Eight English cities plus Glasgow charge non-compliant vehicles to enter their central areas in 2026. The charges are not uniform. A van pays £8 in Birmingham but £12.50 in Tyneside. An HGV pays £50 in Sheffield and £100 in Bath. A private car pays nothing in most cities but £9 in Bristol. This comparison covers every active UK zone with the exact 2026 daily charge by vehicle type, the payment method, and the key differences that matter to drivers routing through multiple cities.
| ★ EDITOR'S VERDICT Same framework, different numbers in every city. |
Eight English CAZs plus Glasgow LEZ operate under the same national framework but set charges independently. Private cars pay only in Birmingham (£8), Bristol (£9) and London (£12.50). HGVs pay £50 in most cities, £100 in Bath and Bristol. Vans pay £8 to £12.50 depending on the city. Run the plate on GOV.UK once and you cover all seven English cities; London and Glasgow have separate systems. Pay inside the six-day window and avoid the £120 PCN escalation ladder. |
The headline table
The seven English Clean Air Zones plus London ULEZ and Glasgow LEZ, daily charge for non-compliant vehicles:
| City | Class | Private car | Van / LGV | HGV / coach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bath | C | £0 | £9 | £100 |
| Birmingham | D | £8 | £8 | £50 |
| Bradford | C+ | £0 | £9 | £50 |
| Bristol | D | £9 | £9 | £100 |
| Portsmouth | B | £0 | £0 | £50 |
| Sheffield | C | £0 | £10 | £50 |
| Tyneside (Newcastle and Gateshead) | C | £0 | £12.50 | £50 |
| London ULEZ | Equivalent to D | £12.50 | £12.50 | See LEZ |
| London LEZ | — | n/a | £100 | £100-£300 |
| Glasgow LEZ | — | £60 penalty | £60 penalty | £60 penalty |
Three patterns stand out. Only Birmingham and Bristol charge private cars. HGVs and coaches face £100 a day in Bath and Bristol (twice the £50 rate elsewhere). Glasgow does not use a daily charge at all — it issues a direct £60 penalty to non-compliant vehicles, doubling to £120 on repeat offences.
Who decides the charge and why it varies
The Clean Air Zone Framework for England, set by DEFRA and DfT under the Transport Act 2000, requires each local authority to justify the charge level through air quality modelling. The authority must show the charge is the minimum necessary to achieve NO2 compliance within the shortest reasonable time.
That produces real variation. Bath and Bristol have narrow medieval street patterns where HGV traffic disproportionately worsens localised NO2, so the council's modelling justified a £100 rate. Birmingham and Tyneside have wider arterial roads where the same freight traffic produces lower per-vehicle harm, so the modelled justification came out at £50. The £50 versus £100 difference is not political preference — it is engineering analysis submitted to and approved by the Secretary of State.
London's ULEZ is legally distinct. Created under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 rather than the Transport Act 2000, the Mayor of London sets the charge directly. The £12.50 daily rate has held since 2019 for cars and was retained when the zone expanded to the whole of Greater London in August 2023.
City-by-city differences that catch drivers
Bath — £100 HGVs, zero cars
The harshest HGV rate in the country combined with zero car charge. Class C design. Covers the historic centre including Royal Victoria Park. ANPR enforced 24/7. Private cars, motorcycles and mopeds never pay. Payment via the shared GOV.UK system; local discounts via MiPermit.
Birmingham — the only Class D to charge cars
Class D zone covering the A4540 ring road. Private cars and vans non-compliant pay £8; HGVs and coaches £50. Motorcycles not charged by council design choice. Launch was June 2021. Daily charge runs midnight to midnight. Multiple hospital exemptions available via a local application. Residents inside the zone had a two-year transitional exemption that expired in 2023.
Bradford — Class C+ (Class C plus taxis)
The "+" in Class C+ is Bradford-specific. Hackney carriages and private hire vehicles are charged at Class C rates regardless of where they are licensed. Cars never pay. Covers the inner ring road and city centre. Launched September 2022. Local exemptions require the vehicle to have been registered to the keeper before 26 September 2022 (the launch date); post-launch purchases cannot be grandfathered.
