How does OptimÚt calculate which vignette you need?
OptimÚt doesn't just tell you the toll cost — it works out EXACTLY which vignette you'll need, and why. This page explains how it gets there.
What vignette types exist?
Hungary's motorway network can be covered by three kinds of vignette, per the official price list:
- National vignette — daily, 10-day, monthly or annual, valid on the entire national motorway network.
- County annual vignette — valid for a single county, sold only as an annual product (there's no shorter daily/weekly county option).
- Regional vignette — currently just one exists (the M1 corridor), covering several neighbouring counties under one pass.
The most important rule: counties overlap at the border
This is the most commonly misunderstood part, but it's simple: a county vignette doesn't stop exactly at the county line — the entitlement extends into the neighbouring county up to its first motorway junction, so a driver can actually exit the motorway. That means if your route only touches a county for a short stretch — because you're exiting into another, already-covered county — you might not need a separate vignette for it at all.
OptimÚt applies this rule in every calculation — it doesn't just look at which counties your route passes through, it checks which sections your vignettes actually cover.
Why do I get 3 routes?
Every search compares 3 real options:
- the fastest route (typically motorway, needing a vignette),
- a completely toll-free route (no motorway at all),
- and — where it makes sense — an economical middle ground that avoids one or two counties to cut the vignette cost, at the price of a bit of extra time.
The economical option only shows up if the extra time stays within reason (you can set your own limit in the Refine panel) — if a detour would cost too much time, or wouldn't actually save anything on vignettes, OptimÚt simply won't suggest it.
Where do the prices come from?
OptimÚt calculates purely from the officially published, currently valid Hungarian motorway vignette price list (Annex 1 of Decree 45/2020 (XI. 28.) ITM) — no estimated or rounded prices, and no invented data: if there's no official source for something, OptimÚt states the gap rather than guessing.