Sameer rides to Andheri and back every working day. Last month an SMS landed with a challan number, an amount and nothing explaining which rule he had broken.
His two questions are the ones most Mumbai riders have. Is the figure correct and what happens if it goes unpaid?
Every Mumbai traffic fine is set out in the Mumbai Traffic Police offence schedule, which lists the violation, the amount for a first offence and the higher amount for a repeat. This page carries the current fine list, the offences that cannot be settled by payment at all and the routes for checking and paying an e-challan.
Traffic rules in Mumbai for four-wheelers and two-wheelers
Most Mumbai fines come from a short list of everyday rules and the rules differ enough between cars and two-wheelers to be worth separating.
For four-wheelers:
Driver and every passenger must wear a seat belt. The fine applies to passengers as well as the driver.
A child up to 14 years of age must be given a seat with an appropriate child restraint system.
Observe posted speed limits, which vary by road and by vehicle class.
No handheld phone use while driving, including at a signal.
Carry your licence, registration certificate, insurance and PUC certificate.
Tinted glass and dark film on windows are not permitted.
For two-wheelers:
Helmets are compulsory for the rider and the pillion, not the rider alone.
Never carry a third person. Triple riding carries a licence disqualification on top of the fine.
Keep to your lane and stop behind the stop line at signals.
Carry the same document set as a car.
Three points are specific to Mumbai. Large parts of the city are marked as no-parking zones.
Several arterial roads operate an odd-even parking system, where parking is permitted on the western side on odd dates and the eastern side on even dates. Silent zones around hospitals, schools and courts carry separate honking penalties.
Mumbai RTO fine list 2026
The most commonly issued Mumbai traffic fines are listed here, taken directly from the Mumbai Traffic Police offence schedule rather than from secondary sources.
Table: Mumbai RTO fine list 2026, with first-offence and repeat amounts
Offence | Penalty | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
Jumping a signal | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Riding triple seat on a motorcycle | Rs. 1,000 plus disqualification from holding a licence for 3 months | Two-wheeler |
Riding without a helmet, rider or pillion | Rs. 1,000 plus disqualification from holding a licence for 3 months | Two-wheeler |
Not wearing a seat belt, driver or passenger | Rs. 1,000 | Four-wheeler |
Failing to produce a valid PUC certificate | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Driving without a valid licence | Rs. 5,000, same for a repeat | All vehicles |
Driving while disqualified from holding a licence | Rs. 10,000, same for a repeat | All vehicles |
Driving without valid insurance, driver or owner | Rs. 2,000, rising to Rs. 4,000 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Driving without valid registration | Rs. 2,000, rising to Rs. 5,000 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Exceeding the speed limit | Rs. 1,000 for two and three-wheelers, Rs. 2,000 for LMVs, Rs. 4,000 for medium and heavy vehicles | By vehicle class |
Racing or speed testing | Rs. 5,000, rising to Rs. 10,000 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Using a handheld phone while driving | Rs. 1,000 for two and three-wheelers, Rs. 2,000 for LMVs, Rs. 4,000 for other vehicles; Rs. 10,000 for a repeat within 3 years | By vehicle class |
Not giving way to an emergency vehicle | Rs. 10,000, same for a repeat | All vehicles |
Honking needlessly or continuously | Rs. 1,000, rising to Rs. 2,000 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Honking where a sign prohibits it | Rs. 1,000, rising to Rs. 2,000 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Carrying a child under 14 without a child restraint system | Rs. 1,000 | Four-wheeler |
Carrying excess passengers | Rs. 200 for each additional passenger | All vehicles |
Disobeying a one-way sign | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Not stopping before the stop line | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Tinted glass or black film on windows | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Driving on a footpath or cycle track | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Failing to produce a valid licence on demand | Rs. 500, rising to Rs. 1,500 for a repeat | All vehicles |
Three of the most searched amounts is in that table. The signal jump fine in Mumbai is Rs. 500, the triple seat fine in Mumbai is Rs. 1,000 with a licence disqualification attached and the PUC fine in Mumbai is Rs. 500 for failing to produce a valid certificate.
Two further figures are widely misreported elsewhere and worth stating plainly. Driving without a valid licence in Mumbai is Rs. 5,000, rather than a range starting at Rs. 1,000. Speeding in a private car is a fixed Rs. 2,000 rather than a band.
Which Mumbai offences cannot be settled by paying a fine
A number of Mumbai traffic offences are marked non-compoundable, which means no amount is payable on the e-challan portal and the matter goes before a court instead.
This is the part of the system almost nobody explains and it changes what you do when the challan arrives. A compoundable offence is one you can close by paying the stated amount. A non-compoundable offence cannot be closed that way, whatever figure you may have seen quoted online.
Offences listed as non-compoundable in the Mumbai schedule include:
Drink driving
Dangerous driving
Parking in a no-parking area, including clamping cases
Wrong-side driving
Overtaking from the left
Lane cutting
Failing to slow down at a junction or zebra crossing
Driving a defective vehicle
The practical consequence for no-parking is the one that surprises people. Figures between Rs. 500 and Rs. 15,000 circulate for Mumbai no-parking fines. The official schedule carries no payable amount against it at all, because the penalty is determined by a court rather than by a spot fine.
