Driving through Austria to the Italian Alps and the Dolomites

The Brenner route through Austria is carried by the A13 Brenner Autobahn, and ASFINAG treats the entire road as a section toll that can be used without a vignette. The ticket buys the A13 and nothing else.

ASFINAG's own A13 product page tells travellers to note the vignette obligation on the A12 Inntal Autobahn. Whether you come down from Kufstein or round Innsbruck, the approach is charged network and the Brenner is charged separately, so a driver who buys only one of the two has bought the wrong half.

A car crossing in a single day therefore buys two things: a 1-day Austrian vignette for the A12 and the A13 ticket for the Brenner. A week or more on the Italian side, returning the same way, is usually a 10-day vignette plus two Brenner tickets.

At the Brenner the Austrian A13 becomes the Italian A22 Autostrada del Brennero, run by Autostrada del Brennero S.p.A. of Trento. It is a different concessionaire levying its own charge, so the Austrian ticket ends at the border and the Italian one starts there.

Italy runs no vignette. Most of its network is a closed system: you take a ticket entering the motorway, hand it back on leaving, and pay for the distance actually driven, at a per kilometre rate that varies by vehicle class and by the concessionaire of that stretch, with VAT added. A minority of stretches near cities charge a flat rate because entry and exit cannot be tracked.

The choice to make before the border is which exit you want; each of these is signposted from the A22 itself.

• Varna and Bressanone (Vahrn, Brixen) onto the SS49 for the Val Pusteria, and from there the SS244 up the Val Badia to Alta Badia.
• Chiusa (Klausen) onto the SS242 for the Val Gardena, over the Passo Gardena.
• SS49 as far as Dobbiaco (Toblach), then the SS51 for Cortina d'Ampezzo and the Cadore.
• Trento Nord, Trento Sud, San Michele all'Adige and Rovereto Sud for the Trentino Dolomites, Madonna di Campiglio among them.

The B179 Fernpassstraße and the B180 Reschenstraße are Tyrolean state roads administered by Land Tirol, not part of the ASFINAG motorway and expressway network, so neither the vignette nor a section toll is levied on those roads themselves. Neither touches the A13, so both avoid the Brenner charge outright.

The Reschen Pass runs from Tyrol into the Vinschgau and Val Venosta, which is the access route to Schöneben at Nauders and Reschen, to Watles, and to Sulden on the Ortler massif. Schöneben and the Nauders and Watles lifts together form the cross-border Two-Country Ski Arena.

The Fernpass leads to no Italian ski area of its own. Land Tirol calls the B179 the only year-round passable connection between the Außerfern and Inner Tyrol on Austrian soil, and its use on a trip south is as a feeder by way of Nassereith, Imst and Landeck towards the same Reschen corridor.

Do not read any of that as a vignette-free drive from Germany to South Tyrol. How you link the two passes can put you on the A12 or the S16, and those are charged network wherever you joined them.

On the A22 the winter equipment obligation runs from 15 November to 15 April and applies in the complete absence of snow or ice. The operator states it flatly: winter tyres fitted, or snow chains on board, for that whole date range, and it applies to a foreign car exactly as it does to an Italian one.

That is not how the Austrian side works. North of the Brenner the requirement is conditional, biting only when the road carries snow, slush or ice inside a 1 November to 15 April window. A car that is legal on the A12 in dry January weather on summer tyres with an empty boot is not legal on the A22.

Italy sets no single national date either. Under article 6 of the Codice della Strada each road authority prescribes its own obligation by ordinance, and the State Police say so directly: the bodies that manage the roads define the local rules. The common range is 15 November to 15 April, some southern areas impose nothing, and mountain areas vary the dates.

Compliant equipment is winter tyres marked M+S, MS, M-S or M&S with the required speed symbol, snow chains, or studded tyres on a vehicle under 3.5 tonnes, and tyres and chains count as alternatives to each other. Winter tyres fitted with a set of chains in the boot satisfies both countries at once, whatever the weather does on the day.