charging for travel ULEZ tradesman
How to Factor Fuel, ULEZ and Travel Time Into Local Jobs
If it costs you money just to get your van to the postcode, the quote should say so. The clean way is a single 'logistics' or 'access charges' line item covering fuel, clean-air charges and travel time - not a quietly padded labour rate that makes you look expensive against every competitor outside the zone.
This matters more than it used to. London's ULEZ charges £12.50 a day for non-compliant vehicles, and Clean Air Zone charges also apply in cities like Birmingham and Bristol. A week inside a zone with the wrong van is a real, recurring cost - and if it isn't on the quote, it's coming out of your wages.
Step 1: Know your charge zones
Before you price anything, answer two questions: is the job address inside a charging zone, and is your vehicle compliant? Check your registration against the zone's official checker - don't assume. A non-compliant van in the ULEZ pays £12.50 every day it drives in, so a ten-day job carries £125 of zone charges before you've lifted a tool.
Step 2: Cost the round trip honestly
Fuel is only part of what a mile costs - wear, tyres and servicing ride along on every trip. Use a realistic all-in cost per mile rather than the pump price alone; HMRC's approved mileage rate of around 45p a mile is a handy floor for what a mile genuinely costs to drive, and a heavy diesel van full of tools typically costs more than a hatchback. Then multiply by the round-trip distance and the number of days on site.
A 20-mile round trip at an all-in 50p a mile is £10 a day before any zone charge. Over a ten-day job that's £100 - small enough to ignore once, big enough to matter when it's happening on every job you price.
Step 3: Price your travel time
An hour in traffic each way is two hours a day you can't bill anywhere else. Some trades charge full rate for it, some half - the wrong answer is zero by default. Decide your policy once, apply it everywhere, and the awkwardness disappears because it's just how you price.
Step 4: Add one transparent logistics line
Resist the urge to bury it in labour. A padded labour rate makes you look dear against trades who live round the corner, and it collapses the moment a customer asks you to break the price down. One honest line, plainly worded, rarely gets challenged:
- Customers can compare your labour rate fairly against local competition
- Repeat customers near you aren't overpaying for travel they didn't cause
- When zone charges rise, you adjust one line instead of your whole rate card
- If a customer queries it, the answer is a fact about geography, not a defence of your worth
Logistics and access charges: £38 per day on site Covers travel time to your address, fuel, and the daily Clean Air Zone charge that applies to this postcode.
Step 5: Review it quarterly
Diesel moves, zones expand, and your van's compliance status can change the day you swap it. Put a quarterly reminder in your phone to re-run the numbers. A logistics line set eighteen months ago is just a smaller version of the original problem.
And if a big slice of your work sits inside a zone, do the upgrade maths while you're at it: £12.50 a day, four days a week, adds up to well over £2,000 a year - at some point a compliant van stops being an expense and becomes the cheaper option. Until then, the logistics line makes sure your customers inside the zone are the ones funding the charge their postcode creates, rather than every job you do subsidising it.
From the tools: I watched my brother price a three-week commercial fit-out just inside Birmingham's Clean Air Zone, back when he was running his old non-compliant Transit. He quoted his normal rate, won the job - and only clocked the daily zone charge when the first week's payments stacked up on his phone. Fifteen working days of charges plus an hour a day crawling along the A38, none of it priced: it took a fair chunk out of what should have been his best month that year. The next zone job got a logistics line at £35 a day, itemised and explained. The customer signed without a question. Same van, same roads - the only thing that changed was the quote telling the truth.
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