Drivers fleeced for £250 million in low-emission zone fees

The UK has 13 low-emission zones, operating from Portsmouth to Aberdeen, and they* raised more than £250 million in 2025, according to data sourced by What Car?.

The information, sourced via Freedom of Information requests, also showed that more than £147.1m came from drivers paying a daily fee to enter low-emission zones – but a staggering £103.4m came from drivers being fined by entering the toll zones, perhaps unwittingly.

London’s ULEZ generates £57m in fines 

While some clean air zones or low-emission zones struggle to break even, others are a monumental cash-cow for local authorities. London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is the biggest and most lucrative scheme – in 2025 it raised £57m from fines and a staggering £123m from fees paid for non-compliant vehicles. 

The ULEZ was the UK’s first low-emission zone when it was first introduced as the Low Emission Zone in 2008, and then changed to ULEZ in 2019. It underwent a massive expansion in August 2023 to encompass the entire 580 square mile Greater London area, which is home to around nine million people. 

While the amount raised from non-compliant vehicle fees in the ULEZ was extremely high last year, it is likely to shrink each year going forward as people either change their cars for compliant ones or get better at remembering to pay the daily fee to drive in the zone. However, the £57m from fines is more likely to be a consistent earner for its operator, Transport for London (TfL).  

One way to avoid getting a fine is to sign up with My What Car?, the free digital assistant that helps you keep up-to-date with all aspects of car ownership. Once you’ve entered your car’s details, the site lets you know if your car meets the conditions for free entry into all UK low-emission and clean air zones, and if not how much you’ll need to pay.  

Low-emission zones that charge private car owners 

London is one of only three English clean air zones that levy a fee on older privately owned cars, while most of the others only charge owners of commercial vehicles, from HGVs to minicabs. Of those that charge car owners, Birmingham takes second place for revenue raised, chocking up a total of £30.7m – £20.5m from fines and £10.2m from daily fees – while Bristol raised £22.4 million, £14m from fines and £8.3m from daily charges.  

The situation in Scotland is different from England because the four cities that have low-emission zones don’t charge a daily fee for non-compliant vehicles, they just issue fines. Of these, Edinburgh raised the most money: £1.1m. Like English cities, though, Scotland’s low emission zones apply to the vast majority of petrol cars first registered before 1 January 2006 (those that do not meet Euro 4 emissions regulations), and diesels registered before 2015 (non-Euro 6 vehicles).

Low-emission zones that charge commercial vehicles

Not all clean air zones levy fees on privately owned vehicles — Bath, Bradford, Sheffield and Newcastle focus on older, more polluting taxis, vans, buses, coaches and lorries. Bradford was the highest-earning of these regions, with an annual tally of £7.6m in 2025, of which £5.4m came from fines and £2.8m from non-compliant vehicles. 

Sheffield wasn’t far behind with a total revenue of £6m, made up of £4.4 from fines and £1.6 from daily fees from older vehicles. And Newcastle made £3.1m from its zone, £1.9m from fines and £1.2m from non-compliant traffic. (We don’t yet have figures for Bath.) 

Portsmouth has slightly different criteria - it also levies fees on most older commercial vehicles, but it doesn’t charge van drivers. In 2025, it made £173,000 from its clean air zone, £73,000 from fines and £100,000 from older vehicles. 

Clear air zones cost £121m to run

It’s not only the money raised by low-emission schemes that is eye-wateringly large, so are some of the sums involved in operating them. Overall, the UK’s low-emission zones* paid out £121,764,005 in running costs, and as the largest zone, London’s ULEZ is the priciest to run. According to TfL it cost £100m to operate in 2025. We’ve no details on why it costs so much, but like the high income figure, this could in part be due to the cost of the recent expansion. 

The next priciest region to run was Birmingham, at £10.2m. This outlay left the city with around £20m, which it spent on a number of transport-related projects and policies. This is in line with legal requirements, which state that all emission zone earnings are ringfenced for this type of use within the region. 

What Car? asked all the authorities how any earnings were spent, and while TfL says its expenditure from ULEZ funds will be released in two years’ time in line with its four-year plan, others were able to provide more information. Bradford said it had spent £1m on a Clean Air Schools Program and £800,000 on an e-bike hire scheme, and Sheffield has spent £1m on a range of clean air projects. 

While some authorities make a profit from their schemes, others run at a loss and rely on Government grants to fund the shortfall. This trend looks set to increase as drivers become more aware of the zones and the requirements to pay for access, and more of the vehicles entering each zone are replaced with compliant ones. 

This leads to concerns that the revenue from more low emission zones won’t cover their running costs in years to come, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill. At present that’s £122m a year that may need to be provided by the Central Government in the near future.

* includes data for 11 of the 13 schemes What Car? has obtained FOI data for, data has not yet been received for 2025 for Bath or Oxford.

For all the latest reviews, advice and new car deals, sign up to the What Car? newsletter here

Next: Everything you need to know about clean air zones and London's ULEZ

Sign up to My What Car?