Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels reached an agreement in principle on Friday 10 July 2026 to introduce a digital road vignette. From 1 May 2027, every vehicle under 3.5 tonnes will need one to use Belgian motorways and national roads, whatever its country of registration. Around 30 million foreign-registered vehicles use the Belgian network every year without contributing to its upkeep, a situation the three regions now intend to change. Luxembourg residents and French cross-border commuters who drive through Belgium to reach the Grand Duchy will be equally affected.
The three regional governments unveiled the measure at a joint press conference, closing a debate that had dragged on for more than twenty years. Unlike France or Italy, Belgium had never charged light vehicles to use its roads. “Everyone who uses our roads must contribute fairly to their upkeep,” said the Walloon Minister for Mobility, François Desquesnes, at that press conference.
One digital vignette for the whole country
The three regions have opted for a single system valid nationwide. The vignette will be entirely digital: there will be no sticker on the windscreen, as registration will be linked to the number plate. It will be sold through an online platform, backed up by physical points of sale, notably at petrol stations, for drivers unfamiliar with digital services or foreign motorists passing through.
How much will it cost?
The price depends on the period of validity and the vehicle’s emissions class. The annual vignette will cost €90 for an electric vehicle, €100 for a vehicle meeting at least the Euro 4 standard (around 97 per cent of the fleet, according to the regional governments) and €125 for older vehicles in classes Euro 0 to 3, in practice cars built before 2005.
Short-term options will also be available, of particular interest to Luxembourg drivers who only cross the border occasionally:
| Duration | Electric | Euro 4 and above | Euro 0 to 3 |
| 1 day | €8.10 | €9.00 | €11.25 |
| 10 days | €10.80 | €12.00 | €15.00 |
| 1 month | €17.10 | €19.00 | €23.75 |
| 2 months | €27.00 | €30.00 | €37.50 |
| 1 year | €90.00 | €100.00 | €125.00 |
One point worth noting: the ten-day vignette covers a consecutive period. It cannot be split into single days spread over several months.
Which vehicles are affected?
The vignette applies to all vehicles under 3.5 tonnes, whether registered in Belgium or abroad, including leased cars. Vans used for business purposes will also need one, although the cost will be fully deductible as a business expense.
Exemptions cover motorcycles and similar vehicles such as mopeds and scooters, lorries, which already pay a kilometre charge, agricultural tractors, coaches, and emergency, police and military vehicles.
Which roads?
The vignette is not limited to motorways: it covers all motorways and regional (national) roads. Only municipal roads are exempt. In practice, a cross-border trip to Arlon, Bastogne or Liège will almost inevitably use a road subject to the vignette. A Luxembourg driver crossing the border to do some shopping will therefore need at least a one-day vignette.
Enforcement and fines
Enforcement will rely on fixed and mobile number-plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, with each region responsible for its own territory. Driving without a vignette will carry an administrative fine of €70, rising progressively to €210 from the third offence.
Revenue earmarked for the roads
The regional governments expect the vignette to bring in €130 million in Flanders and €327 million in Wallonia, though the Walloon figure remains an estimate in the absence of precise data on foreign traffic. The proceeds will be devoted entirely to maintaining and modernising the road network, a budget line that currently costs Wallonia €700 million a year.
Business federations (FEB, Voka, Unizo) and the mobility organisation Touring back the principle of a single nationwide system and the contribution asked of foreign drivers. They would nevertheless have preferred a per-kilometre charge, which they consider more effective against congestion than a flat-rate fee.
The three-border knot of Longwy, Athus and Rodange
The measure will have particular consequences in the three-border region. Thousands of French cross-border workers from the Longwy area commute to the Grand Duchy every day via Belgium: the most direct route runs through Mont-Saint-Martin, then Aubange and Athus, before reaching Rodange, Pétange and the Collectrice du Sud (A13). The Avenue de l’Europe, the backbone of this corridor through the European Development Pole (PED) and its 130,000 or so inhabitants, is a Belgian regional road and therefore subject to the vignette.
For a daily commuter, the annual vignette works out at between €90 and €125 a year, roughly 50 cents per working day. Some cross-border workers may nonetheless choose to avoid Belgium altogether. Alternative routes exist, but they run along local roads: through the centre of Rodange via Longlaville, or along the Hussigny-Godbrange, Differdange and Belvaux axis. These roads are already congested at peak times and lie mostly on Luxembourg territory. Even a partial shift in traffic would move the congestion onto the Grand Duchy’s municipal network, without Luxembourg receiving a single cent of the vignette revenue.
Belgian border trade, from Sterpenich to Messancy, could also feel the effects if Luxembourg and French customers stay away. The alderman for finance in Aubange, Christian-Raoul Lambert, nevertheless defends the measure. “We pay everywhere we go. When I take the motorway in France, I pay. Why not here?” he told the Luxembourg daily L’essentiel, while conceding that the vignette would raise questions along the borders with Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the border province of Zeeland has already criticised a decision it says will add to residents’ costs and could weigh on the regional economy.
No law yet: a cooperation agreement still to be finalised
Legally, the project is still at the stage of a political agreement. As road maintenance is a regional competence, the vignette will be introduced through a cooperation agreement between the three regions, which must then be approved by the regional parliaments, by decree in Flanders and Wallonia and by ordinance in Brussels. No text has yet been published in the Belgian official gazette. The timetable will depend in particular on Brussels, where the seven-party coalition formed in February 2026 after 615 days of political crisis remains fragile, and where the government has already voiced reservations about its regional partners’ communication. “We still have to convert the try: turning a political agreement into a legally robust text,” François Desquesnes acknowledged in an interview with the Belgian daily L’Avenir.
The shadow of the German precedent
One final unknown remains: Brussels, this time in the European sense. The project must be notified to the European Commission, which struck down the German car toll. That scheme provided a tax rebate reserved for German drivers and was ruled discriminatory against other EU nationals. To avoid the same pitfall, the Belgian regions are formally keeping the two files separate: the vignette on one side, and on the other a reform of motoring taxation, with a lower road tax in Flanders and Wallonia, designed to keep the overall burden neutral for Belgian taxpayers. Foreign drivers, Luxembourg residents first among them, will see none of that compensation.