Bristol — second of the two car-charging zones
Class D, £9 a day for private cars and vans, £100 for HGVs and coaches. Covers central Bristol plus M32 slip roads near Cabot Circus. Launched November 2022. The Financial Assistance Scheme Exemption closed in July 2023. Hospital Patient and Visitor Exemption still operates for specific appointments at the Bristol Royal Infirmary complex.
Portsmouth — Class B, narrowest scope
Class B zone covering the A3 approach and central Portsmouth. Only taxis, private hire vehicles, HGVs, buses and coaches pay; private cars and LGVs are entirely outside the scheme. Launched November 2021. This is the easiest CAZ for private motorists to navigate — no car charge anywhere, at any time.
Sheffield — Class C, LGVs charged
Class C zone covering the inner ring road. Non-compliant LGVs pay £10 (higher than Bath or Bradford), HGVs and coaches £50. Cars never pay. Launched February 2023. The earlier temporary LGV exemption for small businesses registered in the S1 to S36 postcode range ended in 2024. Sheffield's scheme raised around £25 million in its first two years.
Tyneside (Newcastle and Gateshead) — £12.50 LGVs
Class C zone covering Newcastle city centre and parts of Gateshead across the Tyne bridges. Non-compliant LGVs pay £12.50 — the highest LGV rate in England, matching London's ULEZ car rate. HGVs and coaches £50. Launched January 2023. Exemptions available for healthcare staff on rota at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and Queen Elizabeth Hospital Gateshead.
Glasgow — not a CAZ, a different model entirely
Glasgow's Low Emission Zone operates under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 and does not charge a daily fee. Non-compliant vehicles entering the zone receive a £60 penalty notice directly, doubling to £120 for a repeat offence within 90 days. Standards match the CAZ Framework (Euro 4 petrol, Euro 6 diesel, Euro VI for HGVs). The zone covers roughly 0.8 square miles of Glasgow city centre including George Square. Enforcement started in June 2023 and penalty notices have been issued at scale since.
Payment methods and deadlines
For every English CAZ except London ULEZ, payment is through the shared GOV.UK service at gov.uk/clean-air-zones. You enter your registration, the zone, and the travel date; the system checks compliance against the DVLA record and charges the card on file. Payment window: six days before travel to six days after.
For London ULEZ, payment is via Transport for London at tfl.gov.uk/pay-the-ulez-charge. Window: midnight on the day of travel to midnight on the third day after (a tighter 72-hour window than the 6-day English CAZ window).
For Glasgow LEZ, there is no pre-payment — non-compliant vehicles simply receive the penalty notice after the fact. Compliant vehicles need no action.
Missing a payment deadline in any English CAZ triggers a £120 Penalty Charge Notice, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days of issue. London ULEZ PCNs are £180, reduced to £90 within 14 days.
What non-payment costs over time
The Clean Air Zone Framework deliberately makes ignoring a PCN expensive. The escalation for a single unpaid £9 Bristol daily charge:
| Stage | Amount | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Original charge | £9 | Pay within 6 days of travel |
| PCN issued if unpaid | £120 | Pay within 14 days for discount |
| Discounted PCN | £60 | Available in first 14 days |
| Full PCN after 14 days | £120 | Pay within 28 days |
| Charge Certificate | £180 | Issued at day 28, 50% uplift |
| Order for Recovery + court fee | £190 | Issued at day 42 if unpaid |
| Enforcement agent compliance fee | £265 | Issued after warrant |
An ignored £9 charge reaches £265 within roughly three months. The gap between £9 and £60 is the cost of paperwork. The gap between £60 and £265 is the cost of denial.
A real 2026 scenario: three cities in one week
A courier based in Leeds runs a 2013 Renault Master (Euro 5 diesel, non-compliant) on a weekly route: Leeds to Sheffield Monday, Sheffield to Birmingham Tuesday, Birmingham to Bristol Wednesday, return leg via the M5 and M6 Thursday. Non-compliant in every zone he enters.
