Road pricing may cost up to 8 cents per kilometer

What the road pricing system will look like in 2030 is still almost entirely dependent on political choices. Depending on which variant of road pricing the cabinet chooses, the rates differ, for example, between petrol, diesel or plug-in cars. It is now expected that it will cost citizens about 7 to 8 cents per kilometre. This is evident from a series of studies commissioned by the government.

A political decision on how road pricing will be introduced should be made later this year. This should happen from 2030. It may also be the case that a different variant is chosen than calculated in the studies, because this depends on political control. How much the costs differ per household also depends on the different variants of road pricing, as well as driving behaviour. In most variants, households have to pay slightly less car tax on average. In the variant with the emphasis on CO2 reduction, tax expenditure will increase slightly.

Therein lies a dilemma. The introduction of road pricing has two objectives: on the one hand, to maintain tax revenues, which are declining due to the higher number of plug-in cars. On the other hand, ‘pay according to use’ should lead to lower CO2 emissions. These two goals “have a degree of contradiction,” describe researchers from Arup and KPMG. It is important to communicate this well, they advise. Otherwise, there may be more misunderstanding of the measure.

For delivery vans, the costs per kilometer in the documents sent to the House by State Secretary Marnix van Rij (Taxation) and Minister Mark Harbers of Infrastructure are lower: more than 6 cents per kilometre, depending on the variant. For the sake of the climate targets, the cabinet can choose to allocate a cheaper rate per kilometer for electric cars. If it is calculated on the basis of weight, owners of electric cars will actually end up a bit more expensive per kilometre, because plug-in cars are heavier.