If you’re a newcomer, don’t use Google Maps’ “avoid tolls” option. It’s already a no-toll route, so the app will just send you on a country lane detour through Barking, where a local will wave you at with a bag of chips.
Just head straight for the tunnel, accept your fate, and turn up the radio. You will not be charged. But you will be changed—forever.
The final verdict
So, do you have to pay for the Blackwall Tunnel? Nope. It’s free, like the air you’ll be breathing inside it, which is about 30% recycled exhaust fumes from 1998.
Just remember: if your car is ULEZ-compliant, you’re golden. If not, prepare to be financially and spiritually drained. But hey—at least the tunnel doesn’t have a pay-per-minute system.
Not yet, anyway. Don’t give them ideas, mate.
