Europe border costs and highway tax…

Boarder costs and other fees…
Depended on where you’re looking travel totally depends on if you have to pay at borders to enter their country.
These are obviously costs that we don’t want to be caught out by while on the road. Last week I saw on Instagram a couple who were so unlucky as they had to pay £175 to enter Montenegro because their van wasn’t registered as a Motor Caravan. Then a few days their van broke down and they had to leave the van and travel back to the UK via car hire and public transport, I felt so sorry for them and offered help in any way  I could.
  1. So rule number 1 if you can get your van conversion registered as a Motor Caravan with the DVLA (if you’re from the UK) or has a Europe Green Card if you hire one from Europe. This will make your entry fee much less than a commercial van.
  2. Try and do some research before you enter, even before you set off. I’ll be honest I didn’t do the research but did get some advice from some friends who have travelled parts of Europe before.
The countries I’ve had to pay border entry/insurance is Montenegro (18 Euro), Albania (50 Euro) this was a surprise but I was travelling down the coast from Croatia. Both of these entry insurance fees are for a period of 15 days and this is because European cover doesn’t include these countries and this is why we have to pay.
There’s a little bit of Bosnia that connects to the coast when travelling down this coast from Croatia into the other part of Croatia, I passed this part 3 times between Split and Dubrovnik and wasn’t charged once. If you go further into Bosnia you have to pay 40 Euro for 15 days insurance.
Here’s my insurance that was valid for the 15 days in Montenegro.
Some other fees that you may want to know about are the Berlin city centre emissions, environment zone (Green No4 vignette/sticker) in the window. Now I wasn’t aware of this and I received a ticket but luckily it was a warning and after speaking to the warden he ended up having a Yorkshire cuppa with me since I had the kettle on. This is the website for more information about this: www.environment-badge.co.uk and also buy your badge at www.umwelt-plakette.de at a cost of 31.90 Euro which I bought the next day as I was staying in Berlin for a few weeks.
In Austria, they have what they call a Highway Toll Vignette, which I’ll be honest I didn’t receive because I was in the wrong lane when entering the country and was only in Austria for a few days while heading to Hungary. On that note, I will be passing back through Austria when I head home so I’ll be buying mine because I don’t want to receive a heavy on the spot fine. The costs are 12 months = 86.40 Euro, 2 months = 25.90 Euro, 10-day sticker 8.90 Euro which I will be buying. The website for these is: www.austia.info/us/basic-facts/getting-there-around/austria-by-car/toll-sticker
These are the fees I’ve come across on my travels so I hope this helps you if you’re planning a trip down to Greece via Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania.
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Campervanbuuren.

2 thoughts on “Europe border costs and highway tax…

  1. Thought it maybe helpful to share with you… crossing the boarder between Croatia and Montenegro today we had to pay £138 Euro. our van is re registered with DVLA as a motor home (they go on the classification N1) and we had previously paid an additional premium to our insurance company Adrian flux to insurer us for these countries – Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania for one month. But still charged!!

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    1. Really sorry to hear this. They’ve really had you there. So bad. I’ve had 2 friends who also went across the boarder in converted vans as motor caravans with the DVLA and paid the same as me. What are you driving????

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