Sad but true, another NLEX Toll Fee increase effective tomorrow, March 2, 2025

Yes, that’s right, folks. After its announcement on February 27, the NLEX Toll Fees will get a hike beginning tomorrow, March 2, 2025. The Toll Regulatory Board published the advisory about the price adjustment just a few days ago. Now, we bring you a clearer picture of what to expect once you take the North Luzon Expressway, the Connector, and SCTEX. Get your cash money and those RFID tags installed and loaded, ladies and gents!

New and higher NLEX toll fees to be collected starting March 2, 2025

As we can see, it should not come as a surprise; well, at least not that much. The advisory you see above was published on the Toll Regulatory Board’s official social media page just this past February 27, a mere 2 days before the implementation of the new and higher NLEX toll fees. As a backgrounder, though, this hike is not unfounded nor baseless.

Periodic toll rate adjustments were (provisionally) approved as early as 2022, and this year, only half of the 1st tranch of the said adjustments have been collected. To recoup the cost of the 3rd Candaba Viaduct as well as other “overhead” and operational expenses, a rise in toll fees is inevitable, unavoidable.

All that said, the NLEX toll fees will be adjusted by PHP 5.00 in what’s called the Open System and by PHP 0.72 per kilometer in the Closed System. Here is the breakdown and explanation according to the Toll Regulatory Board:

• Open System (Balintawak, Caloocan, Mindanao Ave to North of Marilao), motorists will pay an additional PHP 5.00 for Class 1, PHP 13.00 for Class 2, and PHP 15.00 for Class 3
• Closed System, (North of Marilao to Sta. Ines, Mabalacat City), motorists will pay an additional PHP 52.00 for Class 1, PHP 129.00 for Class 2, and PHP 156.00 for Class 3
• At Subic-Tipo, an additional PHP 7.00 for Class 1, PHP 18.00 for Class 2, and PHP 21.00 for Class 3 will be collected from the motorists
• Those traveling NLEX end to end (Metro Manila to Sta. Ines, Mabalacat City) will pay an additional PHP 57.00 for Class 1, PHP 142.00 for Class 2, and PHP 171.00 for Class 3

It’s not easy having to build, operate, and maintain infrastructures such as highways, tollways, and expressways. There will always be something new to improve and fix, and in this case, it’s only with the increase of the NLEX toll fees that any of these can be done.

We do get a measure of convenience and faster travel times, so let’s take this as a “standard”, that we will wake up one day – another day – with a new announcement that the toll fees we’ve only just gotten used to are going to go up. The only thing that’s permanent is change, indeed, and that includes how much we pay to use everything that is “NLEX”.