Monday: Sheffield CAZ £10
Tuesday: Birmingham CAZ £8
Wednesday: Bristol CAZ £9 (plus Birmingham again if he re-enters the zone on the M6)
Thursday: return leg avoids all charges by routing M5 and M6
Total weekly CAZ charges: £27-£35
Multiplied across 48 working weeks of the year, that is roughly £1,440 annually. A compliant Euro 6 Master used is around £14,000 on forecourts. The pay-back exceeds nine years at current CAZ-charge trajectory, which is why most sub-£15,000-vehicle operators rationally absorb the charges rather than upgrading. The framework nudges rather than forces.
How to plan a multi-city route without getting caught
Three practical rules keep UK drivers on the right side of the multi-zone system:
1. Run the plate on the GOV.UK checker once. It covers all seven English CAZs in a single query. Save the result as a screenshot. A compliant vehicle needs no further action in any English city.
2. For non-compliant vehicles, plan the payment week. The 6-day window means you can pay Monday's Sheffield entry on the following Sunday. Batching payments to a single session each week cuts admin time to about 15 minutes and eliminates missed deadlines.
3. For unavoidable bulk travel, set up a business account. Businesses managing two or more vehicles can create a GOV.UK business account that stores vehicle details, handles payments across multiple zones in one transaction, and provides monthly statements for accounting purposes.
Frequently asked questions
Which UK cities charge private cars in a CAZ?
Only three in 2026: Birmingham (£8), Bristol (£9) and London (ULEZ £12.50). Every other English CAZ is Class C or lower and does not charge cars at all. Scotland's Glasgow LEZ technically affects cars but issues a penalty rather than a daily charge.
Is the GOV.UK CAZ checker the same for every city?
Yes for the seven English CAZs (Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Tyneside). Enter the registration once and it returns the result for all seven. London ULEZ has a separate checker at TfL. Glasgow LEZ has a separate checker at lowemissionzones.scot.
Can I pay for multiple cities in one transaction?
Yes on the GOV.UK system. Add each vehicle and city combination to the basket and check out once. Particularly useful for couriers and delivery operators crossing several zones on the same day.
Why is the HGV charge so much higher in Bath and Bristol?
Both councils modelled a £100 rate as the level required to shift HGV operations onto compliant replacement vehicles within the shortest reasonable compliance period. The modelling was approved by the Secretary of State before the schemes launched. Lower rates were modelled but failed the NO2 compliance test for those specific cities.
Do CAZ charges apply on Sundays and bank holidays?
Yes in every English CAZ. Enforcement runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. London's ULEZ is similar. Glasgow LEZ operates continuously. There are no off-peak or weekend exemptions.
What happens if I pay the daily charge but receive a PCN anyway?
Appeal immediately. Evidence of payment (email receipt from GOV.UK, card statement) is conclusive grounds for cancellation under "the alleged contravention did not occur". The council must cancel the PCN on receipt of evidence. Contact the council's CAZ team via the portal where the PCN was issued.
Are CAZ rules the same for foreign-registered vehicles?
Yes. Foreign-registered vehicles driving in any English CAZ or London ULEZ must pay if non-compliant. Enforcement is via international registration data-sharing agreements. Compliant foreign vehicles need no action. Non-compliant foreign vehicles that receive a PCN are pursued through the registered keeper's national authority.
Sources
- DEFRA and DfT, Clean Air Zone Framework for England
- GOV.UK, Driving in a Clean Air Zone and Clean Air Zone vehicle checker
- Bath and North East Somerset Council, Birmingham City Council, Bradford Council, Bristol City Council, Portsmouth City Council, Sheffield City Council, Newcastle City Council — individual CAZ scheme pages
- Transport for London, Ultra Low Emission Zone — who needs to pay
- Low Emission Zones Scotland, Glasgow LEZ
- Transport Act 2000 (English CAZs) and Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 (Scottish LEZs)
- Greater London Authority Act 1999 (London ULEZ)
- Road User Charging Schemes (Penalty Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013
