Nobody plans to ask about money while a recovery truck is hooking up their car. Most drivers only find out what a tow costs when the driver is already at the kerb, and by then it is hard to say no. This page is meant to change that. The car towing cost calculator UK drivers can use above gives you a realistic price before you ring anyone, and the guide below explains what sits behind the number so you can spot a quote that looks wrong.

Here is the short version of how much it costs to tow a car in the UK. For an ordinary car on a weekday, recovery firms usually charge a call-out fee between £75 and £150, then roughly £1 to £3 for every mile after the first few. Our typical figure for a 25-mile tow is £130. Nights, weekends, London, vans and awkward recoveries push that up. The same tool also works as a car recovery cost calculator UK wide, so use it for a quick check whether you are the one being towed, helping a relative, or pricing a job for a customer.

How to use this car towing cost calculator

The towing cost calculator has two screens. On the first you describe the job, and on the second it shows what the job should cost. Everything runs in your browser, so you can try as many combinations as you like. Here is what each control does and why it is there.

Tow distance

Type the miles into the box, drag the slider, or tap one of the quick buttons for 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 or 200 miles. The box accepts anything from 1 to 1,000 miles. The slider stops at 200 because most recoveries are shorter than that. Use the distance from where the car is to where it will end up, whether that is your home or a garage. Some firms also count the miles their truck drives to reach you, so if a quote comes out higher than ours, ask whether those miles are in the price.

Vehicle

Pick the closest of six options. Size and weight decide which truck is needed, so the price shifts a little. A small car is the base rate, a family car adds 5%, an SUV or 4x4 adds 20%, a van adds 35%, an electric car adds 15% and a motorbike takes 15% off. Choosing Electric also switches the flatbed charge on automatically, because electric cars are normally carried rather than towed.

When do you need it?

Weekday is the base rate. Night adds 25% and a weekend or bank holiday adds 35%. Choose Night for anything outside normal working hours, since that is when many firms apply out-of-hours rates.

Where are you?

Most of the UK is the base rate, the South East adds 10% and London adds 25%. The area and time uplifts stack, so a weekend recovery in London adds about 69% to the base figure. That is usually the single biggest jump you will see in the tool.

Anything extra?

Four tiles switch on extra charges, and you can pick as many as apply. Each is a flat amount on the typical estimate.

• Flatbed (£25): the car is carried on a platform. Needed for electric cars, cars that will not roll, and some automatics and four-wheel-drive models.
• Motorway (£30): the breakdown happened on a motorway or fast road, where the recovery has to be quick and set up safely.
• Winch out (£40): the car has to be pulled out of a ditch, a muddy field, a ramp or anywhere it cannot be driven onto the truck.
• No keys (£35): lost keys, a locked steering column or seized wheels, so the car cannot be moved the usual way and needs extra kit.

Storage days

Use the plus and minus buttons if the car will sit in the recovery yard before it is collected. Each day adds £20 on the typical estimate, £15 on the low one and £30 on the high one. Storage is added after the other uplifts, so night, weekend or London rates do not multiply it.

Quote you got

This box is optional. If a firm has already given you a price, type it in. After you calculate, the tool tells you whether the quote looks lower than usual, fair, on the high side or above the usual range, and drops a yellow marker for your quote onto the price bar. A quote counts as lower than usual if it is below about 85% of our low figure. It is fair up to 10% above our typical figure, on the high side up to our high figure, and above the usual range beyond that.

Breakdown cover

Flip this switch if you have a policy. It does not change the price, because a recovery firm charges the same rate whoever ends up paying. What it does is add a reminder that many policies include a local tow of around 10 miles, while longer tows usually need national recovery cover. Your own policy wording has the real limit.

Calculate and read your result

Press Calculate towing cost. A truck drives onto the screen towing a car while the total counts up. Then:

• The large figure is the typical price for your job.
• The coloured bar runs from the low estimate on the left to the high estimate on the right. A white marker shows the typical price and, if you entered a quote, a yellow marker shows where it falls.
• The chips under the bar repeat your choices. On larger screens three small panels also show the price per mile overall, how many miles are actually charged, and either your quote or the gap between low and high.
• The panel called What makes up the typical price lists each part, from call-out to storage, with a bar for each so you can see what costs the most.

The four buttons and the map search

• Edit inputs takes you back to the first screen with your choices still in place.
• See working opens the full sum line by line, with a table of the low, typical and high rates used.
• Copy estimate copies a one-line summary you can paste into a message.
• Reset clears everything back to the starting values.

Under the buttons, Find recovery near you takes a postcode or town and opens a map search for vehicle recovery in a new tab. It sends nothing until you press Search.

