Every motorhome pays the car rate: £3.50 pay-as-you-go, £2.80 on a pre-pay account. Weight does not change it, whatever you have read about 3.5 tonnes. The one thing that does change your journey is height, and it is two figures rather than one: the west tunnel stops at 4.80m and the east at 5.03m. The price is the same either way. This page covers the class rule, the height rule, and whether pre-pay is worth it for a holiday crossing.
PAYG
£3.50
Pre-pay
£2.80
Fiat Ducato, Peugeot Boxer and Sprinter-based coachbuilts, panel-van conversions, low-line and high-line A-class, US-import RVs, lorry-based conversions and tag-axle chassis. If the V5C says motor caravan, this is your rate.
A conversion that DVLA still has on record as a panel van. Until the V5C body type is changed to "motor caravan", the cameras read a goods vehicle, and a 2-axle goods vehicle is Class C at £4.20 per crossing.
This catches self-builds and part-finished conversions. It is the paperwork that decides it, not the bed, the hob or the weight. If you have fitted out a van and never had the body type updated, check the V5C before you assume the car rate.
The Maximum Authorised Mass on your V5C governs your licence category, your speed limits and your tolls in France. It does not govern the Dart Charge. The Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Charging Scheme Order 2013 lists motor caravans in Class B as class L(a), and that class is defined by having living accommodation built in, not by a weight. The same order takes its goods classes from axle count rather than mass. So there is no figure on your plate that moves a motorhome up a class.
The two Dartford Tunnels carry northbound traffic, and they do not share a height limit. The regulations prohibit an overall height above 4.80 metres in the west tunnel and above 5.03 metres in the east, and set no height limit at all for the southbound QE2 Bridge. Three bands follow.
| Motorhome type | Typical height | Northbound (tunnels) | Southbound (bridge) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panel-van conversion (LWB) | 2.5-2.8m | Either tunnel | Bridge, no height limit |
| Low-profile A-class | 2.7-2.9m | Either tunnel | Bridge, no height limit |
| Overcab coachbuilt | 2.9-3.2m | Either tunnel | Bridge, no height limit |
| High-profile A-class | 3.0-3.3m | Either tunnel | Bridge, no height limit |
| Twin-axle American RV | 3.5-4.5m | Either tunnel, under 4.80m | Bridge, no height limit |
| Converted lorry / heavy RV | 4.5m+ | East tunnel only over 4.80m; neither over 5.03m | Bridge, no height limit |
The charge is the same whichever structure you use: height decides the route, not the price. Note the direction, because it is often reported the wrong way round: the bridge runs southbound, so it is not an alternative for an over-height northbound vehicle. A vehicle over 5.03m cannot cross northbound here at all. Source: Dartford-Thurrock Crossing (Amendment) Regulations 2014, regulation 4. Checked 4 October 2026.
Cars
£3.50 PAYG, £2.80 pre-pay.
Vans
£4.20, at any weight. Not the car rate.
Minibuses
Class B if 9 seats or fewer.
Motorcycles
Free, every direction.
Tunnel/bridge rules
Height limit, wind closures.
Pre-pay account
The 70p / crossing saving, in detail.
Every motorhome is Class B and pays the car rate: £3.50 pay-as-you-go or £2.80 on a pre-pay account. Weight makes no difference. gov.uk lists "motorhomes" in Class B with no qualifier, and the charging order puts them in class L(a), motor caravans, which has no mass limit written into it. A 7-tonne A-class pays the same as a hatchback.
There are two, one per bore. The Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Regulations 1998, as amended in 2014, prohibit an overall height over 4.80 metres in the west tunnel and over 5.03 metres in the east. So up to 4.80m you can use either, between 4.80m and 5.03m it is the east tunnel only, and over 5.03m you cannot use the tunnels at all. Most coachbuilt and A-class motorhomes are around 3 metres tall, so this bites only on converted lorries and the largest American RVs.
No. The bridge is the only one of the three columns in the regulations' table whose overall-height cell reads 'No restriction'. Every other restriction in that table still applies to it: overall width 3.65 metres, overall length 27.4 metres, total weight 44,000 kilograms, axle weight 11,180 kilograms and wheel weight 5,090 kilograms. So height is the one dimension the bridge frees you from, not the whole row. The bridge also carries southbound traffic only, so it is not an alternative for an over-height northbound vehicle unless National Highways has reversed a tunnel bore. Cross-winds matter more than height here: the bridge closes in severe wind and traffic is diverted through the tunnels.
No. It is widely repeated that a motorhome over 3.5 tonnes moves up a class, but no weight band decides what you pay at Dartford. What decides your class is the kind of vehicle: a motor caravan is Class B, a goods vehicle is Class C or D by axle count. The Maximum Authorised Mass on your V5C changes nothing about what you pay here. The only masses in the charging order sit inside the quadricycle definition that the class definitions exclude, and they are paired with a power test: a four-wheeler is outside the goods and passenger classes only if its unladen mass is no more than 550kg for goods or 400kg otherwise AND its net engine power does not exceed 15kW. Every motorhome clears both limbs by a wide margin.
No. The three-axle Class D rate applies to goods vehicles and to large passenger vehicles with more than 9 seats, not to motor caravans. A tag-axle or twin-rear-axle motorhome is still class L(a) in the charging order, so it stays Class B at the car rate.
It stays Class B. The charging order says the classes include vehicles when drawing a trailer, so hitching up a car or a trailer does not change the class or the price. Nor does the combined weight.
For a single one-way crossing it is not worth the setup. The £15 minimum is balance you spend on crossings rather than a fee, so nothing is lost if you use it, but any balance left over sits on a dormant account until you claim it back. For a return trip to a Channel port and back, pre-pay saves 70p each way. For a single weekend, just pay PAYG.
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