Best toll passes for driving across the United States (2024)

The United States has a wide variety of disjoint tolling programs. This can make driving around on toll roads difficult when you travel to different states.

I often rent a car in the East Coast and find myself driving on toll roads. While I could use the rental car company’s provided toll transponder, its use is often accompanied by a hefty administrative fee, typically charged each day you use it. Using my own toll transponder allows me to avoid these fees.

Which toll transponders do I use when I travel? Read on to find out.

The networks

There have been two major interstate networks of interoperable tolling agencies that have formed.

One of the networks does not officially have a name, but it’s run by a consortium called the Central United States Interoperability Partners (CUSIOP), which is coordinated by the North Texas Tollway Authority and includes all toll authorities in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Each of these agencies’ toll passes are accepted on each other’s toll roads seamlessly.

However, the largest network in the United States is called E-ZPass. Its network of 20 states allows the usage of toll roads in all of those states with just one pass. E-ZPass is not operated by one agency; it is a consortium of over two dozen state-run toll authorities. (Some states have more than one authority issuing E-ZPasses.)

With an E-ZPass, you can drive from Maine to Illinois to Florida, all while using just one E-ZPass toll transponder. Given the number of toll roads in the East Coast, this seamlessness is very important!

What’s the best way to get a toll transponder that works everywhere?

Since there are over two dozen agencies issuing toll transponders that can be used on the E-ZPass network, it’s definitely in your interest to find the program that issues the best deal. There is no requirement to use the E-ZPass agency of the state where you reside or where you intend to drive the most.

There are guides to compare each of the E-ZPass agencies, but to save you some time, I’ll cut to the chase: I found the best E-ZPass agency to be E-ZPass Delaware, which is operated by the Delaware Department of Transportation. Unlike half of E-ZPass agencies, they do not impose an annual fee. Among the E-ZPass agencies that do not have an annual fee, E-ZPass Delaware has the lowest combined fees for minimum balance ($25) and transponder fee ($15).

Feel free to do your own comparisons, but the only other toll passes I find to be competitive are Florida’s SunPass Pro and E-PASS Uni. As of a few years ago, the SunPass Pro became perhaps the most interoperable toll transponder in the United States. The SunPass Pro is interoperable on all E-ZPass roads and bridges. All Florida toll passes, even non-Pro versions of the SunPass, are also interoperable in most CUSIOP tollways: Kansas, Oklahoma, North Texas (on NTTA toll roads), and some newer toll roads in the Austin, TX area, whereas E-ZPass offers no such interoperability.

Why don’t I own a SunPass, then? There are two reasons.

• I purchased my E-ZPass before SunPass became interoperable with CUSIOP tollways.
• I’m from Dallas, so I already have an NTTA TollTag. Buying a SunPass would spell trouble for my car if I had it mounted with my TollTag simultaneously in Texas! And because SunPass can’t be used on HCTRA and some CTRMA toll roads in Texas, it’s best for me to keep my TollTag when I drive in Texas.

If you think a SunPass would be the right move for you because you’ll find yourself driving in Dallas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, then go ahead and buy one. However, if you don’t think that’ll be necessary, read on to learn more about signing up for an E-ZPass from Delaware!

Obtaining your Delaware E-ZPass

It’s easy to sign up. Just visit ezpassde.com and sign up online. You don’t need to ever step foot in Delaware; they ship your transponder to your physical address. (I have not been to Delaware since 2017 but I created this account in 2021. As of 2024, this has not caused any issues for me.)

When you first sign up, you will need to order a transponder for $15. You may be asked to put in an initial car license plate. Just add the car you own, or if you don’t own a car, use a friend’s license plate info. You can move this transponder around multiple vehicles and add different plates later.

Their website has a dated user interface, but it works just fine.

I also bought an E-ZPass toll transponder holder from Amazon. It costs less than $10 and it has suction cups that allow for easy attaching to and detaching from a rental vehicle. This way, you don’t have to bother with adhering and removing Velcro stripes each time to your new rental vehicle.

Using your Delaware E-ZPass

Whenever I rent a car, I get the license plate number, log on to ezpassde.com, and register the rental car’s license plate on their web portal before mounting the toll transponder to my car and getting onto a tollway. This is important in case your transponder isn’t read properly and the systems have difficulty matching a scanned license plate to your account.

Be sure to mount your E-ZPass in the correct spot of your car. I like to mount it about 3 inches away from the mount of the rear-view mirror, on the passenger side. If you sit in the driver’s seat, the rear-view mirror should be obscuring the view of the E-ZPass. This way, you can’t see it, but the toll road’s antenna sure will be able to!

Toll transactions from agencies outside of Delaware typically take 3 days to post. Your balance is unaffected until the transactions actually post.

Once your balance reaches under $10, your account is automatically replenished with a charge of $25 to your credit card.

Replenishment info, account balances, and toll transactions are all accessible at acct.ezpassde.com. As you can see, I can quickly view a comprehensive record of my recent toll transactions from the past 12 months while driving in Northern Virginia and Central Florida.

Closing thoughts

Renting a car and driving on the East Coast doesn’t have to be difficult. Using either an E-ZPass from Delaware or a Florida SunPass Pro will allow you to use one single transponder to go everywhere without having to pay an annual account maintenance fee.