Set up
Create the account
- Open gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge
- Choose to set up an account
- Add £15+ and register your plate
- Or set up by post (gov.uk form)
Dart Charge account: set up, log in and manage it
One account covers everything: pay a crossing, fund a pre-pay balance, add up to 20 vehicles and manage a resident pass. Here is how to create it, sign in, and run it, all on the official gov.uk service.
The short answer
The Dartford Crossing login is the Dart Charge account sign-in. The two names are the same service, and there is no separate Dartford Crossing account. Set up and sign in on the gov.uk service. There is no separate app or portal. Open a pre-pay account from a £15 deposit and every crossing is taken automatically at £2.80 instead of £3.50 (a 20% saving), with up to 20 vehicles on one balance. Sign in at pay-dartford-crossing-charge.service.gov.uk/sign-in, or manage the account by phone on 0300 300 0120 (8am to 8pm, every day).
Car rates £2.80 pre-pay and £3.50 pay-as-you-go per crossing, checked against gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge/charges on 28 September 2026. Unchanged since 1 September 2025.
Log in
Sign in
- Go to the sign-in page on gov.uk
- Use your registered email and password
- Works in any phone or desktop browser
- One login for pre-pay, resident and fleet
Manage
Run it
- See recent crossings and top-ups
- Add or remove vehicles (up to 20)
- Change card or Direct Debit
- Manage a local resident discount
Do you actually need an account?
You do not need an account to pay a one-off crossing; you can do that as a guest at gov.uk. An account is worth it once you cross often enough for the 20% pre-pay saving, or if you qualify for the resident pass.
| Option | Account needed? | Car rate | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-off payment (guest) | No | £3.50 | A single recent or upcoming crossing |
| Pre-pay account | Yes | £2.80 | Regular crossers (auto-deducted, saves 20%) |
| Local resident discount | Yes | £25/yr | Dartford or Thurrock residents |
All three are managed from the same sign-in. The pre-pay rate and the resident pass both sit inside the account you create on the gov.uk service.
What the account is worth, per year
Car class, counting each direction as its own crossing, over 52 weeks. The account rate saves 70p on every crossing, which is where the 20% comes from. The £25 resident pass beats every row here, but only if you live in the Dartford Borough or Thurrock areas.
| Pattern | Crossings a year | Pay-as-you-go | Pre-pay | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One day a week104 a year | £364.00 | £291.20 | £72.80 | |
| Two days a week208 a year | £728.00 | £582.40 | £145.60 | |
| Three days a week312 a year | £1,092.00 | £873.60 | £218.40 | |
| Five days a week520 a year | £1,820.00 | £1,456.00 | £364.00 | |
| Seven days a week728 a year | £2,548.00 | £2,038.40 | £509.60 |
Pre-pay break-even
Crossing 1
The £15 minimum is balance you spend on crossings, not a fee, so the 70p saving starts on the first one.
Pass beats pre-pay
Crossing 9
£25.00 ÷ £2.80 = 8.9, so the unlimited pass is cheaper than pre-pay from the 9th crossing of the year.
Pass beats pay-as-you-go
Crossing 8
£25.00 ÷ £3.50 = 7.1, so 8 crossings a year is all it takes for the pass to pay for itself.
There is a cheaper resident tier too: £12.50 a year buys 50 crossings, and if you run out you can add 25 more for £6.25 a block, or pay another £12.50 to upgrade to unlimited. gov.uk caps the total you can pay in a year at £25, so the cheaper tier can never cost more than the unlimited one, and below 100 crossings it costs less: 75 crossings comes to £18.75. The £25 pass is the simpler buy for a five-day commuter, who passes 100 crossings inside three months. Full eligibility rules are on the local resident discount page.
If you break down at the crossing
Worth knowing if you cross often enough to hold an account: there is no hard shoulder in the tunnels or on the QEII bridge, and stopping on the crossing is prohibited except in a genuine breakdown (Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Regulations 1989). Put your hazard lights on and stay with the vehicle unless the tunnel announcements direct you out; there are SOS phones through both tunnels.
The control room watches the crossing and sends its own emergency recovery as soon as it sees you stopped. The crossing operator states it will move you and your vehicle free of charge to a place of safety (Connect Plus tunnel safety notice). You do not wait for your own breakdown provider on the crossing, and you cannot choose who tows you off it.
The part regular crossers miss: that free tow ends at the nearest safe place, not at home or a garage. Getting the car anywhere from there is your own breakdown cover's job, and if you are on the M25 every working day, the odds of eventually using it are not small.
No cover, or it lapsed? RAC Roadside Breakdown Cover from £5.29^
^At least 10% of new customers pay this for single-vehicle Roadside (Basic) cover.
Get an RAC quoteDisclosure: if you take out cover through this link we earn a commission from RAC. It does not change the price you pay, and it has no bearing on anything we write about the crossing.
Trouble signing in?
- Forgotten password: use the reset link on the sign-in page; it emails a reset to your registered address.
