• Since 2022, rates of tolls for toll road sections for heavy vehicles will change.
• The change is related to the indexation mechanism.
• Increasing the electronic toll will increase revenues to the National Road Fund (KFD) and the possibilities of developing road infrastructure in Poland.

Since January 1, 2022, new toll rates for the use of toll road sections in Poland will apply. Users of vehicles and a combination of heavy vehicles (with a permissible total weight of more than 3.5 tons and buses) will pay from 1 to 3 groszy more for each kilometer driven on toll roads. The so-called electronic toll rates depend on the road category, vehicle category and exhaust emission class. The change in rates was announced in the announcement of the Minister of Infrastructure of 2 December this year on the amount of electronic toll rates for 2022. It results from the indexation mechanism introduced a few months earlier in the Act amending the Act on Toll Motorways and on the National Road Fund and some other acts of April 15, 2021. This mechanism assumes that the electronic toll rate will be increased in the following year by the consumer price growth index for the first three quarters of 2021, as compared to the corresponding period in 2020. The index, announced by the President of Statistics Poland after the end of the third quarter of this year, amounted to 104.2, which is synonymous with a price increase of 4.2%.

Payment of the electronic toll is obligatory for users of heavy vehicles on toll roads in Poland. This toll is revenue of the National Road Fund, the funds are used primarily for the construction of road infrastructure. Increasing the revenue of the National Road Fund will increase the investment potential in national roads, which will translate into improved comfort for drivers, shortening the travel time and improving road safety.

Toll rates for 1 km of toll roads have not been indexed since the introduction of the electronic toll collection system in Poland, i.e., since 2011, and are at the lowest level compared to European countries. The indexation of rates by the inflation rate is aimed at maintaining their real value and ensuring the possibility of increasing the State Treasury's expenditure on road infrastructure.

Since October 1 to December 31, 2021, heavy vehicle users paid 30% less for drives with e-TOLL. The reduced electronic toll rate was aimed at making it easier for entrepreneurs from the transport industry to adapt to the change of the road toll collection system. This reduction was valid only until December 31, 2021, and after that date, users will pay a toll of 100% of the electronic toll rates applicable since January 2022 for each kilometer of a toll road.