Motorway Toll Rates in Pakistan: What Each Trip Costs

A car pays Rs 1,430 to drive the M-2 from Lahore to Islamabad. The same journey on the old national highway costs Rs 100 in toll.

Every figure on this page comes from NHA's own notifications, the general one effective 10 July 2026 and a separate notice for the M-2. Here is what each road costs a car.

The motorway costs fourteen times the highway

That is the comparison worth holding on to. Rs 100 on a national highway, Rs 1,430 on the M-2.

Whether that is worth paying depends on your day. The motorway saves hours and is safer, and for a family car with fuel and time counted it usually pays for itself. For a trader running a loaded truck, the same choice looks very different: an articulated truck pays Rs 7,980 on the M-2 against Rs 700 on the highway.

That gap of more than eleven times is why heavy traffic still fills the GT Road.

Motorway rates by vehicle, in full

NHA notifies six vehicle classes. These are the rates effective 10 July 2026.

All figures in rupees. M-1 is Islamabad to Peshawar, M-3 Lahore to Abdul Hakeem, M-4 Pindi Bhattian to Faisalabad to Multan, M-5 Multan to Sukkur, M-14 D.I. Khan to Hakla, and E-35 the Hassanabdal to Havelian to Mansehra expressway.

National highway and tunnel rates

Ordinary national highways are cheap, and two stretches are priced separately because of what they are.

Note the Kohat Tunnel oddity. A wagon pays Rs 650 there, more than double a car, while on the E-75 a wagon pays the same Rs 300 as a car. The classes are not scaled the same way on every road.

Why the M-2 is not in the same notification

You will not find the M-2 in the table above, and there is a reason for that worth understanding, because it explains the price.

The M-2 is run under a concession, not directly by NHA. NHA signed a 20 year build-operate-transfer agreement on 23 April 2014 with Motorway Operations and Rehabilitation Engineering (Private) Limited, a subsidiary owned by FWO, for the overlay and modernisation of the Lahore to Islamabad motorway.

The agreement itself sets the price path. Under Part II (B), Schedule I, an escalation of 7 per cent in toll rates applies from the 13th year of the concession period. That is not a decision taken each year. It is contractual.

So the current M-2 rates run for a fixed window, 5 July 2026 to 23 April 2027, and the notice sets them per kilometre as well as in total:

The per kilometre figure is useful, because most people do not drive the whole motorway. Getting off at Kallar Kahar or Pindi Bhattian costs proportionally less, and the rate tells you roughly what to expect.

For queries about the M-2 concession specifically, the notice names the General Manager (M2-BOT), Service Area North Bound, Kallar Kahar, District Chakwal, on 0543-588129.

Paying it, and the M-Tag question

M-Tag is the electronic route through a toll plaza. A working tag means a dedicated lane instead of the cash queue, which on a Friday evening at Thokar or Kallar Kahar is the whole point of having one.

If you do not have one yet, our guide to getting an M-Tag covers registration, and recharging an M-Tag online covers keeping it topped up. To check what is on your tag before a long trip, use the M-Tag balance and ID check.

One practical point about the numbers above. The rates are the rates whether you pay by tag or by cash. A tag saves time and queueing, not money, so nobody should tell you a tag gets you a cheaper toll.

Before a long run, five minutes of checking saves an argument at the barrier:

1. Find your road and your class in the tables above, and note the figure. A wagon is not a car, and a coaster is not a bus.
2. Check your tag balance before you set off, not at the plaza. A tag with nothing on it is slower than cash.
3. Carry the cash amount anyway. Barriers and readers fail, and the notified rate is what you owe either way.
4. Keep the receipt if you are charged a different figure from the one notified. It is the only way to query it afterwards.
5. Check the date on any rate you read elsewhere. These changed on 10 July 2026, so anything older is wrong.

How we got these figures

This is worth explaining, because it says something about how the rates are published.

Both notifications are on nha.gov.pk as PDFs. Both are scanned pictures. There is no text layer in either, so the figures cannot be copied, cannot be searched, and cannot be read aloud by a screen reader. We ran both through a text extractor and got nothing at all, then had to read them as images instead.

The general notification's own distribution list instructs the Director of MIS to upload it to the NHA website, and it was uploaded, as a picture of a page.

We are simply recording that. It is the reason the rates every driver needs are hard to find, and the reason so many sites publish figures that are years out of date.

For the record, the documents are NHA Notification No. 14(16)/DD (R-O II)/NHA/2026/72 dated 6 July 2026, issued under Section 10(2)(vii) of the NHA Act 1991 as amended in 2024, and the separate Notice for Enhancement of Toll Rates on Lahore-Islamabad Motorway M-2, PID (I) 72/26.

What we could not verify

We could not get a list of toll plaza locations. NHA has a page for it, but the locations load through a map component we could not read, and it covers only the M-1, M-2, M-4 and N-5 in any case. We would rather leave a gap than invent a plaza list.

We have not stated the length of any motorway. The M-2 notice gives a per kilometre rate and a total, and dividing one by the other would be our arithmetic presented as NHA's fact.

Rates for a partial journey are not published as a table. The per kilometre figure for the M-2 is the closest thing to a guide, and the other motorways do not publish one at all.

We did not drive these roads to confirm what is charged at the barrier. This is what NHA has notified.

Toll rates change. The M-2 window closes on 23 April 2027 by its own terms, and the general notification can be revised at any time.

Questions readers are asking

What is the toll from Lahore to Islamabad on the M-2?

Rs 1,430 for a car, jeep or taxi for the full run. A wagon pays Rs 2,390 and a bus Rs 4,770.

Why is the M-2 more expensive than the M-1?

The M-2 runs under a 20 year build-operate-transfer concession with a contractual 7 per cent escalation from the 13th year. The M-1 is notified directly by NHA.

What does a car pay on an ordinary national highway?

Rs 100. The Kohat Tunnel on the N-55 is Rs 250 and the Islamabad to Murree expressway is Rs 300.

What does a truck pay on the motorway?

An articulated truck pays Rs 7,980 on the M-2 and Rs 3,350 on the M-1. On a national highway the same truck pays Rs 700.

Is the toll cheaper with an M-Tag?

No. A tag saves you the queue, not the fare. The notified rate applies either way.

When did these rates start?

The general notification took effect on 10 July 2026. The M-2 rates apply from 5 July 2026 until 23 April 2027.

What if I only drive part of the motorway?

You pay less, but only the M-2 publishes a per kilometre rate, Rs 3.98 for a car. The others give totals only.