How much does it cost to tow a car in the UK?

The average cost of towing a car in the UK depends mostly on distance. For a small car on a weekday, a short local tow costs about £100 and the price climbs by roughly £1.50 for every mile once you pass the first five. Published guides give a wide spread. Independent operators commonly quote a call-out fee of £75 to £150 plus £1 to £3 a mile, which is the range behind our low and high figures. For a ten-mile tow, prices of roughly £90 to £165 are often quoted, and our range for ten miles is £75 to £165.

Typical car towing cost by distance

Small car, weekday daytime, rest of the UK, no extras.

Dark bar: typical price. Light bar: the high end of the range for the same distance.

Look at how quickly the range opens up. A 5-mile tow is almost always just the call-out, so the estimates run from £75 to £150. By 200 miles the gap between the cheapest and dearest estimate is £470, which is why a long-distance recovery is the job where it really pays to get three quotes.

How car recovery cost is worked out

A recovery quote is usually built from a few simple parts. The calculator follows the same order, which is also the order shown in See working.

• Call-out fee. This pays for the truck, the driver and getting out to you. It also covers the first few miles. We use £100 typical, £75 low and £150 high, with 5 miles included on the typical and high estimates and 10 on the low one.
• Mileage. Every mile beyond the included distance is charged at £1.50 on the typical estimate, £1.00 on the low one and £3.00 on the high one.
• Vehicle adjustment. The percentage for your vehicle is applied to the call-out and mileage added together.
• Extras. Flatbed, motorway, winching and no-keys charges are added as flat amounts, scaled to 80% of the typical figure on the low estimate and 130% on the high one.
• Time and area. The night, weekend and region percentages multiply everything above.
• Storage. Daily yard charges are added last and are not multiplied.

Each line is rounded to the nearest pound and the total is the exact sum of the lines, so the numbers always add up. Here is a busy job to show it working: a van towed 40 miles on a weekend in London after a motorway breakdown.

That single job lands at £400. The weekend and London uplift is the largest slice, bigger than the call-out itself, which is why timing and location matter so much when a tow can wait.

Car recovery cost per mile in the UK

The towing cost per mile in the UK usually sits between £1 and £3 once the included miles are used up, and £1.50 is a fair middle figure. Rural areas and out-of-hours jobs tend to sit towards the top. Some firms also change the rate for journeys over about 50 miles, so it is worth asking whether the mile rate stays the same all the way.

The figure that surprises people is the price per mile overall. Because the call-out is spread across the whole journey, short tows look expensive per mile and long tows look cheap.

Typical estimate, small car, weekday daytime, rest of the UK.

A 10-mile tow works out at about £10.80 a mile, while a 200-mile tow is just under £2 a mile. If you are choosing between a nearby garage and a specialist further away, the extra miles are usually cheaper than they look, but they still add up.

What changes the price of a tow

Vehicle type

Heavier and taller vehicles need bigger trucks and more careful loading, so the operator charges more. Bikes are light and quick to load, so they cost a little less.

25-mile weekday tow, rest of the UK. The electric figure includes the flatbed charge.

Time and area

Out-of-hours work is harder to staff and busy cities are slower to work in, so firms charge more for both. The table shows the same 25-mile small car job in different situations.

Small car, 25 miles, no extras. The area and time uplifts multiply together.

Extras and storage

Extras are flat charges added before the time and area uplift. They are listed here before any uplift is applied.

Storage is charged per 24 hours and is not uplifted.

Flatbed towing and motorway recovery

Flatbed towing cost in the UK

A flatbed carries the whole car on a platform, so no wheels touch the road. That makes it the safest choice for electric cars, low or damaged cars and anything that will not roll freely. The flatbed towing cost UK drivers pay is often a little higher than a standard tow, and our estimate adds £25 on the typical figure (£20 to £33 across the range). Some firms list it as a supplement and others fold it into the mile rate, so ask how it appears on your quote.

Cost of motorway recovery in the UK

Motorway breakdowns are urgent and need proper warning equipment, so the cost of motorway recovery in the UK is normally higher than the same job on a quiet road. The calculator adds £30 on the typical estimate. If the police or traffic officers arrange the recovery to a safe place, the operator and the charges can differ from a firm you chose yourself, so find out who is paying before the car is moved.

Safety comes first. If you break down on a motorway, get everyone out through the left-hand doors, wait behind the barrier and call for help from there. Never try to repair the car on the carriageway.

