Trucks on Dutch highways are expected to pay a charge per kilometer in the course of 2026. In this way, trucks from the Netherlands and abroad pay for the use of the road. The proceeds of the tax will be used to invest in sustainability and innovation in the transport sector.

This is stated in the bill for a truck tax that Minister Barbara Visser (Infrastructure and Water Management) recently sent to the House of Representatives. In doing so, she is complying with a request from the House of Representatives to submit the bill despite the cabinet's caretaker status.

The bill provides that trucks pay a charge per kilometer driven on the highways and a number of local and regional roads. The levy on local and regional roads is intended to prevent evasive freight traffic. The levy can be introduced by parliament about 4 years after the bill is passed, with the average rate per kilometer being about 15 cents. The Dutch truck tax is in line with the truck tax systems in Germany and Belgium.

With the introduction of a truck tax, the heavy motor vehicle tax (the Eurovignette) will disappear in the Netherlands and the motor vehicle tax for trucks will be reduced to approximately the European minimum. The net proceeds of the levy go towards making the transport sector more sustainable and innovating. These measures focus on electrically powered trucks, the use of renewable fuels, reduction of the number of transport kilometres.

Minister Visser has made agreements about this with the transport organizations evofenedex, Transport & Logistiek Nederland and the VERN foundation. The net proceeds of the levy are expected to be approximately EUR 250 million per year at the time of implementation.

The one-off implementation costs of the HGVC appear to be significantly higher at around 400 million euros. This is partly due to the fact that an approach is chosen in which a larger part of the costs is already incurred in the realization phase, and a number of other cost items appear to be considerably higher. The ministry is commissioning an external investigation to verify the cost increase and to see whether the chosen implementation method is still consistent with the principle that system costs must remain low, so that as much financial resources as possible remain available for the recirculation. The transport sector will be involved in this, according to the National government. 

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