“it's really so much easier to just pay it - and quickly,before it doubles.”
— Mumsnet, 10 October 2025
Transport for London PCN — which TfL scheme issued it, and what your 28 days run to
Five TfL schemes, five rulebooks. Your notice says which.
Counted the way the regulations count, where the day of service is day 1. Nothing stored, no email asked for.
To pay, use Transport for London's own service — it is the cheapest thing on this page and it is free to reach: Pay a TfL red route PCN. To challenge it, TfL's own representation page and that costs nothing either. Both read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
A TfL PCN challenge costs nothing at any stage, and neither does the appeal to London Tribunals that follows it. TfL calls the paper a Transport for London penalty charge notice; drivers call it a TfL PCN. Same notice, same 28-day clock.
Paying quickly is often right. But “it” is one of five different schemes with five different rulebooks, and TfL publishes each one on its own page. This page starts from the notice instead: tell us the date printed on it and you get your dates, the scheme router, and the free route TfL runs.
What follows is the part neither of those pages tells you: how the discount is actually counted, what happens to it if you challenge, and what your next four deadlines are.
Which TfL scheme issued this? That is the question no page starts from
TfL publishes each of its schemes on its own page, and the search that brought you here is answered by those pages down to the first independent result. Not one of them starts from the notice in your hand. Five schemes, five rulebooks, and the code printed on your notice tells you which:
If your vehicle is involved in a contravention on the red route, you'll be sent a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for £160. ... If you pay this within 14 or 21 days (it will say on the PCN), the amount will be reduced to £80.
— TfL's own page for this scheme, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
Penalty charge £180 / If paid within 14 days £90 / Charge Certificate £270
— TfL's own page for this scheme, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
Penalty charge £180 / If paid within 14 days £90
— TfL's own page for this scheme, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
£500, if paid within 14 days £250 / £1000, if paid within 14 days £500 / £2000, if paid within 14 days £1000
— TfL's own page for this scheme, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
Penalty charge £550, if paid within 14 days £275
— TfL's own page for this scheme, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
The discount period every one of those schemes applies is the statutory one: the Department for Transport's Statutory guidance for local authorities in England on civil enforcement of parking contraventions, read at source Thu, 20 August 2026, states it plainly: “Where the enforcement authority receives full payment within 14 days of the service of the PCN, it must accept the discounted amount.”
Every amount above is quoted from TfL's own page for that scheme, linked beside it, and read at source on the date shown. They are not the same amount and they are not close to each other — which is why “a TfL PCN” is not one thing, and why the figure printed on your own notice tells you which scheme you are in faster than any guide can. The 28-day representation clock is common to them; the grounds are not.
The statutory clock, from the regulation rather than from folklore
The discount runs to “the applicable date”, and the regulations define it in one sentence:
““the applicable date” means— (a) in the case of a penalty charge notice served by virtue of regulation 10(2)(a), the last day of the period of 21 days beginning with the date on which the notice is served; (b) in the case of any other notice, the last day of the period of 14 days beginning with the date on which the notice is served.”
— The Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (England) General Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/71) — checked 27/08/2026
“Beginning with the date on which the notice is served” means the day of service is day 1. A PCN served on 2 March reaches day 14 on 15 March — not 16 March. Your notice prints the exact date; where it differs from the one computed above, the notice is the authority. Read at legislation.gov.uk on Wed, 9 September 2026.
How to challenge it, and where a challenge actually goes
A written challenge, free. Send it in writing so there is a record, quote the PCN reference, and attach photographs and any receipt. This is the only challenge the statutory guidance asks the council to consider re-offering the discount after rejecting — and, as above, that is a recommendation to them and not a right you hold.
Formal representations. Once a Notice to Owner is served on the registered keeper, representations must be made within 28 days beginning with the date it was served, on the statutory grounds. Free, at the full charge. A postal camera PCN skips this stage and takes representations directly.
An independent adjudicator, free. A London PCN is heard by London Tribunals (Environment and Traffic Adjudicators); outside London, by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. 28 days beginning with the date of service of the Notice of Rejection, and the adjudicator may allow longer. The adjudicator's decision binds the council.
What it costs to ignore it
Nothing happens quickly, and then several things happen at once. Past the discount window the charge is payable in full. Past the representations stage the council may serve a Charge Certificate, which increases the penalty by 50%, and then register it as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre — after which an order for recovery and, if that is not answered, enforcement agents' fees can be added on top. Where those notices did not reach you, the TEC witness-statement route (form TE9, with TE7 if you are out of time) exists for exactly that situation. Ignoring a PCN is the one route with no free stage in it.
