Central Florida, particularly the theme park corridor, is something of a travel mecca. Orlando welcomed approximately 75.3 million visitors in 2024, which helped it maintain its status as the most visited city in the U.S.
Visitors to the greater Orlando area travel around town in a variety of ways. Disney or Universal fans who stay on the respective resorts’ properties for their entire vacations may make use of the resorts’ in-house transportation system. However, many people choose to either drive to the area in their own car, or perhaps rent a car, in order to be able to explore more of the area.
Save for I-4, virtually all of the highways in Orlando are tolled. For decades, the local authorities that run the highways (and profit off the tolls) have given tourists several options for payment:
- For years and years, the tolls were cash payment only
- They introduced E-tolls at the end of the last century (via a few proprietary systems that eventually merged into 2 different transponders that did the same job), but kept cash as an option an option, as well
- The local tolls gained interactivity with E-ZPass a few years ago. This meant people who lived in other states that used E-ZPass could also use it in Central Florida. But again, cash was still an option
About three years ago, the highway authorities decided they were no longer going to accept cash. They had already phased out cash options throughout the state, but had maintained them in Central Florida – at least exact change machines (paying toll takers to maintain visitors’ convenience cost too much, I guess?) – simply because so many tourists still used that option. But in August 2022, they said even that was going to go away.
And that time has finally come. Effective a few weeks ago, the last of the exact change machines were removed from the 417 and 528 (those are the 2 main highways that connect MCO with the theme park areas).
What are the options now?
Obviously, cash is no longer an option. And you’ve never been able to pay for your tolls, at the tolls, with a credit card (can you imagine the backups that would cause???) However there are plenty of electronic options available – some will only work for those who live in the US, but others will work for anybody.
E-ZPass
As we mentioned earlier, an E-ZPass transponder works for all Florida tolls.
Uni & Sunpass Pro
Although you can use E-ZPass in Florida, Florida doesn’t offer E-ZPass. They offer us Floridians a choice of SunPass or E-Pass. However you can also buy either a Uni or a SunPass Pro, which is like an E-ZPass in that it’s good in all the states (including Florida) where E-ZPass works.
Visitor Toll Pass
Visitor Toll Pass is an option for those who rent a car at MCO. According to their website, it’s “a FREE temporary toll pass for rental car customers traveling roundtrip through the Orlando International Airport. With Visitor Toll Pass™, you always pay the lowest toll rate throughout Florida with no hidden or extra fees.” It’s, by far, the best deal out there.
Rental car transponder
Of course, using the transponder from a rental car company is probably THE most expensive way to pay for tolls (here’s how much they charge just for the privilege of using it). But if nothing else, it’s convenient.
Oh, and if you wind up getting overcharged by them for tolls? This might help.
So yeah – the age of cash tolls is now gone in Florida. But (A) with how few people use cash anymore and (B) how obsolete and difficult to repair the exact change machines had become, it’s really not a surprise. At least there are still some viable options.
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