Transport Infrastructure Fees Rules 2026 Explained

A new statutory instrument from the Department for Transport sets out something quite practical: when certain public bodies can charge fees for work connected to transport infrastructure projects. The Transport Infrastructure (Fees) Regulations 2026 were made on 26 October 2026, laid before Parliament on 30 October 2026, and come into force on 20 November 2026. If you have ever wondered who picks up the bill when a road, rail, tram or waterway project needs official input, this is the rulebook. The text published on legislation.gov.uk is not about approving new projects by itself. It is about deciding when public authorities can recover their costs while those projects move through the legal process.

Part 2 applies in England and deals with highways matters. It allows a named group of public authorities to charge highway authorities for services connected to certain orders and schemes under the Highways Act 1980. The list includes the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, Natural England, National Highways, the Coal Authority, the Marine Management Organisation, Transport for London, local authorities in England, and the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. In plain English, this covers the sort of formal legal steps that can sit behind road-building and alteration projects, including special road schemes, bridge or tunnel schemes, and some orders under the Highways Act 1980. So if a highway authority needs one of those bodies to carry out a relevant service tied to that process, the regulations now allow a fee to be charged in the situations the law describes.

Part 3 mirrors that structure for Transport and Works Act applications. These are the applications used for orders relating to railways, tramways and some inland waterways under section 6 of the Transport and Works Act 1992. Here, the person or organisation making the application can be charged by the listed public authorities for relevant services. This part also reaches cross-border orders, so some Welsh bodies appear in the second schedule where that cross-border link exists. Local authorities in Wales, Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Ministers can be included for those cases. That is useful to know because it shows the fees system is not only about roads in England; it also touches bigger transport schemes that cross administrative lines.

The most important safeguard in the regulations is transparency. A public authority can charge only if it publishes a statement on its website explaining which relevant services attract fees, what the fee is or how it will be calculated, and which legal power sits behind that service. **What this means for you:** the law is trying to stop mystery charging. Authorities can include costs that are reasonably incidental to providing the service, but they cannot charge more than the costs they have reasonably incurred, or reasonably expect to incur. That matters because these fees are meant to recover costs, not quietly raise extra money. The regulations also make clear that separate charging powers under the Environment Act 1995, the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and the National Heritage Act 1983 still remain in place.

The rules also say quite a lot about how fees must be handled. A public authority may give a written estimate before doing the work, ask for all or part of the fee in advance, allow payment by instalments, or decide to waive or refund some or all of the amount. If it waives or refunds money, it must say so in writing. When a fee is charged, the amount must be notified in writing, and the payment period cannot be shorter than 21 days from the date of the notice. If the bill is not paid, the authority can recover the overdue sum as a civil debt. If work has not yet started, it can withhold the service until payment is made. If work has started but not finished, it can recover the debt and pause the unfinished part. For any applicant or authority working to tight deadlines, that is the part worth paying closest attention to: a delayed payment can become a delayed project.

There is also an important cut-off date. The new powers are not meant to reach backwards into every live scheme. For certain Highways Act orders and schemes, Part 2 does not apply if the first required notice was published before 20 November 2026. For Transport and Works Act applications, Part 3 does not apply if the application was made to the Secretary of State before 20 November 2026. **Why that matters:** transitional rules like these are there to keep the process fair. They stop a project from starting under one set of expectations and then, halfway through, being pushed into a new charging system. If you are checking whether a fee can lawfully be charged, the date when the notice was first published, or when the application was first made, is not a small detail. It is often the deciding point.

The explanatory note on legislation.gov.uk says these powers come from the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, which inserted the relevant fee-charging powers into the Highways Act 1980 and the Transport and Works Act 1992. It also says no full impact assessment has been produced because the instrument concerns a charge outside the Better Regulation Framework, and that no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen. That official wording is worth reading carefully. 'No significant impact' does not mean no impact at all, especially for smaller applicants, councils and public bodies already watching every project cost. The clearest lesson from these regulations is simple. Named public authorities can charge, but only in defined cases, only with published fee information, and only up to their reasonable costs. Once you strip away the heavy legal wording, that is the system these rules put in place.