Heathrow ULEZ and the Congestion Charge: what to pay and when

The ULEZ and the Congestion Charge are two distinct Transport for London schemes, with different geographies, different fees, different hours, and different reasons for existing. Lumping them together is the single most common mistake on this topic. Before either figure matters, the question is which of the two applies to your journey, and often the answer is one but not the other.

The Ultra Low Emission Zone charges older, more polluting vehicles a daily fee for being inside a defined area, regardless of how far they drive or where they go inside it. Since August 2023 that area covers all of Greater London out to the Greater London boundary, which puts Heathrow firmly inside it. The charge is £12.50 a day for any non-compliant vehicle that enters the zone, and most modern cars are compliant and pay nothing.

The Congestion Charge is a daily fee for any vehicle entering a small central London zone during operating hours, regardless of how clean or dirty the engine is. The zone is bounded roughly by the Inner Ring Road and covers about 1.3 square miles. The charge is £18 a day, raised from £15 on 2 January 2026, and it applies whether your car is new or old. Heathrow sits well outside this zone, so a straight motorway drive to or from the airport does not trigger it; the only Heathrow journeys it affects are the ones that continue into central London.

The rest of this page covers each in detail and then steps through the common Heathrow journeys to show which charges apply.

The Ultra Low Emission Zone was expanded on 29 August 2023 to cover every London borough out to the Greater London boundary. Heathrow Airport, every car park around it, and every approach road through Hounslow or West Drayton sits inside that boundary. A non-compliant vehicle pays the £12.50 every day it enters the zone, with no per-mile component; the charge is the same whether you drive 1 mile or 50.

When the charge applies

ULEZ operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year, with one exception: Christmas Day, when the zone is free. There is no weekend reduction, no overnight pause, and no holiday breaks beyond the single Christmas Day exemption.

What counts as compliant

The standards are emissions-based, not age-based, but the practical translation is roughly: petrol cars registered after January 2006 (which meet Euro 4) and diesel cars registered after September 2015 (which meet Euro 6) are compliant and pay nothing. Some older cars also meet the standard, and a handful of newer ones do not. The definitive answer for any specific car comes from the TfL vehicle checker at tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/check-your-vehicle, which reads the DVLA record for the registration plate you enter and gives a yes-or-no answer in one screen.

Fully electric and hydrogen vehicles are compliant by default and pay nothing. Petrol-electric hybrids are compliant as long as the petrol side meets Euro 4, which on any plug-in hybrid built in the past decade it does.

How to pay

If your car is not compliant, pay online at the TfL site, in the TfL Pay to Drive app, or by phone, either before the journey, on the day, or by midnight on the third day after the journey. The £12.50 is per day per vehicle and a single payment covers any number of trips into the zone on that day.

For regular drivers, Auto Pay is the simpler arrangement. TfL reads your plate at the zone boundary, charges the £12.50 automatically on any non-compliant day, and bills the total once a month. The annual admin fee is £10 per vehicle. The same Auto Pay account covers the Congestion Charge and the Low Emission Zone, so one registration handles all three.

What happens if you do not pay

The penalty for missing the deadline is a £180 Penalty Charge Notice, reduced to £90 if you settle within 14 days of the notice. After 28 days unpaid the figure escalates to £270, and TfL can pursue the debt through the courts. Heathrow's own page on ULEZ at the airport sits at heathrow.com/transport-and-directions/ulez, with the TfL detail at tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone.

The Congestion Charge applies to any vehicle entering or moving inside a small central London zone during operating hours. Heathrow is well outside the zone, so the charge has nothing to do with reaching the airport itself; the question only arises when a journey continues from Heathrow into central London (or starts in central London and ends at Heathrow).

Where the zone is

The Congestion Charge zone covers roughly 1.3 square miles of central London, bounded by the Inner Ring Road. The boundary runs through Elephant & Castle on the south, Vauxhall on the south-west, Edgware Road on the west, Euston Road on the north, and Old Street and City Road on the east. Tower Bridge, the City, Covent Garden, Soho, Mayfair, and most of the West End sit inside. Kensington, Camden, Hammersmith, Canary Wharf, and most of the rest of London sit outside.

When the charge applies

The zone operates from 07:00 to 18:00 Monday to Friday, and from 12:00 to 18:00 on Saturdays, Sundays, and bank holidays. The charge does not operate between Christmas Day and New Year's Day inclusive. Outside operating hours the zone is free and you can drive through it without paying.

