Pay a ULEZ or Clean Air Zone Charge, or Dispute a Fine

Where to actually pay

There are two official payment services, not one. For London's ULEZ (the Ultra Low Emission Zone), you pay at tfl.gov.uk. For any of the seven English Clean Air Zones outside London, you pay through gov.uk. Its national Clean Air Zone service covers all seven.

Jump to paying ULEZ or paying a Clean Air Zone charge for the deadlines.

Got a ULEZ fine for a car you sold, or for a car that was never yours? Skip to the not-your-car section. It covers which evidence to send and where.

For what the schemes actually are, what they cost, and which cities run one, see our full guide to ULEZ and Clean Air Zones. Both pages sit in our MOT, road tax and staying legal section.

Check if you actually owe a charge first

Check whether you owe anything before you pay. Our own ULEZ check tells you whether your vehicle is ULEZ-compliant using just the registration number. So you know whether a charge applies at all before you drive into the zone. If it doesn't comply, our guide to avoiding the ULEZ charge covers exemptions and what compliance means.

The seven English Clean Air Zones outside London share one gov.uk service, "Drive in a clean air zone". It checks whether your vehicle has to pay, and it takes the payment. No single official tool covers London and the seven zones, because different authorities run them.

How to pay the London ULEZ charge

Pay directly at tfl.gov.uk. You can pay a one-off charge without signing in to an account. TfL does warn that discounts and exemptions won't be applied unless you sign in.

Drive into the zone regularly? TfL's Auto Pay service bills you monthly for the charging days you use. TfL says there are no registration or renewal fees. You need a London Road User Charging account, and it covers up to five vehicles.

The deadline: pay up to 90 days before you travel, or by midnight on the third day after your journey. Miss that window and the trip is treated as unpaid. A charging day runs from midnight to midnight, every day except Christmas Day.

The cost is £12.50 a day for non-compliant cars, vans and motorcycles up to 3.5 tonnes. Our guide to ULEZ and Clean Air Zones breaks the charge down by vehicle type.

How to pay a Clean Air Zone charge outside London

Pay through gov.uk's "Drive in a clean air zone" service, the same one you use to check. It covers all seven English Clean Air Zones: Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield, and Tyneside, which covers Newcastle and Gateshead. You don't have to find each council's own payment page separately.

The deadline: pay up to 6 days before you travel, or by 11:59pm on the sixth day after driving into the zone. That's different from ULEZ's 3-day window. It's easy to get wrong if you assume the two schemes work the same way.

Costs vary by city and vehicle class. See ULEZ and Clean Air Zones for the seven-zone overview, or Birmingham's Clean Air Zone for one city's figures in depth.

Careful where you pay: official sites only

Both tfl.gov.uk and gov.uk's Clean Air Zone service are free to use directly. Other websites also rank well for searches like "pay ulez". Some present themselves as a way to pay rather than as purely informational sites.

TfL has its own warning page about them. It says unofficial sites can charge a premium of up to £8 extra. It also says some have taken the money and not paid the charge, so the driver got a Penalty Charge Notice. In other cases, a site took payment for a day when no charge applied.

We're not accusing any site of wrongdoing. But they aren't TfL or gov.uk. Paying directly through the official service is the only way to be certain there's no extra fee. So check that the address bar reads tfl.gov.uk or gov.uk before you enter any payment details.

What happens if you don't pay in time

In London, missing the payment window means TfL issues a Penalty Charge Notice, or PCN, of £180. That drops to £90 if you pay within 14 days. Leave it unpaid and unchallenged for 28 days and TfL issues a charge certificate. That adds 50% to the amount owed, so £180 becomes £270.

You then have 14 days to pay the charge certificate. Once it's been issued, TfL says you can no longer challenge the PCN by making representations. If it's still unpaid after those 14 days, TfL can register the debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, which is part of the county court. You then get an Order for Recovery, with a registration fee added and 21 days to pay.

TfL states that this isn't a County Court Judgment and won't affect your credit rating. But if the order goes unpaid, a warrant can be passed to enforcement agents. They're allowed to charge fees for every letter, visit and action they take. If a fine has reached that stage, see the enforcement section below.

