Traffic fines: early-payment discount, surcharges and when they expire

It is the set of money-and-time rules governing an administrative traffic fine: how much comes off if you pay quickly, how much it grows if you delay, when the fine attaches to your licence, which old fines can be demanded when you renew, and when a fine stops being collectable. Act 29-2026 wrote all of that into the Vehicle and Traffic Act and added the virtual-licence app and CESCO Digital as official notification channels.

Anyone issued an administrative traffic fine in Puerto Rico. The mobile-app notification rules apply to anyone duly and voluntarily registered in that digital system who has authorised receiving electronic notices.

• For the thirty per cent discount: pay within fifteen days from the date of the infraction.Verified against the official source
• For the fifteen per cent discount: pay after fifteen days but before thirty days have elapsed from the date of the infraction.Verified against the official source
• For the three-year prescription to run: that the Secretary has not sent a collection notice by email, certified mail with return receipt, the mobile app, CESCO Digital or another authorised digital system, and has not published a claim in a general-circulation newspaper before the term elapses.Verified against the official source
• To pay a fine whose ticket was lost and does not yet appear in the Department’s records: file a declaration to that effect, in the form and manner the Secretary provides by regulation.Verified against the official source

• The law publishes no document list. For the lost-ticket case it names a declaration whose format is left to the Secretary’s regulation, and Section 7 gives up to one hundred twenty days to establish those regulations.

1. 1

   Step 1: Pay in the first fifteen days and save 30%

   Subsection (h) says any payment of an infraction made within the fifteen-day period from the date of the infraction is entitled to a thirty per cent discount on the total amount of the infraction. It is the larger discount and the clock runs from the date of the infraction, not from when you find out.

2. 2

   Step 2: Between fifteen and thirty days, there is still 15%

   If not paid within fifteen days, you are entitled to a fifteen per cent discount if you pay before thirty days have elapsed from the date of the infraction. After thirty days there is no discount: the duty is to pay every ticket within thirty days from the date it was issued, and that is where the surcharge starts.

3. 3

   Step 3: After thirty days: $10 and then $5 per month

   After thirty days have passed a ten-dollar surcharge applies, and from then on it carries an additional five dollars for each month of delay. The law adds that the surcharge may be paid together with the ticket at any colecturía before the expiry of the payment date of the motor vehicle permit or the driver’s licence.

4. 4

   Step 4: At sixty days, a moving violation attaches to the licence

   For moving violations, if payment is not made within sixty days of issue, it will be included in the driver’s licence of the infractor or of the certified driver. That is the point where the fine stops being a loose piece of paper and enters your driver record.

5. 5

   Step 5: On renewal, you only owe the fines from your permit’s term

   The law says it in two sentences. Anyone renewing their driver’s licence is only obligated to pay those fines corresponding to the term of validity of their permit. And no person is obligated to pay fines from years prior to the three-year validity period of their licence, unless the Department shows they were never paid because the licence corresponding to the period where the fine appears was not renewed; or it sent a collection notice before that term ended, to your last known address, by email, by certified mail with return receipt, through the Department’s mobile app for virtual licences, through CESCO Digital or another authorised digital system — where you are duly and voluntarily registered and have authorised such notices — or, failing that, published a claim for payment in a general-circulation newspaper.

6. 6

   Step 6: At three years the fine prescribes, with exceptions

   The new Article 25.02 provides that after three years, counted from the date the fine was issued, it prescribes and cannot be collected by the Secretary. It does not prescribe if before that term the Secretary sent a collection notice by email, by certified mail with return receipt to your last known address, through the virtual-licence app, CESCO Digital or another authorised digital system, or published a claim in a general-circulation newspaper. Nor does it prescribe when the Secretary shows the fines were never paid because the licence for the period where the fine appears was not renewed, or when the infractor did not comply with a payment plan they had adhered to.

7. 7

   Step 7: If you seek judicial review, the clock starts later

   When one of the persons listed in subsection (l) of Article 23.05 exercises their right to seek judicial review of the fine, the terms established for payment and the corresponding discounts begin to run from the moment the Court’s determination becomes final, firm and unappealable. We did not read subsection (l), so this guide does not describe who may seek that review or how.

8. 8

   Step 8: Check the app: fines now have to appear there

   Article 3.13-A, on the virtual driver’s licence, now provides that the mobile app will include every fine issued against the person, and that the fine must contain the infractor’s full name, date of the infraction, nature and legal basis of the infraction, and amount to be paid. Article 25.03 requires that same minimum content in every collection notice, whether by postal mail, email, the app, CESCO Digital or published claim.

9. 9

   Step 9: If you have accumulated $1,000 or more, the payment plan applies

   Subsection (s) imposes on the DTOP Secretary the duty to notify by ordinary mail every infractor who has accumulated one thousand dollars or more in fines, offering the option of going to any Department of Treasury colecturía to request and adhere to a deferred payment plan until the total is settled. The Secretary may order suspension of the licence of anyone who does not settle the accumulated amount or adhere to the plan. Subsection (t) mandates an annual notice, also by ordinary mail, to anyone who has accumulated between one and nine hundred ninety-nine dollars during a calendar year. In both cases the Secretary is authorised to notify by email to those who request it, or through the app, CESCO Digital or another authorised digital system if you are registered and authorised it.

Payment of the ticket and the surcharge is made at any colecturía; the deferred payment plan of subsection (s) is requested at any Department of Treasury colecturía. Notices arrive by ordinary mail or email, through the DTOP mobile app for virtual licences, through CESCO Digital, or by published claim.

• Counting the fifteen days from when you received the notice: the text says from the date of the infraction.
• Believing the two discounts stack, or that the 15% one also applies in the first fifteen days: they are steps — 30% within fifteen days and 15% between fifteen and thirty.
• Letting a moving violation go sixty days: from then on it is included in your driver’s licence.
• Paying old fines without asking: on renewal you are only obligated to pay those from your permit’s validity term, and nothing before the three-year period except the two exceptions the law lists.
• Assuming silence equals prescription: the fine does not prescribe if the Secretary notified through any of the channels the law lists, including publication by edict.
• Adhering to a payment plan and abandoning it: failing to comply with the plan is one of the reasons a fine does not prescribe.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Directoría de Servicios al Conductor (CESCO)

  CESCO

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov