Red Light Cameras in Toronto: The $325 Fine and How to Dispute It

A red light camera ticket in Toronto is a $325 penalty issued to the registered owner of the vehicle, with no demerit points and no effect on your insurance.¹ You have 30 days from the deemed service date printed on the notice to either pay it or request an online screening to dispute it, and since January 2025 both are handled through the City’s Administrative Penalty System rather than the old Provincial Offences court process.²

What the Penalty Actually Costs You

The dollar figure is $325.¹ Beyond that, the ticket is a financial penalty and nothing else. Because the camera photographs a licence plate rather than a driver, the ticket goes to whoever the vehicle is registered to, and the Highway Traffic Act shields owners convicted on camera evidence from imprisonment and licence suspension.³ No demerit points attach. Insurance companies do not treat it as a moving violation. If you were driving your own car and the plate is registered to you, that is the full extent of the consequence.

Reading Your Notice and Viewing the Photos

The penalty notice lists a unique penalty number, the intersection, the date and time of the violation, your plate number, and the deemed service date. The deemed service date is the one that matters, because your 30-day deadline runs from there.¹

Before you decide what to do, look at the photos. The City makes them available online: an image of the vehicle behind the stop bar with the light red, another with the vehicle inside the intersection, and a close-up of the plate. Enter your penalty information and the personal identification number from the notice on the City’s portal to pull them up.¹ Sometimes the images show the plate is unreadable, the car in the photo isn’t yours, or the vehicle had already entered the intersection while the light was still amber. Any of those are worth flagging.

Paying the Ticket

If you’re not going to dispute, pay within 30 days of the deemed service date. Payment options are online, by mail, or in person at a City inquiry and payment counter.⁴ In person, the City accepts cash, debit, cheque, money order, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. Mailed payments should be a cheque or money order.

How to Dispute the Ticket

Disputes now run through the Administrative Penalty System. You request a screening online within 30 days of the deemed service date. If you miss the 30 days, you can still apply for an extension of time up to 60 days from the deemed service date, but you have to submit the screening request at the same time.⁵

A City screening officer reviews the evidence and explanation you upload through the portal and sends a decision by email. The officer can:

Affirm the penalty at $325 with no change
Vary the penalty by reducing the amount
Cancel the penalty entirely
Grant a payment extension or installment plan

If you need an in-person screening for accessibility or accommodation reasons, you can request one by emailing apsaccess@toronto.ca.⁶

Appealing to the Administrative Penalty Tribunal

If the screening decision goes against you, you can request a second review by the Administrative Penalty Tribunal, an independent panel appointed by Toronto City Council. The Tribunal is the final level of review and its decision is binding.²

Grounds Worth Raising in a Screening

The system only tickets vehicles that cross the stop bar after the light has already turned red. Vehicles that enter on green or amber and are still clearing the intersection when the signal changes are not supposed to trigger the camera.⁷ If the photos suggest you were already in the intersection before red, that’s the strongest argument you have.

Amber duration is another angle. Ontario’s Traffic Manual sets recommended amber times based on the posted speed limit approaching the intersection: 3.3 seconds at 50 km/h, 3.7 seconds at 60 km/h, and 4.2 seconds at 70 km/h, with a minimum of 3 seconds at any signalized intersection.⁸ If the amber phase appears shorter than the standard for that road, the timing data can be relevant to your dispute.

Other grounds worth checking against the photos: whether the plate in the close-up is actually yours, whether the plate is even legible, and whether the vehicle in frame matches your car’s make and model.

Rented and Stolen Vehicles

Because the penalty follows the plate, a rental company gets the notice when one of its cars runs a red light camera. Rental agreements almost always let the company pass the penalty on to the renter with an added administrative fee, so check your rental contract.

If your car was stolen when the violation was recorded, contact Toronto Court Services and provide your police report incident number along with the date and time the report was filed. That documentation is what allows the penalty to be reviewed and potentially cancelled. Even if the file has already gone to collections, it can still be reopened with proof of theft.

If You Ignore the Ticket

Unpaid penalties accumulate administrative fees and are eventually referred to collections.⁴ A red light camera ticket won’t cost you demerit points or your licence, but a balance sitting in collections is harder to clear than a $325 penalty dealt with inside the 30-day window, and the fees keep climbing the longer it waits.

1
City of Toronto. Red Light Camera Penalties
2
City of Toronto. City of Toronto Expands Administrative Penalty System to Include Automated Road Safety Tools
3
Government of Ontario. Ontario Code Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8
4
City of Toronto. Pay Red Light Camera Penalties
5
City of Toronto. Dispute Your Red Light Camera Penalty
6
City of Toronto. Penalty and Violation Screening Locations
7
City of Toronto. Red Light Cameras
8
Ontario Traffic Council. Ontario Traffic Manual, Book 12 – Traffic Signals