Quick answer: On the rate schedule that took effect January 1, 2026, a tractor-trailer on Highway 407 ETR pays a flat 151.68¢ per kilometre in the overnight off-peak band and between roughly 292¢ and 338¢ per kilometre during weekday peak, depending on zone and direction. Add a $3.00 Trip Toll Charge to every trip. Running the full 108 km at peak costs on the order of $335; the same run off-peak lands closer to $167.
That spread — better than 2:1 on the same pavement — is the single most useful fact about the 407 for anyone dispatching trucks through the Greater Toronto Area. It is also the fact most rate tables bury, because 407 ETR publishes its charges as a grid of twelve zones by direction by hour rather than as a headline number.
This guide flattens that grid into the numbers a carrier actually plans against.
What does a truck pay per kilometre on the 407?
Highway 407 ETR prices three vehicle classes. What matters is which one your equipment falls into, because the multiple is large.
Heavy multiple unit covers tractor-trailer combinations — the class most carriers are in.
| Period | Per-kilometre rate |
|---|---|
| Weekday off-peak (9 p.m. onward) | 151.68¢ across all zones |
| Weekday early morning (from 5 a.m.) | roughly 169¢ to 244¢ depending on zone and direction |
| Weekday peak | roughly 292¢ to 338¢ depending on zone and direction |
| Weekends and Ontario statutory holidays | roughly 151¢ to 262¢ |
Heavy single unit covers straight trucks and other single-unit vehicles over 5,000 kg.
| Period | Per-kilometre rate |
|---|---|
| Weekday off-peak (9 p.m. onward) | roughly 99.86¢ to 101.12¢ |
| Weekday peak (morning and afternoon) | roughly 124.60¢ to 217.60¢ |
| Weekends and holidays, daytime | roughly 101¢ to 174.54¢ |
Light vehicles — the class your dispatchers' cars and most pickup-based hot shots fall into — run roughly 50¢ to 108.79¢ per kilometre at weekday peak, roughly 50¢ to 80¢ off-peak, and 50¢ to 87¢ on weekends and holidays.
The pattern to notice: off-peak pricing for heavy vehicles is flat across every zone. Peak pricing is not. That is a deliberate design — the operator is pricing congestion, not distance — and it is what makes departure time the biggest lever you control.
What are the peak hours on the 407?
The 2026 schedule splits the weekday like this:
- Peak periods: 5:00 a.m. to 10:29 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 8:59 p.m.
- Off-peak: 10:30 a.m. to 2:29 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. to 4:59 a.m.
- Weekends and Ontario statutory holidays: priced on a separate, generally lower schedule.
Within the peak window the rate is not a single number — it steps up toward the middle of each rush and back down at the edges. A 5:00 a.m. departure sits meaningfully below a 7:00 a.m. departure in the same zone. The published charts show this hour by hour, and the difference between leaving at 5 a.m. and leaving at 7 a.m. through the central zones is real money on a long run.
There are two genuinely cheap windows for freight: the midday trough from 10:30 a.m. to 2:29 p.m., and everything after 9 p.m. If your operation has any flexibility on appointment times, those are the two you are trying to hit.
What does a full run actually cost?
Highway 407 ETR runs 108 kilometres from the QEW in Burlington to Brock Road in Pickering. Working from the rate bands above, for a tractor-trailer:
| Scenario | Toll estimate |
|---|---|
| Full 108 km, weekday peak, central zones | ~$335 (108 km × ~3.10 + $3.00 trip charge) |
| Full 108 km, weekday off-peak | ~$167 (108 km × 1.5168 + $3.00 trip charge) |
| 40 km hop, weekday peak | ~$127 |
| 40 km hop, weekday off-peak | ~$64 |
Those are estimates for planning, not quotes — your actual charge depends on the specific zones you enter and exit, your direction, and the exact hour you pass each gantry. For a real number on a real routing, run it through the 407 toll calculator, which prices the trip zone by zone.
But the planning takeaway does not need more precision than this: moving a full-length 407 run out of the peak window saves roughly $170 per trip. Run that five days a week and it is over $40,000 a year on a single truck.
Do trucks need a 407 transponder?
Yes — and this is not a preference. Every vehicle over 5,000 kg must carry a valid transponder on Highway 407 ETR. Unlike a car, a truck cannot simply take video billing and pay a modest per-trip premium.