Drink driving works the same way. The Motor Vehicles Act sets the penalty at Rs. 10,000 or up to six months of imprisonment or both for a first offence and Rs. 15,000 or up to two years for a repeat, imposed by a court.
The threshold that triggers the charge is a blood alcohol level above 0.03% or 30 mg per 100 ml of blood.
How to check and pay your Mumbai e-challan online
Mumbai challans can be checked and paid on either the Maharashtra e-challan portal or the national Parivahan portal and both accept card, net banking and UPI.
To check what is pending against your vehicle:
Open the Maharashtra e-challan payment portal or the Parivahan e-challan service
Enter your vehicle registration number, challan number or driving licence number.
Verify with the OTP sent to the mobile number registered against the vehicle.
Review the offence, date, location and photographic evidence attached to each challan.
Pay and save the receipt.
Offline routes remain available. You can pay by card on the e-challan machine a traffic police officer carries at the time of the stop or settle it at a traffic police station.
On timing, a challan does not expire. Reporting across the sector places the practical window at around 60 days, after which unpaid Mumbai challans are referred to the virtual court system at vcourts.gov.in .
Matters left beyond roughly 90 days can draw a summons to a regular court. Mumbai Traffic Police publishes no fixed statutory deadline, so treat 60 days as a practical marker rather than a legal one.
Once a challan moves to the virtual court it is no longer payable on the traffic portal and has to be settled there instead.
A daily commuter like Sameer, who rides across Mumbai and picks up the occasional challan, is better served by checking the portal once a month than by waiting for an SMS that may be going to an old number.
Two further consequences follow from leaving a challan unpaid. Pending challans can hold up registration renewal, licence renewal and ownership transfer. Periodic National Lok Adalat hearings can settle pending challans, often at a reduced amount, for offences that are compoundable.
Keep the mobile number linked to your vehicle on Parivahan current. Virtual court notices are sent by SMS and an outdated number is the most common reason people miss a hearing date.
Maharashtra's traffic fine implementation
Maharashtra deferred the penalty increases introduced by the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 before adopting them, which is why fines quoted for Mumbai often differ from figures published for other cities.
The amendment took effect nationally on 1 September 2019. Several states held back on the sharpest increases and Maharashtra was among them, before implementing higher penalties later.
The practical effect is that state and city schedules diverge from the headline national figures, in both directions.
The seat belt fine in Maharashtra is Rs. 1,000 and applies to passengers as well as the driver. Mumbai's speeding penalties are fixed per vehicle class rather than expressed as ranges and several parking and driving offences that are compoundable elsewhere are non-compoundable here.
Due to this divergence, a figure sourced from a national summary or from another city's page may be wrong for Mumbai. The Mumbai Traffic Police schedule is the figure that applies.
Conclusion
Check whether anything is pending against your vehicle before you need to, rather than after an SMS arrives.
The Mumbai RTO fine list on this page covers what a first offence costs and what a repeat costs. The non-compoundable list tells you which offences will not be resolved by payment at all.
If a challan is outstanding, pay it while it is still with the traffic police. Once it moves to the virtual court, the process gets longer and the portal you paid on last time will no longer accept it.
Sameer's commute exposes him to most of the offences on this list. A helmet for whoever rides pillion, a current PUC certificate under the seat and a monthly look at the portal would close off nearly all of them.
Keeping valid insurance, registration and a PUC certificate in the vehicle removes four of the most commonly issued challans here at a stroke. Zurich Kotak General Insurance Company (India) Limited offers comprehensive, third-party and standalone own damage cover for private cars and two-wheelers.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the fine for jumping a signal in Mumbai?
The signal jump fine in Mumbai is Rs. 500 for a first offence and Rs. 1,500 for a repeat, under the Mumbai Traffic Police schedule.
What is the triple seat fine in Mumbai?
Riding a motorcycle with three people carries Rs. 1,000 plus disqualification from holding a driving licence for three months. The same penalty applies to the vehicle's owner as well as the rider.
What is the PUC fine in Mumbai?
Failing to produce a valid Pollution Under Control certificate carries Rs. 500 for a first offence and Rs. 1,500 for a repeat. Keep the certificate current, since it is checked alongside insurance and registration.
What is the seat belt fine in Maharashtra?
The seat belt fine in Maharashtra is Rs. 1,000. It is charged separately for passengers travelling without a belt, so more than one fine can arise from a single stop.
What is the no parking fine in Mumbai?
No-parking is listed as non-compoundable in the Mumbai schedule, which means there is no fixed amount payable on the e-challan portal and the matter is decided by a court. Figures quoted elsewhere do not come from the official schedule.
What is the blood alcohol limit in Mumbai?
A blood alcohol level above 0.03% or 30 mg per 100 ml of blood, allows a charge. Drink driving is non-compoundable, so it is prosecuted rather than settled by a challan payment.
Is a helmet mandatory for the pillion rider in Mumbai?
Yes. The schedule lists separate offences for a rider without a helmet and a pillion without a helmet, each carrying Rs. 1,000 plus a three-month licence disqualification.
How long do I have to pay a Mumbai traffic challan?
No statutory deadline is published and the challan does not lapse. In practice unpaid challans are referred to the virtual court at around 60 days and can draw a court summons beyond roughly 90 days, so pay well before then.
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