What Transport for London itself publishes
Every line in this section comes from Transport for London's own website, with the address it came from and the day we read it. Nothing here is summarised from anywhere else, and nothing is a figure we worked out. The lines in quotation marks are quotations, word for word. 2 lines are not — they are a list, an address or a charges table set as prose by us, and each says so underneath.
“If your vehicle is involved in a contravention on the red route, you'll be sent a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for £160. You need to pay this within 28 days. If you pay this within 14 or 21 days (it will say on the PCN), the amount will be reduced to £80.”
— quoted from Transport for London, its own website, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
For bus lanes, box junctions, banned turns and parking (CCTV) PCNs — Within 28 days of receiving your PCN.
— transcribed from Transport for London's own page — the page it is on, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
You can lodge an online or written appeal with London Tribunals within 28 days of receiving a Notice of Rejection letter from us. ... London Tribunals, PO Box 460, Hartlepool, TS24 4JE
— transcribed from Transport for London's own page — the page it is on, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
“You have 28 days from the date of service of your PCN to either: Pay the penalty or Challenge the PCN... If you pay within 14 days of the date of service you will receive a 50% discount”
— quoted from Transport for London, its own website, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
“you have 28 days from the date of service of the PCN to get your representation to us”
— quoted from Transport for London, its own website, read at source Wed, 9 September 2026.
What this page does not tell you, and why
We publish what we have read at source and nothing else. These are the things we looked for on Transport for London's own website and did not find, written down rather than filled in:
- A single TfL page that starts from the notice in your hand. TfL publishes each scheme separately and each has its own charge and its own rulebook — which is the gap this page exists to fill, and the reason the router above comes before anything else.
Council PCN or private parking charge? The routes never touch
The words on the paper decide. “Penalty Charge Notice” is a statutory penalty from a council or TfL — this page. “Parking Charge Notice” is a private company's invoice, appealed to the operator and then to POPLA or the IAS: look the operator up among the 217 we hold, or use the private parking deadline calculator.
Want the challenge written for you? The letter is free, on screen and as a download. No payment, no account, no email address.
Preview my TfL challenge — freeQuestions people ask
These are the questions Google publishes underneath the search this page is written for, measured on 9 and 10 September 2026. Each one is answered here in a sentence, and where we hold no source for an answer the sentence says so instead of guessing.
How can I appeal a TfL penalty charge notice?
You appeal a TfL penalty charge notice by making representations to Transport for London first, and then free to London Tribunals within 28 days if TfL rejects them.
How to win a PCN appeal?
To win a PCN appeal, answer the contravention on its own terms — the signs and lines at that location, the timing on the camera evidence, the loading or blue badge exemption you relied on — and make the representations in writing inside the statutory window.
How long does it take for a TfL penalty fare appeal response?
We have not verified this yet. We do not know how long a TfL penalty fare appeal response takes, because TfL publishes no such figure — and a penalty fare is in any case a different thing from the road-traffic penalty charge notice this page is about; the fixed date on a TfL PCN is the 28 days you get to reach London Tribunals after a rejection.
What's the best excuse to appeal a parking ticket?
There is no best excuse to appeal a parking ticket: an adjudicator decides on the statutory grounds and the evidence, so the signs, the lines, the exemption and the camera timings are what carry an appeal, not the reason you were there.
What happens if I don't pay a TfL fine?
What happens if you don't pay a TfL fine is fixed by statute rather than left to TfL: the charge rises after 28 days, a notice to owner follows, and an unpaid charge order can be registered at the Traffic Enforcement Centre and passed to enforcement agents.
How can I check if I have any fines on my car?
To check whether you have fines on your car you have to ask each issuer separately — councils and TfL each hold their own PCN records against the registration, and private operators hold theirs — because there is no single national register of parking charges.
Is a TfL fine a criminal record?
A TfL fine is not a criminal record: a penalty charge notice is a civil penalty under road traffic law, decided by an adjudicator rather than a magistrate, and it appears on no criminal record.
How much is a TfL penalty charge?
We have not verified this yet. We do not publish TfL penalty charge amounts because they are set by charging orders and vary by contravention; the figure on your notice is the authority, and a windscreen PCN carries a 50% discount for 14 days.
All council PCN pages → · The full discount calculator →
Sources named above: Civil Enforcement of Road Traffic Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/576)