Road User Charges (RUC) for Petrol Vehicles: What NZ Businesses Need to Know
Road user charges are coming for petrol vehicles. The government wants every vehicle on the road paying for the distance it travels, not the fuel it burns. Right now, petrol cars, utes, and vans are the last group still paying at the pump… but not for long.
There’s no confirmed date for when petrol vehicles switch over, and no rate has yet been set.
Here’s where things are as of September 2026.
What are road user charges, and who pays them?
Diesel vehicles, heavy vehicles, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids already pay road user charges. It’s a distance-based charge, bought in blocks of kilometres, instead of tax collected at the pump. Every time you fill up, part of the price is fuel excise duty, currently around 70c per litre, and that goes toward funding the roads. Petrol vehicles are currently the exception.
What’s changing for petrol vehicles, and when?
The government’s plan is to move every light vehicle – roughly 3.5 million of them in NZ – off fuel excise duty and onto road user charges. The Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill went to Parliament in November 2025 and is still working its way through as at September 2026. A public consultation on the new RUC regulations closed in June 2026, and the government wants the market for approved RUC providers open for business from 2027.
That 2027 date is about the system being ready, not about petrol vehicles being switched over. Transport Minister Chris Bishop has called this the biggest change to road funding in 50 years. The Automobile Association has called 2027 an ambitious target for actually moving three-quarters of the national fleet onto RUC. No date has been set for when petrol vehicles must switch.
Will it cost your business more?
Nobody knows yet. Fuel excise duty comes off petrol at the same time road user charges go on, so the pump price should drop by roughly the excise amount. What you pay overall depends on how many kilometres you drive, not how many litres you burn. A vehicle doing mostly short local runs may end up ahead, while one covering a lot of open road each week may not.
There’s no published RUC rate for petrol vehicles yet. Electric vehicles currently pay $76 per 1,000km and plug-in hybrids pay $38 per 1,000km, but that’s not a preview of the petrol rate, just the closest published number available today.
What diesel operators already know
Diesel drivers already pay road user charges every month. Buying in blocks, tracking distance travelled, working RUC into the cost of running a vehicle: for our customers’ diesel fleets, this is business as usual.
What should a petrol fleet do now?
There’s nothing to buy or set up today. Three things are worth doing:
- Keep an eye on official updates rather than secondhand headlines. NZTA and the Ministry of Transport are the best places to watch..
- Start tracking kilometres per vehicle if you don’t already. Distance will matter more than fuel spend once RUC applies.
- Talk to us if you’d like a second set of eyes on what this could mean for your fleet once the rate and date are confirmed.
Where does a fuel card fit?
Not directly. Road user charges are paid to the government or an approved RUC provider, not to a fuel supplier, so a fuel card won’t cover them. What we can do is keep giving you one clear invoice for the fuel side of your costs, and keep you updated here as the details for petrol vehicles firm up.
Frequently asked questions
What are road user charges? A distance-based charge for using the roads, paid instead of tax at the pump. Diesel, heavy, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles already pay it.
When do petrol vehicles start paying RUC? No date has been confirmed. The government wants the RUC provider market ready from 2027, but that’s not the same as petrol vehicles switching over on that date.
Will my fuel costs go up or down? It depends how far you drive. Pump prices should fall once excise comes off, but RUC is charged on distance, not litres, so the net effect varies by vehicle and use.
Does a fuel card cover road user charges? No. RUC is paid directly to the government or an approved provider. A fuel card covers what you buy at the pump.
We’ll keep watching this one and update it as the details are confirmed. If you’d like to talk through what it could mean for your fleet, give us a call or send us a message; we’d be happy to help you save money on fuel.