Understanding Road Transportation in Slovakia - Meets Toll Increase
Market Monday - Week 25 - Toll changes and facts, figures and insights into road transportation in Slovakia
About this series
The transportation landscape in Europe represents one of the world's most sophisticated logistics networks, where over thirty countries intersect in a complex web of trade routes and regulatory frameworks. This comprehensive series examines the key transport markets that drive Europe's logistics sector, offering data-driven insights and practical market intelligence.
Our analysis combines real-world data from the Transporeon platform with official statistics from Eurostat, focusing primarily on full truckload road transport while maintaining relevance for other transport segments.
The Slovak road transportation market
With a dynamic, export-oriented economy and a GDP of approximately $141 billion, Slovakia is deeply integrated into the European Union markets. The country serves as a major manufacturing hub, especially in the automotive sector, where it is the world's largest per-capita car producer. Key industries also include electronics, machinery, and chemicals, with strong trade relationships with Germany and other European partners.
Though landlocked, Slovakia's strategic location in the heart of Central Europe makes it a vital transit corridor. It is crossed by three TEN-T corridors and bridges Western Europe with Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
This strategic role is clearly reflected in its transportation profile. In 2024, international transport was the dominant force in the road freight sector, accounting for over 83,5% of the total activity, while domestic transport represented the remaining 16,5%. This highlights Slovakia's specialization in cross-border logistics and its crucial function within the European supply chain.
The following overview contains facts and figures around demand, capacity, infrastructure and transport prices in Slovakia.
Download the country overview in the highest available resolution including a description of all values here:
Toll characteristics and scheduled increase
Slovakia operates a kilometer-based electronic toll system for all vehicles exceeding 3,5 tonnes. Similar to the systems in Germany and Austria, the final rates are calculated based on the driven distance, road category (motorways, expressways, and primary roads), vehicle category (based on weight and number of axles), and its EURO emission class.
Aligning with the Eurovignette Directive, Slovakia is enhancing its toll structure. From July 2025, the fee calculation will be composed of an infrastructure charge, a charge for CO₂ emissions, and an external cost charge for air pollution. This change brings the Slovak system structurally in line with those of Western European countries and is expected to increase the cost share for transport operations.
The implemented change will increase the applicable toll fees for a five axle EURO 6 truck from 0,19 €/km to around 0,26 €/km as of 1st of July 2025. This 40% increase lifts the toll to a significant factor in overall logistics expenses not just for domestic transportation.
The following table contains two examples (EURO VI, 5 axles), one for domestic and one for international transportation with the respective toll costs and the price change, if passed on and accepted by shippers.
Conclusion
Slovakia holds a strategic position at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe, making it vital to an inner Schengen area cargo movement. Its transport market maintains a strong international focus, soon supported by an EU-compliant toll system and efficient infrastructure.
The overall market condition in Slovakia is challenging with high capacity fluctuations and consequently a higher spot price volatility. While from an inbound perspective Germany and Poland dominate as trading partners, the outbound side is more diverse. Major imbalances in transport prices are monitored with Poland and Romania. Incoming transports from Poland are 66% more expensive than outbound transports, while transports from Romania are considerably cheaper than the opposite direction.
Slovakia's deep integration into European supply chains ensures its continued significance in EU transportation. However, rising cost components like diesel, driver wages and new toll charges may lift the domestic contracted transport prices in Slovakia into the medium cluster compared to other European countries.
Christian Dolderer
Lead Research Analyst
Trimble Transportation (Transporeon)