Electric car and van towing costs

Electric car towing cost in the UK

The electric car towing cost UK owners face is higher than for a petrol or diesel car for one main reason: most electric cars need to be loaded onto a flatbed instead of being towed on their wheels. Manufacturers usually say how their car should be moved in the handbook, so tell the operator you are driving an electric model when you call. In our model that means 15% for the vehicle plus the flatbed charge, which makes a 25-mile weekday tow £174 against £130 for a small car. Once the car is back on the road, our EV charging cost calculator helps you work out what home and public charging will cost.

Cost to tow a van in the UK

The cost to tow a van in the UK is higher because a van is bigger and heavier, and some need a larger truck. We add 35% to the call-out and mileage, which gives £176 for a 25-mile weekday job. Tell the firm the van's weight, height and whether it is loaded. A van full of tools can weigh far more than the same van empty, and a surprise on the day usually means a higher bill.

Towing without breakdown cover

How much does it cost to tow a car without breakdown cover?

If you have no policy, you pay the operator's full commercial rate. That is the rate this calculator estimates, so it also answers how much a tow truck costs without cover in the UK: usually around £100 for a short local job and £130 for 25 miles on a weekday, then more at night or at the weekend. Some national providers will rescue non-members for a one-off fee, but you pay for the job in full.

Joining a provider after the car has failed rarely solves the problem. Breakdowns that happened before the policy started are normally excluded, and so are faults you already knew about.

Does breakdown cover include towing?

Usually yes, within limits. Basic policies tow the car to a local garage if it cannot be fixed at the roadside, typically up to about 10 miles. National recovery cover removes that distance limit and takes the car to your home or another UK address. Accident recovery is treated differently by different policies, so do not assume it is included.

Limits vary by provider and policy level. Always check your own policy wording.

Worked examples

These six jobs were run through the calculator. The range shows the low and high estimates either side of the typical price.

• Short local tow: small car, 10 miles, weekday, rest of the UK.
• Motorbike run: motorbike, 15 miles, weekday, rest of the UK.
• Car plus storage: small car, 25 miles, weekday, three days in the yard.
• Overnight SUV: SUV, 50 miles, night, flatbed needed.
• Electric, South East: electric car, 60 miles, weekday, South East (flatbed included).
• Weekend London van: van, 40 miles, weekend, London, motorway.

The first and last examples show why the same call-out can lead to totally different bills. The short local tow is one of the cheapest jobs you can book. The weekend London van costs nearly four times as much, and most of the difference comes from timing, location and vehicle size rather than distance.

How to check a recovery quote is fair

Put your quote into the calculator and see where it lands on the bar. If it is above the high figure, do not panic; check these points first.

• Is it a total or a rate? A call-out fee on its own is not a quote. Ask for the full price to the destination you have chosen.
• Does it include VAT? Business operators often quote without it. The UK VAT calculator adds or removes the 20% so you can compare like with like.
• Which miles are counted? Ask whether the miles the truck drives to reach you are charged as well as the tow itself.
• Are extras listed? Flatbed, motorway, winching and waiting time should be named, not hidden inside one figure.
• What happens to storage? If the car goes to a yard, find out the daily rate and from when it starts.
• How do you pay? Ask whether they take card at the roadside before the car is lifted.

Ways to keep the bill down

• Ring two or three firms for any tow over about 25 miles. It takes ten minutes and the spread can be large.
• Choose the nearest sensible destination. Mileage is the part of the bill you can control most easily.
• If the car is safe where it is and can wait, a weekday daytime tow is cheaper than an evening or weekend one. Never leave a car somewhere dangerous to save money.
• Have the details ready when you call: registration, make and model, whether it is automatic or four-wheel drive, whether the wheels turn, and exactly where the car is. Accurate information means fewer surprises on arrival.
• Move the car out of the yard quickly. Daily storage charges add up faster than most people expect.
• Ask for an arrival window, and if you are planning the onward journey, our estimated time of arrival calculator helps you work out how long the drive to the garage will take.
• Buy breakdown cover before you need it. For anyone who drives regularly, a policy usually pays for itself the first time the car is towed.

What this calculator can and cannot tell you

Towing prices in the UK are not set by law, so no calculator can promise what a particular firm will charge. This tool gives you a sensible range based on the call-out and mileage structure that independent recovery operators commonly use, which is enough to tell whether a quote is cheap, normal or expensive. It cannot see your exact location, the condition of your car or how busy local operators are on the day.

It also does not estimate removals ordered by the police or a council. Those are set under separate rules and are charged differently from a recovery you book yourself.

Frequently asked questions

Add this tool to your website

Want the towing cost calculator on your own site? Copy the code below and paste it into the HTML of your page. The calculator will appear where you place it and is free to use.

Click Copy code, then paste it into your page's HTML where you want the calculator to appear.