Outside London, non-payment also brings a PCN. The national gov.uk guidance doesn't state a single amount, because each council's charging scheme sets its own figure. Birmingham's, for example, is £120, reduced by 50% if paid within 14 days. See our Birmingham Clean Air Zone guide for that city's figures, but don't assume every city charges the same.

A ULEZ or Clean Air Zone charge is separate from your car's road tax (VED). One pays for driving into a zone today; the other keeps the car on the road at all. Being up to date on one doesn't excuse the other.

How to appeal or dispute a charge

These are two separate systems, so don't send an appeal to the wrong one.

Say it's a ULEZ or Congestion Charge penalty in London. Write to TfL with formal representations within 28 days of the PCN. TfL says it doesn't have to consider late ones, but it may if you show evidence of what stopped you. If TfL rejects them, you'll get a Notice of Rejection.

Then you can appeal to the independent Road User Charging Adjudicators at London Tribunals, within another 28 days. The appeal itself is free. You'd only pay TfL's costs in the very rare case where an adjudicator finds you acted frivolously, vexatiously or wholly unreasonably.

For an English Clean Air Zone, write to the issuing council with formal representations within 28 days of the PCN. Use the grounds printed on the notice itself. The council has 56 days to answer. If it doesn't, the regulations treat it as having accepted your representations.

The Clean Air Zone regulations also give you something London's don't. You can ask the council to cancel for "compelling reasons", even where no listed ground fits. TfL says it will still weigh mitigating circumstances if no ground fits, but that's its own discretion.

If the council rejects you, you have 28 days to pay or appeal to the independent Traffic Penalty Tribunal. Its adjudicator can't cancel a PCN on compelling reasons alone, but can ask the council to think again.

Some grounds are common and genuine on either route. They include a vehicle that was actually compliant or exempt, or a charge that had already been paid. A fine for a car you'd sold, or never owned, is covered in the next section.

This is a general explanation. Read the specific grounds on your own notice, and get proper advice for anything unusual.

ULEZ fine for a car you sold, or one that was never yours

The London and Clean Air Zone regulations both list "not the registered keeper" as a ground. The registered keeper is the person named on the V5C, the logbook. Below are five cases with the evidence each one needs.

You sold it before the date on the PCN

It comes down to one question. Had you told DVLA about the sale before the date of the journey?

If you had, both sets of regulations put the charge on whoever kept the car at that time. Not you. If you hadn't, TfL says you "may remain liable". You can still make representations with evidence, but the law isn't on your side in the same way.

Our guide to paperwork when selling covers the duty to tell DVLA and what happens if you don't.

The London regulations say your representations must give the buyer's name and address, if you have them. The Clean Air Zone regulations say the same. If I were sending one thing first, it'd be DVLA's confirmation letter or email. TfL also accepts a copy of the V5C section you sent to DVLA, a bill of sale, a part-exchange notice from a garage, or an invoice.

Lost DVLA's letter? gov.uk says to write to DVLA with the registration, make, model, exact sale date and the buyer's details. A replacement arrives within 4 weeks.

Sold it to a motor trader who never re-registered it? Both sets of regulations make the trader liable, not you.

It was never your car, or a cloned plate

A cloned plate means someone else's car is wearing your registration. TfL deals with this under its "not the registered keeper" ground. It asks for photos of your car showing differences from the PCN image, and proof your car was elsewhere. It also wants a police crime reference for the cloning and any confirmation from another enforcement body that your plate has been cloned.

For a Clean Air Zone PCN, the council's grounds don't name cloning. Pick the ground on your notice that fits best, or use "compelling reasons". Reporting the clone itself, to the police and to DVLA, is covered in our guide to number plate red flags.

If DVLA's records wrongly show you as the keeper of a car you've never owned, write to DVLA. gov.uk says it will correct its records and confirm within 4 weeks.

Stolen, or taken without your consent

This is a separate ground on both routes. It needs evidence, usually a crime reference number. For a Clean Air Zone, the regulations also accept an insurance claim reference.

TfL says it doesn't cover a car you lent to someone. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal says the same for Clean Air Zones: it doesn't generally cover a car in a garage's care, or one borrowed by a relative or friend.

