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05 · Charges

How road charges are organised

Published · Updated · About 17 minutes of reading

This is not a payment page.

bgtol does not sell an e-vignette, a route pass, or a toll account. It cannot check a plate, print a receipt, or file an appeal. The organisations that do that work are not this website. For a live fee, use the toll operator’s website (opens in a new tab, outside bgtol).

Time

E-vignette

Lighter vehicles pay for a period of time. The fee is an electronic record tied to the registration plate. There is no sticker to display, and a driver who is stopped is not required to show a paper proof of purchase. Cameras and the toll administration compare the plate with the record.

Who is inside it

  • Vehicles at or under 3.5 tonnes with at least four wheels, for passengers or goods, including off-road vehicles in that group.
  • A trailer, when it is attached and the combination exceeds 3.5 tonnes. The trailer then needs its own vignette, which may have different dates from the car.

Who is outside it

Vehicles with fewer than four wheels, so motorcycles and tricycles as the page describes them, plus certain agricultural machines. A heavy vehicle over 3.5 tonnes is not “outside payment”. It is in the other column.

Distance

Toll

Vehicles whose technically permissible mass is over 3.5 tonnes pay for distance on the charged network. The amount follows mass, emission class, axles, and road category. It is collected without a barrier boom as the normal design: an on-board unit through a national service provider, or a route pass for a chosen path.

A route pass, as the government page describes it, has a start, an end, up to four stops between them, and 24 hours of validity from activation. Details and the current map belong to the operator. A silent or missing unit on a charged road is treated as an offence.

Freight page, for the driving side of the same system

Periods, and the 2026 prices that were published

The government information page on national traffic rules (opens in a new tab, outside bgtol) lists an annual vignette for one year from the start date you declare, a quarterly vignette for three months, a weekly vignette for seven days, and a weekend vignette from noon on Friday until midnight on Sunday of that week. It tabulated weekend, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual prices at 10, 15, 30, 54, and 97 leva. The page was marked updated on 21 June 2021, so treat the table as the schedule it published then.

A operator notice on 2026 vignette prices (opens in a new tab, outside bgtol) said 2026 prices were unchanged and would be shown in euro and leva, with the annual vignette at EUR 49.60 (BGN 97). It also announced a one-day vignette at EUR 4.09 (BGN 8), starting on 2 February 2026, for 24 hours. At the fixed conversion rate of 1.95583 leva to the euro, the older leva figures correspond to about EUR 5.11, 7.67, 15.34, 27.61, and 49.60. That arithmetic is a reading aid. It is not an offer from bgtol, and it is not a promise that a checkout still shows those numbers.

Bulgaria’s changeover to the euro is why both currencies appear in the 2026 notice. Pay the operator, or a channel the operator actually recognises. A website that merely looks similar is not a reason to enter a card number.

What happens if the record is missing

The government page describes a compensatory charge for driving on the paid network without a vignette, and a larger fine if that charge is not settled in the time allowed. For heavy vehicles it describes a different set of compensatory amounts, plus penalties for missing or false declaration data. The leva figures on a page last updated in 2021 should not be treated as this month’s tariff. Read the current text before you rely on a number. bgtol will not collect either sum.

Control sits with the toll administration, the Ministry of Interior, and customs at exit. There are fixed and mobile cameras. None of that infrastructure is operated from this address in Sofia.

Related: what a car driver carries, why many two-wheelers are outside the vignette, the disclaimer.

Worked cases

Six vehicles. Two systems. No sale.

These are shapes, taken from the public descriptions, so a reader can see which system even applies. They are not a quote, not a coverage check, and not a ruling on a particular plate. Confirm with the operator before you travel. Figures below that carry a year are tied to that year’s public notice.

  1. Case A
    Car, up to 3.5 tonnes, four wheels. Time-based e-vignette, electronic, tied to the plate, no sticker. Periods described publicly include annual, quarterly, weekly, and a weekend running from Friday noon to Sunday midnight. A government page last marked 21 June 2021 listed lev amounts of 97, 54, 30, 15, and 10 for periods in that family of prices. A January 2026 operator notice said prices were unchanged and showed them in euro and lev, with an annual figure of EUR 49.60 (BGN 97) and a one-day figure of EUR 4.09 (BGN 8) from 2 February 2026. The fixed conversion rate used in that changeover is 1.95583. Those numbers are not a tariff issued by bgtol.
  2. Case B
    Car plus a trailer, combination over 3.5 tonnes. The government description adds a trailer vignette when the combination crosses that mass. The drawing vehicle does not absorb the trailer by being “the same trip”.
  3. Case C
    Motorcycle or another vehicle with fewer than four wheels. Outside the vignette fee on that same description. Do not generalise this to a trike or a combination without reading the wheel and mass rules again.
  4. Case D
    Van whose documents say over 3.5 tonnes permissible mass. Distance toll, even on a day when the cargo is light. The rate uses mass, euro class, axles, and road class. Payment shape: on-board unit via a national service provider, or a route pass for a declared path.
  5. Case E
    Heavy goods vehicle. The same distance system, not a weekend vignette. A missing or silent unit is an offence in the public description. We do not print compensatory amounts here, because those figures go stale and were already a poor thing to copy across a currency change.
  6. Case F
    Hire car, replaced plate, or a plate typed wrong. The record follows the plate. A digit wrong is a different vehicle in the system. Sorting that out is a conversation with the operator or the hire company. It is not an email we can answer, because we never see the record.

The operator’s own site is outside bgtol. When a guide links there, the link text says it opens in a new tab and is not this publication. Insurance remains a separate paper from either fee. Emergency remains 112.