Darb toll gates for companies: 6 gates and an AED 4 charge that enters every trip cost

Darb toll gates in Abu Dhabi charge AED 4 per crossing during charged windows, and the network grew from 4 to 6 gates on 4 May 2026 with the addition of Ghantoot on the E11 and Al Qurm, both charging around the clock. Company accounts are managed on darb.itc.gov.ae, and for any fleet running between Dubai and Abu Dhabi the toll is now a recurring line in every trip’s cost.

Key takeaways

• The charge is AED 4 per crossing during charged windows on the four bridge gates onto Abu Dhabi island, with crossings free outside the windows and on Sundays and official holidays (darb.itc.gov.ae; coverage reviewed 21 August 2026).
• The network expanded from 4 to 6 gates on 4 May 2026, and the Ghantoot (E11) and Al Qurm gates charge AED 4 around the clock, with no windows and no Sunday exemption (press coverage of the expansion, May 2026).
• The morning window on the bridge gates is consistently documented at 7:00-9:00 am, Monday to Saturday, while sources disagree on the evening window, quoting 3:00-7:00 pm versus 5:00-7:00 pm; the deciding reference is darb.itc.gov.ae (source review, August 2026).
• For comparison, Dubai’s Salik has charged AED 6.30 per peak crossing and AED 4.20 off-peak including 5% VAT since 1 June 2026, after variable pricing arrived on 31 January 2025 (Salik announcements via press, 2026).
• A Dubai to Abu Dhabi round trip on the E11 now carries tolls in both directions: AED 8 at the Ghantoot gate alone, before any Salik gate on the Dubai side (illustrative calculation below).
• At August 2026 fuel prices, with diesel at AED 3.80/L (Fuel Price Committee, August 2026), AED 20.60 of tolls on one round trip equals about 5.4 litres of diesel, a small line that repeats every working day.

How much is a Darb crossing and when is it charged?

AED 4 per crossing, a flat rate with no peak multiplier. On the four bridge gates onto Abu Dhabi island the charge applies during charged windows, Monday to Saturday only, and crossings are free outside the windows and on Sundays and official holidays. On the Ghantoot and Al Qurm gates added in 2026, the charge applies around the clock, every day.

One point the internet guides skate over, so let us say it plainly: the 7:00-9:00 am morning window is consistently documented across the sources we reviewed in August 2026, but the evening window is not, with circulating sources quoting 3:00-7:00 pm and others 5:00-7:00 pm. We will not pick a number for you that we could not pin to an official source; the authoritative schedule is whatever darb.itc.gov.ae publishes, and any fleet building trip scheduling around the evening window should take it from there, not from a blog, including this one.

And the caps? Press reports indicate the daily and monthly caps for private vehicles were removed in September 2025, which we could not verify at regulator tier as of 21 August 2026. What matters more for the reader of this guide is that those caps applied to private vehicles in the first place; the safe assumption for a commercial fleet is that every chargeable crossing bills in full, and that toll cost scales linearly with every pass through a gate.

How many Darb gates are there after the 4 May 2026 expansion?

Six. The system launched with four gates on the bridges onto Abu Dhabi island, and on 4 May 2026 two were added: Ghantoot on the E11 and Al Qurm, per press coverage of the expansion (May 2026). The authoritative gate map, with exact locations, is published on darb.itc.gov.ae.

The difference between the two groups is not just location but the charging rules themselves. The four bridge gates run on window logic: a charge inside the window, free crossings outside it and on Sundays and holidays. Ghantoot and Al Qurm charge AED 4 around the clock, seven days a week, so there is no window to schedule around and no free Sunday. For a fleet operator this means the “move the trucks outside toll hours” rule that used to zero out the Darb line now works only on the bridge gates.

This is also the point at which the toll changes character in the accounts. While charging was confined to avoidable windows, Darb could be treated as an incidental expense. After the expansion, any regular route through Ghantoot or Al Qurm pays every time, which makes the toll a fixed-frequency line in trip cost, exactly like fuel, if far smaller.

What do the Ghantoot and Al Qurm gates mean for inter-emirate fleets?

That the Dubai-Abu Dhabi corridor itself is now tolled from both sides. Ghantoot sits on the E11, the artery carrying most truck and commercial traffic between the two emirates, and its charge runs around the clock, so the night run that used to cross free now pays AED 4 in each direction just like the midday one.

If you schedule a fleet, count it as it is: a vehicle covering the corridor out and back pays AED 8 at Ghantoot alone every working day, regardless of timing. Add whatever Salik gates your route crosses on the Dubai side, each billing AED 6.30 at peak or AED 4.20 off-peak including VAT since 1 June 2026. The individual charge is small, but multiplied by two directions, by working days, and by fleet size it produces a monthly figure that deserves its own line in reporting; the full arithmetic is in the next section.

The one scheduling lever left is the bridge gates: entering the island outside the windows and on Sundays is still free there. So if your work is inside Abu Dhabi itself, timing trips around the windows still genuinely saves money; if your work is crossing between the emirates on the E11, the era of saving by timing is over on that route.

How do you register your company for Darb?

Through darb.itc.gov.ae, the Integrated Transport Centre (Abu Dhabi Mobility) platform the system runs on; that is where accounts are created and managed, vehicles linked, and charges tracked. We will not print a step-by-step registration walkthrough here, because we could not verify one against an official source as of August 2026, and guides that invent portal steps go stale silently and then mislead whoever follows them; go to the platform directly and confirm the current company-account route there.

What we can say with confidence is what the registration should produce, whatever its steps: every vehicle plate in your fleet linked to the company account rather than to individuals’ accounts, a balance or payment method that does not allow dues to accumulate silently, and a toll statement you can download regularly. The statement is the part that matters for this guide, because it is the source that turns Darb from one aggregate number at month-end into a line that can be allocated to vehicles and trips.

And one operating rule ahead of all of it: register before the first chargeable crossing, not after. Platforms and channels change, and verifying the company account’s standing with the ITC is always cheaper than untangling late dues across an entire fleet.

How much do tolls add to a Dubai to Abu Dhabi trip?

Here is the arithmetic, every figure of it illustrative and dependent on your route and timing. A round trip on the E11 pays AED 4 in each direction at the Ghantoot gate, AED 8 guaranteed whatever the hour. If your route crosses one Salik gate on the Dubai side at peak in both directions, add AED 6.30 twice, AED 12.60. Illustrative total: AED 20.60 for one round trip.

The number looks small until you multiply it by the operating rhythm. A vehicle doing that run 22 working days a month accumulates about AED 453 monthly in tolls alone, and a ten-vehicle fleet on the same route clears AED 4,500 a month, all from a line most fleets only ever see aggregated under “other expenses”. For scale: AED 20.60 equals about 5.4 litres of diesel at the August 2026 price of AED 3.80/L (Fuel Price Committee), and the current month’s prices are always on the fuel prices page.

A second example from inside Abu Dhabi, also illustrative: a vehicle entering the island through a bridge gate inside the 7:00-9:00 am window on 26 working days pays AED 104 a month for the morning entry alone, and thirty vehicles on the same rhythm pay AED 3,120. Fuel remains the far larger trip line, with benchmarks in the GCC truck fuel consumption guide, but tolls are the line that doubles on a single routing decision without anyone noticing.

How does Darb compare with Salik for a two-emirate fleet?

They are two systems with two different logics, and a fleet crossing between them pays both in the same day. Darb in Abu Dhabi is a flat AED 4 per crossing, governed by windows on the bridge gates and running around the clock at Ghantoot and Al Qurm. Salik in Dubai has been variably priced since 31 January 2025, with a peak and an off-peak rate, and since 5% VAT was applied on 1 June 2026 charges AED 6.30 per peak crossing and AED 4.20 off-peak, across 10 gates (Salik announcements via press, 2026).

