UK HGV Cost Calculator: Cost Per Mile, Fuel & Tolls

For fuel alone, divide your miles by your mpg to get gallons, convert to litres at 4.546, multiply by your diesel price, then divide by the miles. An artic doing 8 mpg over 300 miles at £1.45 a litre is roughly £247, or about 82p a mile before tolls, wages and overheads.

A 44-tonne artic typically returns 7-9 mpg loaded and 10-12 empty. A 26-tonne rigid sits around 10-12, and a 7.5-tonne around 15-18. These are imperial gallons, so they are not comparable with American figures.

Because that is how UK haulage works. Plated weights, axle limits and bridge restrictions are all metric, while the road network and your tachograph distances are in miles. A '44-tonner' doing '56 mph' is a perfectly normal British sentence.

Very few. The M6 Toll charges HGVs around £11-12, and estuary crossings such as the Dartford Crossing and Mersey Gateway have HGV rates. Otherwise the motorway network is free, which is why UK per-mile costs are dominated by fuel and wages rather than tolls.

The HGV levy is an annual or daily charge based on weight and emissions and is not included here, since it is a vehicle cost rather than a route cost. Clean Air Zones in Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield and others charge non-compliant lorries up to £50-100 a day — check the class of your vehicle before routing through a city centre.

The ETA reflects realistic lorry road speeds but does not schedule statutory breaks. Under GB rules you need a 45-minute break after 4.5 hours driving, with a 9-hour daily limit, so add that to any run over about 250 miles when you quote a delivery slot.