communities in Spain have already rejected the idea. Hauliers’ associations are opposed to the tolls too. Spain however hopes to reach an agreement between all the autonomous communities.

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