TollRo from 1 October 2026: everything that changes for trucks over 3.5 t in Romania
TollRo 2026: the complete guide for freight operators
On 1 October 2026, Romania changes how it calculates road tax.
For every freight vehicle with a maximum authorised mass above 3.5 tonnes, the vignette, the rovinietă, is replaced by TollRo, a distance-based charge. You pay for the kilometres you actually drive, priced by how heavy your vehicle is, how clean it is, and what kind of road it is on.
It is the same model already running in Germany, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, and it implements the revised EU Eurovignette framework, which requires member states to charge heavy vehicles by distance and emissions rather than by time. The domestic legal basis is Law 226/2023; the tariffs were set by Order of the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 1925/2025, published in the Official Gazette no. 940 of 10 October 2025.
Here is what an operator actually needs to know.
The date: 1 October, not 31 August
The calendar has been confusing, and it has moved more than once. The original target was 1 January 2026. It slipped to 1 July 2026, and then, by a law adopted in June 2026, to 1 October 2026.
A second date then muddied things further: 31 August 2026 appears in Law 170/2026 as the deadline for implementing the STRR electronic road charging infrastructure and the TollRo system on Romanian territory. Several outlets read that as the start of charging. It is not. CNAIR clarified, citing article 29(1) of Law 226/2023, that application of the vignette and TollRo tariffs begins on 1 October 2026.
So: technical systems in place by 31 August, money starts changing hands on 1 October.
Who pays, and who does not
TollRo applies to freight transport vehicles with a maximum authorised mass (MAM) over 3.5 tonnes, on motorways, express roads and national roads in Romania. That covers everything from a 5-tonne distribution truck to a 40-tonne articulated combination.
The vignette does not disappear. It stays in place for cars and for goods vehicles at or below 3.5 tonnes. If you run a mixed fleet, you will be dealing with both systems at once, and this is one of the more common misreadings we see in circulating summaries, so it is worth confirming your own vehicle categories against the official text rather than a news article.
How the TollRo road charge is built
The formula is deliberately simple:
TollRo = unit tariff × kilometres driven
The unit tariff is not one number. It is determined by three variables:
- Vehicle category, set by maximum authorised mass, in three bands: 3.5 to 7.5 t, 7.5 to 12 t, and 12 t and over.
- Road type: motorways and express roads on one hand, national roads on the other. National roads are charged at 50% of the motorway rate.
- Euro emissions class: three bands. Euro VI and electric vehicles pay the base rate. Euro V/IV pay 15% more. Euro III/0, and non-Euro, pay 30% more.
The tariff itself has two components built into it: an infrastructure-use component, and an external-costs component reflecting air pollution. The unit tariff is updated annually, each December, in line with the consumer price index published by Romania’s National Institute of Statistics.
The official tariff table
Values in lei per kilometre, VAT included. Source: Order 1925/2025, Official Gazette no. 940 / 10 October 2025.
| Vehicle cat. (MAM) | Road type | Euro VI | Euro V/IV | Euro III/0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I · 3,5 to 7,5 t | Motorway / Express road | 0,17 | 0,19 | 0,22 |
| I · 3,5 to 7,5 t | National road | 0,08 | 0,10 | 0,11 |
| II · 7,5 to 12 t | Motorway / Express road | 0,29 | 0,33 | 0,37 |
| II · 7,5 to 12 t | National road | 0,14 | 0,16 | 0,19 |
| III · 12 t and over | Motorway / Express road | 0,48 | 0,55 | 0,62 |
| III · 12 t and over | National road | 0,24 | 0,28 | 0,31 |
To put that in the currency most international operators calculate in: a 40-tonne Euro VI truck pays roughly €0.092 per motorway kilometre and about €0.046 per national-road kilometre. That keeps Romania below Hungary, Austria, Slovenia and Bulgaria, but the gap is much narrower than it used to be.
What it looks like on a real route
Take the corridor most inbound traffic uses: the Hungarian border at Nădlac to Bucharest, roughly 560 km, almost entirely on the A1.
| Truck (40 t, cat III) | One way | Round trip |
|---|---|---|
| Euro VI | ~269 lei (≈ €52) | ~538 lei (≈ €103) |
| Euro V/IV | ~308 lei (≈ €59) | ~616 lei (≈ €118) |
| Euro III/0 | ~347 lei (≈ €67) | ~694 lei (≈ €133) |
Bucharest to Constanța on the A2, about 225 km, costs a Euro VI 40-tonner around 108 lei (≈ €21) one way.
Note what the Euro column does. Between the cleanest and the oldest truck on the identical route there is a 29% difference.
You can run your own routes through the free TollRo calculator rather than doing this by hand.
Three ways to pay
Route ticket. Bought in advance for a defined trip. Suited to occasional transit; unworkable as a routine.
The eTarife app. Provided free by CNAIR, available on Google Play and the App Store. Pay from a phone, trip by trip. Digital, but still manual.
A SETRo contract with an on-board unit (OBU). You sign with an authorised provider; the device in the vehicle reports distance and settles the charge automatically, without the driver doing anything. This is the option for anyone in Romania regularly. It is also designed to be interoperable with the European Electronic Toll Service, so in time one device and one contract can cover Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Germany alongside Romania, though industry reporting suggests full interoperability may only arrive in early 2027.
We go through the trade-offs between the three in a separate piece: route ticket, eTarife or OBU: which one fits your operation.
Enforcement
Non-payment is an offence, sanctioned by fine. Checking is electronic, based on the registration plate and the data transmitted by on-board devices and digital payment channels. There is no version of this where a truck passes unnoticed.
What to do now
- Sort your fleet by Euro class and weight band. That is what determines your rate.
- Work out your real Romanian mileage, and split it between motorway and national road, because the difference is a factor of two. Use our calculator to see the real costs.
- Compare it to what you pay for vignettes today. For some operators TollRo will be cheaper. We did that arithmetic here: the break-even point.
- Choose your payment channel and register before your next run. Fleet and vehicle data has to be with an authorised provider before the vehicle enters the tolled network.
And while you have Romanian compliance open on your desk: TollRo is not the only obligation that changed for foreign carriers this year. Since 1 January 2026, ANAF enforces GPS reporting under the RO e-Transport system, and liability now extends to foreign carriers. That is the part LoadHub handles.
Sources: Law 226/2023; Order of the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure no. 1925/2025 (Official Gazette no. 940 / 10 October 2025); Law 170/2026; CNAIR communications; UNTRR. This article is informational and is not legal or tax advice.
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