Poland · personal road ledger · 2026

Who pays
for your ride?

Every kilometre you drive, you hand the state some tax and impose some cost on everyone else. The two rarely match — this shows how much of your road use you actually cover.

12 000km / year
The verdict — share of your road footprint you pay for
—

▰ you pay everyone else covers ▱

What you pay the state

akcyza · opłata paliwowa · VAT · fees − subsidy

Per year—

What you cost society

EC/CE Delft external-cost coefficients

Per year—
Assumptions — adjust the model
Off = fuel-specific taxes only

The twist

Going electric covers less, not more

Switch to electric. The cost side barely moves — crashes and congestion are most of it, and an EV imposes both. The payment side collapses: almost no fuel tax, plus a purchase grant. So the public ends up covering a bigger share of an EV's footprint than a petrol car's. That's a deliberate decarbonisation subsidy, not a free lunch — worth knowing.

How to read this

  • Per kilometre, solo. Costs are the handbook's per-passenger-km figures treated as per-km for a single rider — your real footprint if you drive alone. Carpooling lowers the per-person cost.
  • Congestion is a band, never a point. It's the most place- and time-specific cost; the selector swings it from open road to rush-hour core. Two-wheelers filter traffic, so theirs stays zero — which is where a scooter quietly wins a dense city.
  • A scooter isn't a free angel. It still carries real crash cost — though most of that risk falls on the rider, and much of the rest comes from car drivers.
  • This is a model to argue with. Every rate above is editable.
⚠ Poland's temporary fuel VAT/akcyza reduction is scheduled to lapse 31 May 2026 — fuel-tax figures here use the standard rates.