Key points
- MEPs backed the reform of the Eurovignette Directive by 475 votes to 96, with 70 abstentions. EU member states still need to formally confirm it.
- Until 1 July 2031, countries may fully exempt zero-emission trucks from tolls. After that, the maximum discount is 75%.
- Low-emission trucks can get up to 75% off, falling to 50% from July 2031. Trailers are left out.
- Electric trucks made up 4.8% of new EU truck registrations in the first half of 2026, but only around 0.3% of the fleet. In Iceland and Switzerland, they already take a quarter to a third of new sales.
The vote on 7 October confirms a compromise reached in early July between the Parliament, EU member states and the European Commission, Verkehrsrundschau reports. The Council still has to sign it off.
The rules set a framework, not an obligation. EU countries are allowed to cut tolls for clean trucks, but they do not have to.
What changes and when
- Zero-emission trucks: a full toll exemption is allowed until 30 June 2031. From 1 July 2031, the discount can be at most 75% compared with the standard rate (toll class 1).
- Low-emission trucks: for the first time, countries can cut their tolls by up to 75%. From July 2031, the maximum falls to 50%. This could include trucks with range extenders, as long as the range extender does not run on fossil fuel.
- Trailers: the Commission wanted the CO₂ footprint of trailers to count towards toll discounts, but member states refused. The Commission has promised to look at the issue again within three years.
Under the previous rules, the right to exempt zero-emission trucks was due to expire at the end of 2025. Brussels proposed the extension in June 2025 to give operators and truck makers more time.
Why tolls matter for the business case
An electric truck still costs much more to buy than a diesel one, and toll savings are one of the main ways operators close the gap. In some use cases, electric trucks are already beating diesel on total cost, and toll exemptions are a big part of that.
Germany, the EU’s largest truck market, has already used the extension. In November 2025, the Bundestag kept battery-electric trucks exempt from the motorway Maut until 30 June 2031.
A heavy diesel truck in Germany pays more than 30 cents per kilometre in Maut. For a vehicle covering 100,000 km a year on toll roads, that adds up to more than €30,000 a year, money an electric truck currently keeps. From mid-2031, even with the maximum discount, e-truck operators will have to pay at least a quarter of the standard rate.
Meanwhile, tolls for diesel trucks keep rising across Europe. Read more: what carriers need to know about road tolls in 2027.
Not every country is as generous as Germany, though. According to truck makers’ association ACEA, in 2025 only two EU countries offered a full toll exemption, ten applied reduced rates and fifteen did not use the option at all.
How many e-trucks are actually on the road?
Sales are growing fast, but from a low base. According to ACEA, in the first half of 2026:
- electrically chargeable trucks took 4.8% of new EU truck registrations, up from 3.6% a year earlier,
- their registrations rose by 47.7%,
- diesel still accounted for 92.1% of new trucks,
- Germany, the Netherlands and France together made up 74% of e-truck registrations.
The EU average hides big differences between countries. In the first half of 2026, almost one in three new trucks over 3.5 tonnes registered in Iceland was electric. Switzerland followed with 26%, Norway with 23% and Sweden with 19%, according to ACEA data compiled by Austrian mobility organisation VCÖ.
Among EU countries, the Netherlands (16%), Denmark (13%), Germany (9%) and Austria (8%) are in the lead. The UK (7%) and France (5%) close the European top ten, while the EU27 average is just 5%.
The leaders are mostly countries where electric trucks pay little or nothing on the road. Switzerland, for example, exempts e-trucks from its heavy vehicle charge until 2030. According to VCÖ, an e-truck there saves around €40,000 a year compared with a diesel truck, while in Austria the saving is about €10,000.
Austria also shows how slowly fleets change, even in a top-ten market. In June 2026, the country registered its 1,000th battery-electric truck over 3.5 tonnes, up from just 47 at the start of 2021. Yet that is still only about 1.4% of its roughly 75,000 heavy trucks and tractor units, Oekonews reports.
Across the EU fleet as a whole, the picture is starker. Around 6.2 million trucks run on EU roads, with an average age of about 14 years, and battery-electric trucks made up just 0.3% of them in 2024. As we reported, electric truck sales are rising, but diesel will remain dominant for years.
ACEA says the zero-emission share of new truck sales must reach at least 35% by 2030 for manufacturers to meet EU CO₂ targets.
A boost for bridge technologies
The new low-emission category was welcomed by German MEP Markus Ferber (CSU). He argued that bridging technologies can cut CO₂ immediately while the charging network for trucks is still incomplete. He was, however, disappointed that trailers will still not count.
What operators should do now
- Check national rules. A discount only applies where a country actually introduces it.
- Plan for tolls from July 2031. A truck bought in 2026 gets about five toll-free years at most, so total cost of ownership calculations should include tolls after that.
- Think about resale value. Second owners after 2031 will pay tolls, which may affect residual values.
- Watch the low-emission category. Lower tolls could make some non-zero-emission options more attractive.
The new rules give the industry what it has long asked for: planning certainty. But they also send a clear message. The toll-free era for electric trucks is temporary, and business cases built on it need a plan for 2031.