	Darb (Abu Dhabi)	Salik (Dubai)
Charge	Flat AED 4 per crossing	AED 6.30 peak / 4.20 off-peak incl. VAT
Timing logic	Windows on bridge gates; Ghantoot and Al Qurm 24/7	Peak 06:00-10:00 and 16:00-20:00, free 01:00-06:00
Sundays	Free on bridge gates; no exemption at Ghantoot and Al Qurm	Charged at a flat rate
Gates	6 since 4 May 2026	10

For cost planning, the practical difference between the two logics: in Dubai, crossing time changes the price but rarely removes it, while in Abu Dhabi timing removes the charge entirely on the bridge gates and changes nothing at Ghantoot and Al Qurm. Modelling “UAE tolls” as one flat per-trip number therefore errs in both directions; the correct move is tying the toll to the route and the gates it actually crosses.

How do Darb tolls enter per-vehicle profit?

The same way fuel does: as a per-trip line attributed to a specific vehicle, not a lump sum split evenly at month-end. Splitting evenly punishes the vehicles that never cross a gate and flatters the ones crossing four a day, and decisions built on averages like that, the routes you price and the contracts you accept, are wrong by exactly the amount of the blur. Per-vehicle Darb and Salik statements are the raw material, and matching them against the trip log is the step that turns a toll into information.

This is where the software layer comes in. Fleetric is a fleet profit intelligence platform for GCC fleets, in daily production with a construction fleet in Abu Dhabi, that reads mandated tracking feeds and computes per-vehicle profit; toll charges are attributed to their trips inside the per-vehicle P&L, so Darb’s AED 4 crossings never disappear into a general expense line. The same method, applied to the trip’s biggest lines, is in the guide to cutting fleet fuel costs in the UAE.

The Darb and Salik figures in this guide were last reviewed against available sources on 21 August 2026, and the points we could not verify are named as such in the text. This is marketing information, not legal advice; rates, windows and channels change, so verify with darb.itc.gov.ae and the Integrated Transport Centre before acting on any figure here, and we log what changes in the compliance changelog.

FAQ

How much is the Darb toll in Abu Dhabi?

AED 4 per crossing during charged windows on the four bridge gates, and AED 4 around the clock on the Ghantoot and Al Qurm gates since 4 May 2026. Verify current rates on darb.itc.gov.ae before relying on any figure.

How many Darb gates are there now?

6 gates since 4 May 2026, the four gates on the bridges onto Abu Dhabi island plus two new ones at Ghantoot on the E11 and at Al Qurm, per press coverage of the expansion. The authoritative map is on darb.itc.gov.ae.

What are the Darb toll hours?

On the bridge gates, Monday to Saturday. The 7:00-9:00 am morning window is consistently documented, while sources disagree on the evening window, so take it from darb.itc.gov.ae. The Ghantoot and Al Qurm gates charge around the clock.

Is Darb free on Sundays?

The four bridge gates are free on Sundays and official holidays. The Ghantoot and Al Qurm gates charge AED 4 around the clock, seven days a week, since 4 May 2026, per press coverage of the expansion.

How do I register my company for Darb?

Accounts are created and managed on darb.itc.gov.ae, the Integrated Transport Centre (Abu Dhabi Mobility) platform. We will not print portal steps we could not verify against an official source, so go to the platform directly and confirm the current company-account route there.

Does the Ghantoot gate charge 24 hours?

Yes, per press coverage of the 4 May 2026 expansion. Ghantoot on the E11 and Al Qurm charge AED 4 per crossing around the clock, with no peak windows and no Sunday exemption. Verify on darb.itc.gov.ae.

Is there a daily or monthly cap on Darb tolls?

Press reports indicate the daily and monthly caps for private vehicles were removed in September 2025, which we could not verify at regulator tier as of 21 August 2026. The caps applied to private vehicles in the first place, so confirm your fleet’s position with the ITC.

What is the difference between Darb and Salik?

Darb is a flat AED 4 per crossing in Abu Dhabi, while Dubai’s Salik has been variably priced since 31 January 2025 and, with VAT applied from 1 June 2026, charges AED 6.30 per peak crossing and AED 4.20 off-peak.

How much are the tolls on a Dubai to Abu Dhabi round trip?

An illustrative, route-dependent figure. The Ghantoot gate is AED 4 in each direction, so AED 8, and every Salik gate the route crosses on the Dubai side adds AED 6.30 at peak or AED 4.20 off-peak per crossing.