Registration charges for the majority of heavy vehicles operating on Australian roads with a gross vehicle mass (GVM) greater than 4.5t are designed to recover the cost allocated to heavy vehicles of building, maintaining and operating the road network and include:
registration charges for heavy vehicles administered and collected by state and territory governments
the Road User Charge (RUC) levied on fuel used by heavy vehicles, administered and collected by the Australian Government.
The Transport and Infrastructure Council (the council), a forum of ministers from the Australian, state and territory governments periodically determines the process to calculate charges that are necessary to be applied to heavy vehicles.
The process known as a Heavy Vehicle Charges Determination (determination) sets out a base set of heavy vehicle charges and includes an Annual Adjustment methodology, which calculates the amount that charges should be adjusted each year to maintain cost recovery.
The council considers advice from the National Transport Commission (NTC), an independent transport body.
Not all jurisdictions have adopted consistent heavy vehicle charges.