How to Pay Illinois Tolls: Costs, Rentals, and Violations

Every mile of the Illinois Tollway is cashless, so to pay Illinois tolls you either use an I-PASS or E-ZPass transponder, enter your license plate and card into the Pay By Plate system within 14 days of travel, or wait for an invoice in the mail and pay that. Transponder users pay half the rate of everyone else, and ignoring the invoice is where costs spiral: a missed toll can grow from a few dollars into a $70 fine per trip through a plaza, plus referral to a collection agency.¹

The Three Ways to Pay

Since 2020, there are no cash lanes and no coin baskets on the Illinois Tollway. Vehicles pass under overhead gantries at highway speed, and the gantries either read a transponder or photograph the license plate.¹ What happens next depends on which of three payment paths you’re on.

I-PASS or E-ZPass Transponder

I-PASS is the Illinois Tollway’s own transponder, and it cuts every toll in half compared to the non-transponder rate.² The current version is a sticker tag for your windshield. Order one online or pick one up at an Illinois Tollway customer service center and there’s no charge and no deposit. Retail locations like Jewel-Osco also carry them, though those stores charge a small service fee.³

E-ZPass transponders from any member state work on the Illinois Tollway too, and they get the same 50% discount.³ If you’re driving in from a state in the E-ZPass network (roughly 20 states from Maine to North Carolina and west to Illinois), your existing transponder handles the tolls automatically.

Pay By Plate

If you don’t have a transponder, the Pay By Plate system gives you 14 days from your first date of travel to go online, enter your license plate, provide a credit card, and specify your travel dates.⁴ Doing this within the window avoids all fees and fines. A mobile app is also available for managing payments.

One detail catches people out. If you’ve already driven the road, you have to backdate the plate information to your actual travel dates. You also need to keep a valid credit card on file until the tolls finish processing, which can take up to 30 days after your trip.⁴ If the card expires or the plate is wrong, the system can’t collect and an invoice goes out instead.

Invoice by Mail

Ignoring the 14-day window puts you on the invoice path. The Tollway mails an invoice to the registered owner and adds a $3 fee per toll for passenger vehicles ($5 to $15 per toll for commercial vehicles). Additional invoices go out around 60 and 90 days if the first isn’t paid.⁵ Paying the invoice closes the matter at this stage. The real trouble starts if you keep ignoring the mail.

What Tolls Actually Cost

Rates vary by plaza and by whether you’re using a transponder. For a passenger vehicle (two axles, four or fewer tires), I-PASS and E-ZPass rates run from $0.30 to $1.50 per plaza. Pay By Plate and invoice rates are exactly double, ranging from $0.60 to $3.00.⁶ Commercial vehicles pay more based on axle count. A daily commuter passing through several plazas can save hundreds of dollars a year on the transponder rate alone.

Paying Tolls in a Rental Car

Rentals are one of the most common ways travelers end up with surprise toll charges. Most rental companies equip their vehicles with their own transponder and charge a daily convenience fee on top of the actual toll, and those fees add up fast on a multi-day trip.

Illinois law gives you some protection. If the rental company equips a vehicle with a transponder and doesn’t offer you a way to opt out, the company cannot charge more than $2 per day for the transponder on top of the actual toll cost. The company also has to disclose the terms clearly in the rental agreement and at the rental location.⁷

You can often skip rental toll fees entirely by using Pay By Plate. Enter the rental car’s plate, your card, and your travel dates within 14 days of the trip.⁴ If you already have your own I-PASS or E-ZPass, ask the counter to note that you’ll use your own transponder. Handle this before the rental company processes the tolls, because reversing a charge after the fact is difficult.

Driving Illinois Tolls with an Out-of-State Plate

An E-ZPass from any participating state works on the Illinois Tollway at the same 50% discount that Illinois I-PASS holders receive.³ The toll comes out of your home-state E-ZPass account.