How much

The standard charge is £18 a day, raised from £15 on 2 January 2026, paid either before the trip, on the day, or by midnight the next day. Pay up to three days after the trip and the rate rises to £21. Miss that and a PCN applies (covered below).

Where Heathrow journeys fit

The Congestion Charge bites on three Heathrow patterns. A self-driven trip from Heathrow to a hotel or meeting inside the zone during operating hours costs you the £18 on top of any other charges. A taxi or private hire trip ending inside the zone passes the £18 through to your fare (with the black cab exception below). A trip from central London to Heathrow that starts inside the zone during operating hours costs whoever is paying the £18 once for that day, regardless of how many other journeys the vehicle made.

The charge does not apply to: any trip that stays on the motorways and ring roads, any trip that goes around the zone rather than through it, any trip outside the operating hours, or any trip in an exempt vehicle (black cabs, blue badge holders with the right registration, certain disabled vehicles, residents with a permit). Most Heathrow drivers never enter the zone at all.

The same information in one place, for the comparison reader.

The cleanest rule of thumb. Driving to or from Heathrow in a modern car that stays on the motorway: no charge. Driving anywhere in the Greater London area in an older non-compliant car: ULEZ. Driving anywhere inside the central zone during operating hours: Congestion Charge. Both can apply on the same trip (an older car driving into central London pays both), and neither has anything to do with Heathrow's own £7 forecourt drop-off charge.

The taxi-and-Congestion-Charge question is one of the most common queries on this topic, so it deserves its own section.

Black cabs are exempt

London-licensed Hackney carriages (the iconic black cabs) are exempt from the Congestion Charge and remain exempt in 2026. The fare on the meter is the fare you pay, with no Congestion Charge line on top. The Mayor of London reconfirmed the exemption in 2025 after a consultation. A black cab from Heathrow to a destination inside the zone, during operating hours, runs at the meter rate plus the £1.60 Heathrow rank surcharge, and that is it. The exemption is one reason black cabs remain competitive against Uber for trips into the central zone during operating hours, even when the underlying meter is higher.

Private hire vehicles are not exempt

TfL removed the private hire exemption in 2019. Every Uber, Bolt, FreeNow private hire trip, and traditional minicab trip that enters the zone during operating hours carries the £18 charge. The amount is added to the fare automatically by the app or the operator; you do not pay TfL separately. On a £50 Uber from Heathrow to Soho on a Tuesday morning, expect £68 on the receipt. Outside operating hours (after 18:00 on weekdays or before 12:00 on weekends, and over the Christmas-to-New-Year break), no charge applies and the fare is whatever the app quotes.

Which way the maths cuts

For a trip into the zone during operating hours, the black cab exemption can close or invert the usual Uber-cheaper-than-cab pattern. A typical Uber to the West End at £45 plus £18 Congestion Charge is £63 to your card; a black cab on the meter at £85 with no Congestion Charge is £85. The cab is still pricier, but the gap is smaller than the headline numbers suggest. In surge conditions, the comparison can swing the other way. Full picture on the Heathrow taxi page and the Uber at Heathrow page; this page covers the charge mechanism, the other two cover the operator side.

If you collect a hire car at Heathrow and drive it into central London, both charges potentially apply. Most rental fleets are modern enough to be ULEZ-compliant, so the £12.50 does not arise in practice; the Congestion Charge does, the moment you cross the zone boundary during operating hours.

Rental companies vary in how they handle the admin. Some include a "city access" or "TfL handling" fee that covers the Congestion Charge plus a small premium for paying it on your behalf. Others bill the £18 to your card after the trip, usually with a £25 to £40 admin fee on top because the rental company has to pay TfL and chase the customer. A few leave it to you to pay TfL directly and charge nothing extra, but if you forget, the resulting PCN is your liability, not the rental company's. Read the terms before you drive into the zone, and Auto Pay is usually not available on a hire car because it would require the rental company to register the plate.

The Heathrow rental desks are covered on the car hire page, including which operators have on-site offices and which use a shuttle.

The position for electric vehicles changed materially on 2 January 2026, and it is worth being precise.

In the ULEZ, fully electric and hydrogen vehicles remain compliant by default and pay nothing. Plug-in hybrids are compliant as long as the petrol or diesel side meets Euro 4 (petrol) or Euro 6 (diesel), which any plug-in hybrid built in the past decade does. The £12.50 does not apply to a normal EV.

