You can save 800 crowns on the highway stamp, confirmed the ministry - Echo24.cz

From March 2024, after more than a decade, the price of the highway stamp will increase from 1,500 crowns per year to 2,300 CZK per year. However, you can bypass the price increase with a simple trick. Thanks to the electronic stamp and sliding validity, you can buy a stamp for the current price, the validity of which will end in April 2025. This possibility was confirmed to Echo24 by the Ministry of Transport. This also introduces fees for hybrids for the first time. Only electric cars and motorcycles will remain exempt from the highway toll.

Thanks to the electronic highway stamp system, starting in 2020 it is possible to purchase a stamp at any time of the year and extend its validity up to a month after purchase. Motorists can also use this electronic system by purchasing an annual vignette at the end of February at the current price and thus avoid the announced price increase. This stamp can be valid until 1.4. 2025. “It is therefore possible to pay by 29/2/2024 for the current 1,500 CZK in the case of an annual stamp, and it is possible to postpone its validity by 30 days, i.e. the latest start of validity can be from 1 April 2024. The price is determined on the date of purchase of the stamp,” Filip Medelský, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, confirmed to Echo24.

At the same time, he confirmed that not only the price but also other parameters change for highway signs. From January 2024, it will be possible to postpone the validity of the electronic highway stamp by only 30 days. Currently, it is up to 3 months.

The spokesperson of the ministry also confirmed that it is possible to have multiple highway signs registered with one license plate.

Hybrids are now also valid

In the future, at the same time, the price of highway stamps will be regularly valued in such a way as to take into account the development of inflation. The prices of the stamp will increase so that the price is always set at whole hundred crowns.

Not only the price of the stamps changes, but also the vehicles that have to pay the stamp when using the highway. Hybrid cars will now also have to pay tolls, although only about a quarter of the full price. LPG and biomethane vehicles will continue to have a roughly 50% discount. Only electric cars and motorcycles will be able to use the highways completely free of charge.

When setting prices, the Czech Republic had to follow the European Eurovignette directive from next year. According to her, a monthly stamp can cost a maximum of 19 percent of the annual fee, a ten-day stamp a maximum of 12 percent and a daily stamp a maximum of nine percent. The total revenue from the sale of stamps should increase by 1.3 billion crowns next year from last year’s roughly 5.8 billion crowns.

“We were looking for a compromise, how to keep the price of the annual coupon at an affordable level and at the same time so that short-term stamps can be a significant income for the use of the highway network,” said Transport Minister Martin Kupka (ODS). At the same time, he pointed out that the price only includes inflation since 2012, when the price of the highway stamp was increased for the last time. NERV proposed an increase to 3,000 crowns per year.