FOI release

Dart Charge Accounts

Case reference FOI2025/00698

Received 10 April 2025

Published 3 July 2025

Request

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from National Highways. Please can you provide me with:

  1. How many Dart Charge accounts are marked as ‘dormant’ solely due to inactivity as of 5 April 2025?

  2. How many accounts marked as dormant held credit as of 5 April 2025?

  3. How much credit in total is left in dormant accounts as of 5 April 2025?

  4. What was the average monetary value of the credit held in dormant accounts as of 5 April 2025?

  5. How many people requested to close an account between 6 April 2024 and 5 April 2025?

  6. How many people were you unable to refund after their account was closed? E.g. because their financial details weren’t up to date.

Response

An active account may become dormant if there has been no activity (such as a payment or crossing) for 12 months, if all vehicles linked to the account are removed, or if the account balance becomes negative.

In such cases, we will contact customers through their preferred communication method (as specified in their profile) to notify them of the situation. Customers are asked to take action within 90 days to prevent account closure. Actions may include adding funds, making a crossing, or simply informing us that they wish to keep their account open. Detailed instructions are included in the communication.

If the account is closed, customers will automatically receive a refund to their original payment method. If this is not possible, a cheque will be issued instead.

Customers who suspect their account is dormant but have credit remaining can reach out to request a refund. We aim to make contacting us as easy and stress-free as possible. We offer multiple contact options to suit everyone’s needs, including a telephone service available daily from 8am to 8pm (with wait times typically under a minute), 24/7 access to accounts on our website, and options to contact us via email or post.

Information provided:

Please note that it is not possible to backtrack to the 5th of April because of movements between statuses, therefore the data for questions 1 to 4 is pertinent to the date on which it was extracted – which in this case is the 21st of April 2025.

1) 111,828 accounts were in a dormant status. We cannot isolate accounts that are dormant solely due to inactivity, as this is not the sole reason for an account having this status.

2) As of 21 April 2025, 6,486 dormant accounts held credit.

3) £42,365.80.

4) Over the total dormant accounts, the average credit on customer accounts is £0.32.

5) Between the period 6 April 2024 and 5 April 2025, we received 26,227 requests to close an account.

6) None, as refunds were issued in all cases. To clarify, if a refund cannot be processed to the original payment card (for example, if the card has expired), a cheque will be issued to the customer’s registered address or the address provided during the refund request.

Documents

There are no documents for this release.

This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.

You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.