What was claimed
Five million ULEZ fines have gone unpaid.
Our verdict
False. This figure appears to be higher than the total number of fines that have been issued since April 2019.
Five million ULEZ fines have not gone unpaid
A post on Facebook suggests that around five million fines issued to those who have failed to pay the charge to drive in London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) have not been paid.
The post appears on an anti-ULEZ Facebook group, and says: “I Read somewhere 5 million unpaid fines. Sounds like they lost out on 62.5 million and went after 450 million.”
The ULEZ is an area in London where owners of vehicles which don’t meet specific emissions standards must pay to drive. It was expanded to cover most of the Greater London area in August 2023.
A spokesperson from Transport for London (TfL) told Full Fact that the total number of penalty charge notices issued since ULEZ began in April 2019 up to October 2023 was 4.3 million. This means it is highly unlikely that there are five million fines that have gone unpaid.
Posts like this can spread quickly online and affect a person’s understanding of how ULEZ is being implemented. Such false claims are likely to cause unnecessary worry and may harm public debate about such schemes.
Honesty in public debate matters
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Penalty charges
The standard ULEZ charge that needs to be paid in order to drive a non-compliant vehicle in the zone is £12.50. If this is not paid, the vehicle owner is sent a penalty charge notice (PCN) for £180, but this amount falls to £90 if the PCN is paid within 14 days. If the PCN remains unpaid after 28 days, the penalty rises to £270.
Although TfL does not publish official figures for the number of fines that have not been paid, some related data has been released as a result of Freedom of Information requests made by members of the public and media organisations.
One such request shows there was around £17 million in unpaid fines in the year from April 2020/21, £120 million in 2021/22 and £256 million in 2022/23.
We have written previously about misinformation linked to ULEZ, including false claims that visits to places of worship are exempt from charges, that all drivers of non-electric vehicles will be charged and that the scheme was introduced without a public consultation. It’s important to verify information with official sources before sharing it online.
Image courtesy of Anouk Fotografeert
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false the claimed number of unpaid fines exceeds the total number of fines which have been issued.