The cost of the transponder is trivial next to the cost of not having one:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Transponder lease, monthly | $5.00 plus tax |
| Transponder lease, annual | $31.50 plus tax |
| Additional transponders, same account | $12.60 per year each, plus tax |
| Replacement (lost or damaged) | $50.00 |
| Account fee, no transponder | $5.00 per month |
And the penalties for running without one:
| Charge | Heavy multiple unit | Heavy single unit | Light |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camera Charge (no transponder) | $60.00 per trip | $60.00 per trip | $5.30 per trip |
| Unrecognizable Plate Charge | $180.00 per trip | $120.00 per trip | $60.00 per trip |
| Trip Toll Charge (every trip) | $3.00 | $2.00 | $1.00 |
A single Camera Charge costs nearly twice the annual transponder lease. If you operate over 5,000 kg and you are being camera-billed, that is not a toll strategy — it is a leak, plus a compliance exposure under the Highway Traffic Act.
The other trap is a transponder that is present but not valid — expired lease, wrong account, or mounted incorrectly so it does not read. It bills exactly like no transponder at all. Worth an annual check across the fleet.
Which zones cost the most?
The 407 is divided into twelve zones, priced independently by direction:
| Zone | From | To |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | QEW | Dundas |
| 2 | Dundas | Neyagawa |
| 3 | Neyagawa | Highway 403 |
| 4 | Highway 403 | Highway 401 |
| 5 | Highway 401 | Highway 410 |
| 6 | Highway 410 | Highway 427 |
| 7 | Highway 427 | Highway 400 |
| 8 | Highway 400 | Yonge |
| 9 | Yonge | Highway 404 |
| 10 | Highway 404 | McCowan |
| 11 | McCowan | York Durham Line |
| 12 | York Durham Line | Brock |
The expensive stretch at peak is the middle — roughly zones 6 through 9, the 410-to-404 corridor across the top of Toronto. That is where the highway does the most work as a 401 bypass, and it is where 407 ETR concentrated its 2026 increases.
Because pricing is directional, the cheap direction and the expensive direction through the same zone at the same hour can differ by a lot. A carrier running a regular lane one way in the morning and back in the evening may be paying peak in both directions without realizing there was a cheaper shape to the day.
What changed for 2026?
407 ETR announced its 2026 schedule in November 2025, effective January 1, 2026. The structure of the change matters more than the headline:
- Increases were concentrated in the central zones that approach congestion during the afternoon rush — up to 34 cents per kilometre for light vehicles in those zones.
- Quieter zones were left unchanged during rush hour.
- The operator characterized the impact on most personal transponder customers as an average monthly increase of about $5.
- A loyalty program was announced for 2026 launch, with points earned and redeemed through the mobile app.
For fleets, the practical read is that the penalty for running the middle of the highway during the afternoon rush went up, while the off-peak and edge-zone options did not. The spread between a well-timed run and a badly timed one widened. Time-of-day routing is worth more in 2026 than it was in 2025.
How carriers should handle 407 tolls
A few things consistently separate carriers who treat the 407 as a manageable line item from those who treat it as an unpleasant surprise on the monthly statement:
Price the toll into the lane, not the month. A full-length peak run is roughly $335. If that lane is quoted without the toll in the cost base, the load is losing money before the truck moves. Feed the toll into your cost per mile the way you feed fuel.
Give dispatch the time-of-day math. The difference between a 3 p.m. and a 9 p.m. departure through the central zones is on the order of $170 on a full run. Dispatchers who know that number will find the flexibility; dispatchers who do not, will not.
Reconcile the statement against your own trip records. Camera Charges, account fees on trucks that should have transponders, and trips billed to the wrong unit are all common and all recoverable if you catch them. This is exactly the kind of reconciliation a TMS should be doing for you — matching toll charges back to the load and the truck that incurred them, so the cost lands on the right lane's P&L.
Check the transponder inventory annually. Expired leases and dead units bill as Camera Charges, at $60 a trip.
The 407 is not inherently expensive. It is variably expensive, by design — and the variability is the part you can actually manage.
Rates and fees in this guide reflect the 407 ETR schedule effective January 1, 2026. Toll schedules change annually, and the per-kilometre figures cited here are the published bands rather than a quote for any specific trip. Confirm current rates with 407 ETR before pricing a lane.