Without a transponder, set up Pay By Plate before or within 14 days of your trip. If you skip that, the cameras still capture your plate, and the invoice goes to the address your home-state DMV has on file. The same escalation applies to out-of-state drivers, and the Tollway uses a licensed collection agency to pursue delinquent accounts across state lines.⁸

What Happens If You Don’t Pay

The Tollway’s enforcement runs in four stages, and each one adds money to what you already owe.

Invoice. The first stage, described above, is a mailed invoice with a $3-per-toll fee for passenger vehicles. Fees grow with each additional invoice sent at roughly 60 and 90 days.⁵

Notice of Toll Violation. Once you accumulate three or more unpaid tolls in a one-year period and ignore your invoices, the Tollway issues a Notice of Toll Violation. This adds a mandatory $20 fine per unpaid toll on top of the toll itself and any earlier fees.⁹ You have 30 days from the issue date to pay, dispute the violations, or ask for an administrative hearing. Miss that deadline and the law treats it as an admission of liability.¹⁰

Final Order of Liability. No response within 30 days and the Tollway enters a Final Order by default, adding another $50 fine per violation. The total is now $70 per unpaid toll, plus the original toll and earlier fees.¹⁰ Even ten missed tolls turn into a serious bill.

Debt collection. Still unpaid after the Final Order and the account gets referred to a licensed collection agency retained by the Tollway.⁸ The debt may also appear on your credit report, depending on how the agency reports.

One boundary worth clearing up: older guidance online still says unpaid Illinois tolls can lead to a suspended driver’s license or vehicle registration. That was true under a prior version of the Illinois Vehicle Code, but the statute authorizing those suspensions for toll violations, 625 ILCS 5/6-306.6, was repealed effective July 1, 2021. The current enforcement path is fines and collections, not license suspension.

Disputing a Violation

If a violation notice was issued in error, you have 30 days from the issue date to submit a written dispute with documentation or request an administrative hearing.¹⁰ The most common valid disputes involve vehicles that were sold, stolen, or driven by someone else. The Tollway provides an Affidavit of Nonliability, and it requires specific proof: a bill of sale plus plate revocation, a title transfer, or auction paperwork for a sold vehicle; a police report or insurance theft payoff report for a stolen one.¹¹

If you were the registered owner but not the driver, the law presumes the vehicle was operated by your agent. You’re on the hook for the toll unless you can rebut that. You can pay the fines and then pursue the actual driver in circuit court to recover.

At an administrative hearing, the photo or video evidence captured by the Tollway is presumed valid unless you present evidence otherwise.¹² Each toll is treated as its own violation, so partial relief is possible if you can defend some but not others. Bring hard documentation: a Pay By Plate confirmation, a bank statement showing payment, or transponder activity logs. Not remembering the trip is not a defense.

I-PASS Assist for Lower-Income Drivers

If a prepaid transponder balance is out of reach, the Tollway offers I-PASS Assist. Qualifying households have income at or below 250% of the federal poverty guidelines, verified through the Illinois Department of Revenue or through enrollment in state cash and food assistance programs.² The account opens with as little as $4 in prepaid tolls, no transponder deposit, and automatic replenishment as low as $4. The full 50% discount still applies. For a family of four, the income cutoff is roughly $75,000 based on 2024 federal poverty levels, and the Tollway updates the thresholds as the federal guidelines change. Qualified customers may also be eligible for retroactive dismissal of previously assessed fees.¹³

1
Illinois Tollway. Tolling 2020
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Illinois Tollway. I-PASS Assist Program
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Illinois Tollway. I-PASS Account
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Illinois Tollway. Pay By Plate
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Illinois Tollway. Help Center
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Illinois Tollway. Tolling Information Overview
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Illinois General Assembly. SB2522 – Illinois Vehicle Code Amendments on Rental Car Tolling
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Illinois Tollway. Violations
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Illinois Tollway. Unpaid Illinois Tollway Toll Invoices Will Result In Violation Notices
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Illinois Tollway. Notice of Toll Violation
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Illinois Tollway. Affidavit of Nonliability for Toll
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Legal Information Institute. Illinois Administrative Code Title 92 Section 2520.740 – Hearings Format
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Illinois Tollway. I-PASS Assist Continues to Expand Relief for Working Individuals and Families