A hire or lease car

The two schemes define a hire agreement differently, so keep them apart.

In London, the hire firm can pass liability to the hirer only under a hiring agreement for a fixed period of less than six months. The hirer must also have signed a statement of liability. That's the Road Traffic Offenders Act definition, which the London regulations borrow.

For a Clean Air Zone, the regulations use the Protection of Freedoms Act definition instead. That covers a vehicle let "for a period of any duration", but not hire-purchase. The firm must send the council a signed statement, a copy of the agreement, and the hirer's signed statement of liability.

If you're the hirer and a PCN has been transferred to you, you're now the recipient. You make representations yourself, on the same grounds as anyone else.

A private plate moved onto a compliant car

TfL's compliance list is refreshed with new DVLA data every month. So a plate moved from a non-compliant car to a compliant one can show the wrong result for a short time. TfL said in a December 2023 Freedom of Information response that penalties issued in those circumstances "would also be cancelled". Send evidence that the registration was on the compliant car on the date of the PCN.

Before you write anything, it's worth checking what the official records say about the car on the notice. Our free car check shows a vehicle's timeline, including first registration and MOT tests. It also shows the make, model and colour on record.

Anyone can compare that record with the car in the PCN photo. It can't prove a plate is cloned, but it can show that the car on the notice isn't the car you own.

Whichever case is yours, send the representation within 28 days. Keep a copy of everything you send.

Past 28 days, or bailiffs already involved?

Once a charge certificate has been issued, you can no longer make representations to TfL. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal says the same of councils, with a note that some may still accept them at their discretion. That doesn't apply to TfL, which says the route is closed. What's left depends on which stage you've reached.

An Order for Recovery from the Traffic Enforcement Centre

In London, you can file a statutory declaration with the Traffic Enforcement Centre within 21 days of the Order for Recovery. A statutory declaration is a sworn statement. It's allowed on three grounds only: you didn't receive the PCN; you made representations and got no reply; or you appealed and got no reply.

Read those grounds twice. "I'd sold it" and "it was cloned" aren't grounds for the declaration itself. If you never received the PCN, the declaration cancels the order and the charge certificate, but it doesn't end the penalty.

TfL can serve a fresh PCN, on you or someone else, and says it will reissue the notice so you can pay or challenge it. Don't ignore it. That's the point where you raise the not-your-car ground with your evidence.

Make it accurate. A false declaration made knowingly is a criminal offence, and TfL cites the Perjury Act 1911.

For a Clean Air Zone, the shape is the same but the document is a witness statement, not a statutory declaration. It has four grounds: the London three, plus "I've already paid in full". Its appeal ground is also wider, and covers an appeal decided in your favour.

The forms are the TE9 and TE7 "Dart Charge, Mersey Gateway, clean air zones" versions on gov.uk. For a ULEZ order, use the form that came with it.

More than 21 days gone

Apply to the Traffic Enforcement Centre to file out of time, explaining the delay. gov.uk says bailiffs are told to stop while an out-of-time challenge is considered. If the authority refuses it, the Traffic Enforcement Centre reviews the refusal. TfL says it may challenge your application if evidence shows you knew about the PCN, hadn't updated your DVLA address, or still live at the address it wrote to.

Enforcement agents are already at the door

Tell the agent you've applied, and show them your evidence. TfL says they'll advise you if there's anything you can do, "but in most cases you must pay them". Their fees are set by law: £79 at the compliance stage, and £247 at the enforcement stage, plus 7.5% of any sum over £1,900. Those figures apply from 1 May 2026, and enforcement action taken before that date is unaffected.

Say you did get the PCNs, ignored them because the car wasn't yours, and now have agents chasing you. None of the declaration grounds fit that. What the regulations do give TfL and councils is a power to cancel a charge certificate. It's a discretion, not your right.

So ask TfL, or the council, in writing to cancel it, and send your evidence. Nobody can promise the outcome. If the debt is causing you real trouble, Citizens Advice offers free help with bailiffs and debt.

This is a general explanation of a legal process. Read what the Order for Recovery says, and get proper advice for anything unusual.

FAQs