Setting up your sat nav for tolls, vignettes and low emission zones

Almost every sat nav can avoid toll roads. A few also know which vignette or emissions sticker you have, and motorhome units take your height and weight into account. None of them buys a vignette, pays a toll or orders a sticker for you. Below is what you can set per product and where it stops, which matters once you leave the ferry or the tunnel and the rules change. We worked from the makers’ own help pages. Where something is not described there, we say so.

At a glance: which sat nav does what?

“Not described” means we did not find it on the maker’s help pages. It does not prove the feature is missing.

Google Maps: avoiding tolls, and not much else to rely on

Google Maps has the switches Avoid tolls and Avoid motorways. You open the route options the same way on Android and iPhone: search for your destination, tap Directions, then More, then Options. Google’s help page names the two switches and describes this menu, but gives no separate steps for tolls.

• Toll prices: the help page on directions currently says nothing about toll prices. So we could not confirm there whether Maps shows a toll amount in European countries.
• Vignette or toll tag: we found no setting in the help for telling Maps that you hold a vignette.
• Low emission zones: Google announced zone alerts on its own blog, first in London and Berlin and later for more than a thousand zones across Europe. The help pages do not cover them. Do not count on an alert for every zone.
• Engine type: under Settings, then Your vehicles, you choose petrol, diesel, hybrid or electric. Google says this is for fuel-efficient routes. It does not say the setting is used for low emission zones.
• Motorhome or caravan: Google states that driving routes are designed for cars. You cannot enter height, length or weight.

Waze: avoid tolls, see toll prices and add your vignette or clean air sticker

Of the common apps, Waze does the most with tolls and stickers. To avoid tolls, go to Settings, then Navigation, and turn on Avoid toll roads. You can also do it per trip: after choosing a destination, tap View routes and then Avoid in the top left. Waze itself warns that it may still suggest a toll route when alternatives are scarce.

• Toll price: if a route uses a toll road, the route overview shows an estimated price. Tap it to see how it was worked out. The estimate draws partly on information from other users and does not replace the operator’s price. For tolls that change with traffic, you only get a notice that the amount varies. Waze does not say in which countries prices are available.
• Vignette or toll tag: go to Settings, then Toll and HOV passes (the name may differ per country), and pick what you have from the list. You can add several. Whatever you add is reflected in the toll price Waze shows. The help does not list which vignettes are offered per country.
• Clean air sticker: you add a clean air pass in the same menu. Waze lists Austria, Belarus, Belgium (LEZ), Czechia, Estonia, France (Crit’Air), Germany, Italy (ZTL), the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK (CAZ, CCZ, LEZ and ULEZ) and Ukraine. After that Waze guides you according to the clean air policy of the place you are driving in.
• With no sticker in the app: the help does not say what Waze does if you have added nothing. Do not assume it will steer you round every zone.
• In the car: you can add passes through Android Auto, but not through CarPlay.
• Motorhome or caravan: we found no profile for dimensions or weight in the Waze help.

Mind the order of things: Waze asks which sticker you have, not whether your car qualifies for one. For that, use the vehicle check.

Apple Maps: avoiding tolls and motorways only

Get driving directions in Maps on your iPhone, tap Options below Directions and make your choices under Avoid. That is all Apple describes in the iPhone User Guide. The page says nothing about toll prices, vignettes, low emission zones or a profile for a motorhome.

TomTom: low emission zone avoidance and a vehicle profile on the camper units

With TomTom a lot depends on which unit or app you have.

• Avoiding tolls: on the units, a planned route has the option Avoid road types. TomTom’s app can avoid toll roads too. TomTom warns that you get a “No route possible” error if no route exists without a toll road, and gives routing into London’s congestion zone as its example.
• Low emission zones: on the GO Expert Plus, GO Superior and GO Camper Max 2nd Gen, go to Settings, then Routing, then Avoid, and turn on Avoid Low Emission Zones. The zones are then left out of your route. TomTom describes the feature as meant for high-emission vehicles, such as older cars. You do not enter a sticker or emission class: it is all or nothing. The help page does not say which countries and zones are covered.
• Motorhome or caravan: on the GO Camper Max, go to Settings, then My Vehicle, choose your vehicle type and enter the values for your vehicle. A value left at zero is not used as a restriction.
• Vignette and toll price: we found no setting for a vignette, and no toll amount shown with the route, on TomTom’s help pages.

Garmin Camper: tolls, toll stickers and environmental zones per vehicle profile

We used the owner’s manual of the Garmin Camper 795 as the example. Menus may be named differently on other models.

• Avoiding tolls: go to Settings, then Navigation, then Avoidances, then Tolls and Fees. The unit then avoids toll roads, toll bridges and congestion areas. If there is no reasonable alternative, the route may still pass through one.
• Toll stickers: under Navigation there is a Tolls and Fees setting for avoiding toll roads and toll stickers, which is Garmin’s term for vignettes. Garmin notes that the feature is not available in all areas. You set a preference: the unit does not keep track of whether your vignette is still valid.
• Environmental zones: you first add an environmental zone profile for your vehicle. During a route the unit then offers an alternative if you would pass through a restricted zone. This too is not available in all regions or on all models.
• Motorhome or caravan: you create a vehicle profile for a motorhome, a motorhome with a trailer or a car towing a caravan. The unit then avoids roads that, according to the map, do not suit your dimensions and weight. Garmin itself says this is no guarantee for every route, so keep watching the signs.

Sygic, HERE WeGo and the sat nav built into your car

Sygic describes on its own site that under Menu, then Settings, then Route planning you can avoid toll roads, motorways, ferries and congestion charges, for the whole route or for one country. For motorhomes and caravans Sygic has a separate app (Truck & Caravan), in which you enter dimensions and weight and which can take emission zones into account based on your Euro standard. We found nothing about vignettes at Sygic.

We could not consult the HERE WeGo help pages, so we make no claims about that app. Built-in systems differ per make, model and software version. Nearly all of them can avoid toll roads, but whether yours knows about vignettes, low emission zones or a trailer is something only your car’s handbook can tell you.

What no sat nav does for you

• Buy or keep track of a vignette. “Avoid tolls” does not know whether your vignette has run out, and not every app treats a vignette road as a toll road. Check per country what you need: the difference between a vignette and a toll decides what you have to arrange before you set off.
• Pay a barrier-free toll. You drive under a gantry and then have to pay yourself, within a set period, much as at the Dartford Crossing. At most the app tells you there is a toll on the route. Read how paying barrier-free tolls works and look up the payment deadline per road.
• Steer you round every low emission zone. A toll-free route can run straight through a low emission zone. Tolls and zones are separate settings, and most apps lack the second one. Check your destination and stopovers yourself in the overview of low emission zones in Europe.
• Arrange a sticker or registration. Ticking Crit’Air in Waze is not an application. You have to order the sticker itself in advance.
• Guarantee the map is right. Rates, zones and rules change. Waze calls its toll prices estimates and Garmin gives no guarantee for routes based on your vehicle profile. The signs at the roadside always come first.

To see beforehand where tolls, vignettes and zones lie on your route, keep the map of tolls and vignettes next to your sat nav.

Sources: Google Maps Help, directions and fuel-efficient routes and engine type, Google blog on low emission zones, Waze Help on avoiding toll roads, toll prices, passes and vignettes and clean air passes, Apple Support, driving directions in Maps, TomTom Support on low emission zones, the GO Camper Max and “No route possible”, the Garmin Camper 795 owner’s manual and Sygic on route planning. Checked on 10 November 2026.