London's Congestion Charge, LEZ and ULEZ; the Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Newcastle/Gateshead, Portsmouth and Sheffield Clean Air Zones; Oxford's Zero Emission Zone and traffic filters; Scotland's Low Emission Zones in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow; Dartford Crossing; Humber Bridge; Mersey Gateway; the Sandbanks Ferry; Silver Jubilee Bridge; the Silvertown & Blackwall Tunnels; Tyne Tunnel; Warburton Bridge; and drop-off zones at Birmingham, East Midlands, Gatwick, Heathrow, London City, London Southend, Luton, Manchester and Stansted airports.

Differently from the other zones. Everywhere else, a chargeable crossing has a fixed daily charge you can pay any time, so we can show you a real "pay by" date. Scottish LEZs don't charge anything directly: if your vehicle doesn't meet the zone's standard, the council may post you a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN), and by law they have up to 28 days to do it. You can't actually pay anything until that notice exists with its own reference number.

So for these zones we show "penalty notice possible by" an estimated date instead of "pay by", and explain the real mechanism: first offence is £60, reduced to £30 if you pay within 14 days of the notice, doubling on repeat offences within a 90-day window up to £480 (cars/vans) or £960 (buses/HGVs). Only motorcycles and mopeds are always exempt. Unlike the English Clean Air Zones, cars aren't exempt here.

It uses your phone's background location alongside each zone's real boundary to confirm a crossing, then sends you a notification. See how it works for the full detail.

You won't get a charge alert. If your phone's motion sensors show you're walking, running or cycling inside a zone, it isn't counted as a crossing. If it isn't clear how you're travelling, the app alerts you anyway, since a missed charge costs far more than an unnecessary alert. Buses and trains look like any other vehicle to your phone, so you may still get an alert as a passenger. This needs Motion & Fitness access on iPhone, or Physical activity access on Android.

The app uses low-power geofencing most of the time, and only switches to more precise GPS tracking briefly when you're near a zone boundary, the same approach used by most navigation and fitness apps.

No. Detection and notifications happen in the background. You only need to open the app to check your history, manage vehicles, or mark something as paid.

Every confirmed crossing stays in your history so you have a record of what you've paid and when. Nothing is deleted automatically.

No. It's a notification tool, not a payment service. When a charge is likely due, we give you a link to pay directly through the official scheme operator, and you can mark it as paid in the app once you have.

Yes. If a crossing is still unpaid, you'll get a reminder at 6pm on the day it's due. Under Alerts & Notifications in the app you can change the time, add up to five reminders or turn them off. Reminders stop once you mark a crossing as paid. They aren't sent for charges covered by a pre-paid account you've added, or for Scottish Low Emission Zones, where there's nothing to pay unless a penalty notice arrives.

We compare your vehicle type (car, taxi/PHV, van, minibus, bus/coach or HGV; this needs setting when you add a vehicle, since DVLA has no record of it), fuel type and emissions standard against each zone's rules. Several Clean Air Zones only charge commercial vehicles and never private cars, so this matters: a car and a van can get a different result in the same zone. If we can't confirm a detail, we'll tell you it's unconfirmed rather than guess. Always check with the scheme operator if you're unsure.

Road Charge Pilot isn't the scheme operator and can't issue or waive charges. Any dispute needs to go through the relevant zone's own operator (e.g. TfL for ULEZ, or the local council for a Clean Air Zone).

Only what's needed to detect zone crossings. See our Privacy Policy for the full breakdown of what's collected, why, and who it's shared with.

No. We don't sell your data.

£12 a year, with a 7-day free trial so you can try it before you're charged. Subscriptions are billed and managed through the App Store or Google Play.

Through your Apple ID or Google Play subscription settings, the same place you'd manage any other app subscription. We don't have access to cancel it on your behalf.