- Wrong site: the only official sign-in is at pay-dartford-crossing-charge.service.gov.uk. Any site charging a fee to log in or pay is a third party.
- Cannot get in at all: call the contact centre on 0300 300 0120 (8am to 8pm, every day) to access or recover the account.
- Just need to pay a recent crossing: you can pay as a guest without logging in, by midnight the day after you crossed. See how to pay.
Dart Charge account questions
How do I log in to the Dartford Crossing (Dart Charge) account?+
The Dartford Crossing login and the Dart Charge account sign-in are the same thing; there is no separate Dartford Crossing account. Sign in at pay-dartford-crossing-charge.service.gov.uk/sign-in (reachable from gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge) with the email and password you registered. Pre-pay, the local resident discount and fleet vehicles all live inside that one account. If you cannot get in, call the contact centre on 0300 300 0120 (every day, 8am to 8pm), or pay a one-off crossing as a guest without logging in.
How do I set up a Dart Charge account?+
Go to gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge and choose to set up an account. The quickest route is a pre-pay account: you add money up front (£15 minimum), register your number plate, and every crossing is then taken automatically at the discounted £2.80 rate instead of £3.50. You can also set up an account by post using the gov.uk publication 'Set up or cancel a Dart Charge account by post'. There is no separate Dart Charge app to download; the account lives on the gov.uk service.
How do I log in to my Dart Charge account?+
Sign in at pay-dartford-crossing-charge.service.gov.uk/sign-in (you can reach it from gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge). Use the email and password you registered with. There is no separate residents-only or fleet-only login; pre-pay, local resident discount and fleet vehicles all sit inside the same account. If you would rather manage the account by phone, call the contact centre on 0300 300 0120 (every day, 8am to 8pm).
Is there a Dart Charge account app or separate portal?+
No. National Highways has never released an official Dart Charge app, and there is no separate account portal beyond the gov.uk service. The sign-in page works in any phone or desktop browser. The third-party Caura app can pay a one-off crossing, but it is a commercial product and not your Dart Charge account.
What is the minimum to open a pre-pay account?+
£15. That deposit sits as available balance and crossings are deducted from it at £2.80 per car crossing (a 20% saving on the £3.50 pay-as-you-go rate). You can set the account to top up automatically by Direct Debit so the balance never runs out.
How many vehicles can I add to one account?+
Up to 20 number plates per account, all funded from one balance and, if you choose, one Direct Debit. That makes a single pre-pay account workable for a household with several cars or a small business. Larger operators use the same account structure; see the fleet guide for record-keeping.
Can I see my crossing history in the account?+
Yes. Once signed in, a pre-pay account shows your recent crossings and top-ups so you can check what has been charged and confirm a crossing was paid. This is also where you update vehicles, change the card or Direct Debit, and manage the local resident discount if you hold one.
How do we recover a business Dart Charge account when the person who managed it has left?+
If the registered email address has been closed and nobody knows the password, the online reset will not work, because the reset link goes to an address that no longer receives mail. Call the contact centre on 0300 300 0120 (every day, 8am to 8pm). They can verify the business as the account holder and re-link the account to a new email address. Have to hand: the company name exactly as registered on the account, the business address, the vehicle registration numbers on the account, and if you can find it the payment card used for top-ups. There is also a contact form on the official payment service if you would rather write. Until access is restored, keep paying individual crossings at gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge by midnight the day after each crossing, which avoids penalty charge notices while the account is sorted out. (Answer added after a reader question, September 2026.)
How much does a Dart Charge pre-pay account save in a year?+
70p a crossing, which is 20% off the £3.50 car rate. Crossing twice a week costs £364 a year pay-as-you-go and £291.20 on a pre-pay account, a saving of £72.80. A five-day commute is 10 crossings a week: £1,820 pay-as-you-go against £1,456 pre-pay, saving £364 a year. The £15 minimum is balance you spend on crossings rather than a fee, so the saving starts on your first crossing. Those year figures are our arithmetic over the gov.uk per-crossing rates of £3.50 and £2.80, at 52 weeks.
At how many crossings does the £25 resident pass beat a pre-pay account?+
From the ninth crossing of the year. £25 divided by the £2.80 pre-pay rate is 8.9 crossings, so nine crossings a year on the unlimited resident pass costs less than paying per crossing on pre-pay. Against the £3.50 pay-as-you-go rate it takes only eight crossings (£25 divided by £3.50 is 7.1). The pass is limited to residents of the Dartford Borough and Thurrock areas, and it is bought and managed inside the same Dart Charge account.
How do I close my Dart Charge account?+
You can cancel a Dart Charge account by post using the same gov.uk publication used to set one up by post ('Set up or cancel a Dart Charge account by post'), or by calling 0300 300 0120. Any remaining pre-pay balance is refundable. After closing, crossings revert to the £3.50 pay-as-you-go rate, still due by midnight the day after you cross.