In the Congestion Charge zone, the full exemption ended on 25 December 2025. The Cleaner Vehicle Discount, which gave zero-emission cars a 100% discount, was withdrawn and replaced with a smaller discount tied to TfL Auto Pay registration. From 2 January 2026, an electric car registered on Auto Pay pays £13.50 a day (25% off the £18 standard). An electric van, HGV, or quadricycle registered on Auto Pay pays £9 (50% off). Without Auto Pay registration, an EV pays the full £18, the same as any other car. The discounts step down further from March 2030 (to 12.5% for cars and 25% for commercial vehicles), but that is years away.

The practical effect: an EV trip from Heathrow into central London during operating hours now costs £13.50 to £18 depending on Auto Pay status. For a private EV used regularly, the £10 Auto Pay annual fee pays for itself on the first trip. For a one-off rental EV, the discount is rarely available because the rental company holds the plate registration.

The £7 forecourt fee that Heathrow charges every car dropping someone at any terminal is not a TfL charge. It is run by Heathrow Airport, not by Transport for London, and it has nothing to do with ULEZ or the Congestion Charge. It applies only inside the small zone at the entry to each terminal forecourt, it is charged per visit rather than per day, and it is paid through Heathrow's own portal rather than TfL's.

Where this trips drivers up: a non-compliant car dropping someone at Terminal 5 on a weekday morning pays the £12.50 ULEZ and the £7 forecourt charge, two separate charges via two separate systems, with two separate deadlines and two separate PCN routes if either is missed. A compliant car doing the same trip pays only the £7. A non-compliant car driving to central London afterwards adds the £18 Congestion Charge to the bill, for a £37.50 total on the day. None of these are negotiable, none cancel each other out, and the receipts all go to different places.

Full detail on the forecourt charge is on the drop-off charges page; the equivalent for collecting an arriving passenger is on pick-up. Both pages assume you have already read or will read this one for the wider London picture.

The two charges share the same TfL payment infrastructure. You can pay each individually online or in the TfL Pay to Drive app, or set up Auto Pay to handle either or both automatically. Auto Pay is one registration per vehicle, £10 a year admin per scheme, and it covers ULEZ, the Congestion Charge, and the older Low Emission Zone in one go.

Deadlines are tight enough to matter. Pay the Congestion Charge by midnight the next day at £18, or up to three days after the trip at £21. Pay the ULEZ by midnight on the third day after the journey at £12.50. Miss either deadline and a Penalty Charge Notice of £180 is issued, reduced to £90 if you settle within 14 days, rising to £270 if it stays unpaid for 28 days. The PCN goes to the registered keeper of the vehicle, including for hire cars (the rental company gets the notice and bills you, with an admin fee on top).

If you believe a PCN was issued in error, TfL accepts representations through the same letter and portal route. Successful appeals are usually based on evidence: an exemption that was on file at the time of the trip, a compliant vehicle that was misread, a sale of the vehicle before the date of the alleged trip. Generic appeals on the basis of "I did not know" or "I did not mean to" do not usually succeed. The full appeals process is documented on the TfL site.

A handful of small things that make this cleaner in practice.

• Check your plate before the trip. The TfL vehicle checker takes 30 seconds and tells you whether the £12.50 applies. If you are driving someone else's car, ask. Assumption is the most common cause of an unexpected PCN.
• Auto Pay is worth the £10. If you drive a non-compliant car into Greater London more than once a year, Auto Pay removes the deadline risk entirely and the admin fee is less than one missed PCN reduction.
• Plan the route, not just the destination. A trip from Heathrow to a hotel in Bayswater stays outside the Congestion Charge zone. A trip to a hotel in Bloomsbury crosses it. Twenty minutes earlier or later on a weekend afternoon can be the difference between paying and not. The right Heathrow postcode for sat nav by terminal is on the postcode page.
• If you are being driven by a friend, mention both charges. They may know about the forecourt fee but not the ULEZ, or they may assume their EV is exempt from the Congestion Charge as it used to be.
• For rentals, ask the company directly. The handling of Congestion Charge varies between firms and changes faster than this page can keep up with. The rental contract is the source of truth for your specific booking.
• The Heathrow forecourt charge is separate. Pay it through Heathrow's portal, not TfL's. Different system, different PCN, different deadline.
• The surest way to pay nothing is not to drive. The rail options avoid both charges, and for anyone local enough, cycling to Heathrow is charge-free, with cycle routes in and secure bike parking at each terminal.
• For the broader trip-planning picture, including how all the modes compare, the transport hub covers rail, taxi, coach, and car. For driving in and out specifically, the car page covers the routes and the access roads.