Cheap contrôle technique: how to pay €70 or less

1,143 websites out of 4,015 show a promo. Many websites give no price: out of 100 websites that show a price, 55 have a promo. The promo saves up to €42. 265 websites show a promo at €65 or less. Almost all go below the official rate: 96 in 100.

Booking: about 8 websites in 10 let you book online (3,210 out of 4,015). Out of 100 websites where you can book, 35 show a promo. Out of 100 websites without online booking, 2. This does not prove that booking lowers the price everywhere: the networks that run promos are also the ones that offer booking. 169 websites show promos limited to certain days or certain hours.

Among the websites that give their price without a promo for a car, 2 in 3 show the same price as the comparison site; more than 1 in 5 show a higher price, by €4 in general and up to €26. A center must declare its price changes in advance (Code de la route, article R. 323-13-1); until it does, the old rate stays displayed on the comparison site (consumer fraud control agency, DGCCRF).

One possible explanation, which our measurement does not confirm. Out of 100 centers that show a higher price than the comparison site, 66 have an official rate dating from 2020. Out of 100 centers that show the same price, 31.

Out of 100 websites read, 58 show a promo at Sécuritest, 30 at Dekra and 24 at Autosur.

For Autovision, promos are not measured: we read only the center's page, not its booking page.

Their websites typically list a price of €72 without a promo, compared with €82 for other centers.

We compared the cheapest centers in their département on the comparison site (the lowest-priced 1 in 10 centers in each département with at least 20 centers) with the other centers. Their website prices are more likely to exceed the comparison site's prices: among those listing a price without a promo, more than 4 in 10 list a higher price on their website, typically by €5. This gap is more frequent when the official rate is low: nearly 1 website in 2 whose official rate is between €66 and €70 shows a higher price, barely more than 1 in 10 above €80. These centers are still the cheapest, though. We found a price without a promo on the website of 202 of the cheapest centers. For 127 of them, more than 6 in 10, the lowest price shown is under €70, promo included when there is one. They run a promo less often. Out of 100 of the cheapest centers that show their price without a promo, 53 also have a promo. Out of 100 other centers in that case, 83.

In the 1,220 cities that have at least two centers, the gap between the cheapest and the most expensive reaches €10 or more in 277 cases (more than 1 city in 5), and €20 or more in 55. In 242 cities, all centers declare the same price. Among the cities with at least 5 centers, Strasbourg (€50) and Montpellier (€35) have the biggest gaps.

In 14 of the 90 départements in the table, including the most expensive ones, no center declares €70 or less. In 36 of these 90 départements, the good price is €70 or less. For a rate of €70 or less: 705 of the 6,100 centers that declare a car price; €65 or less: 239. The cheapest in France declares €45, the most expensive €125.

In Strasbourg, official rates run from €70 to €120.

Official rates of 6,093 centers: the bottom of the range is €15 in general, the top €30. The bottom is €0 for 544 centers; 85 always declare it free; for 1,725 centers, the top reaches €40 or more. Out of the 4,015 websites read, our reading picked up 193 retest rates: 67 say it is free, sometimes with a condition, the others show €20 in general. This reading kept only one price per page; a second reading of the same pages, by fixed rule, finds at most 314 websites that show at least one retest price (details in our article on the contre-visite).

The five most visible pages we found on October 8, 2026 for "controle technique pas cher" (cheap contrôle technique) do not compare the centers' advertised prices with their officially declared prices. Our other studies are in the Scalon Observatory, including the number of auto repair shops in France.

• Coverage: 6,133 centers in the DGCCRF file, for 6,784 approved centers on December 31, 2025 (UTAC); the websites read represent nearly 2 in 3 of the comparison site's centers; our results hold for the centers that have a readable website. When the same reading error repeated, we fixed it on all pages.
• What a row counts: one center and its latest declared rate, entered by the center itself; it replaces the previous one and stays online until the next entry. Car rate: gasoline, otherwise diesel, between €20 and €400; "typical price" = median; same definitions as the study on the cost of the contrôle technique (shared figures checked by the calculation script).
• Good price: the smallest price, in whole euros, that at least 1 center in 10 declares (this price or less): in France by type of car (gasoline or diesel 6,100 centers, hybrid 6,024, electric 6,042, LPG/CNG 4,378), and in each of the 90 départements with at least 20 centers. Hybrid or electric by département: the higher of the two good prices. Same price as gasoline: hybrid 2,388 centers out of 6,023, electric 2,248 out of 6,041. When an inspection for a hybrid or electric car costs more than for a gasoline car at the same center, the surcharge is typically €10.
• Pages: the center's listing on the Autovision, Dekra, Autosur or Sécuritest locator (same postal code, less than 150 m), otherwise the website declared to the DGCCRF; for a few of the cheapest centers without a page, the website from the Google listing (read on 10/08). All known pages were targeted, with no sampling: 4,557 centers (74.3% of the 6,133). 4,015 pages read (88.1%), of which 1,256 read on 10/08 and reused as they were; not read: timeout or unreachable website 456; page not found or in error (HTTP) 80; empty page 6. Dekra: 678 listings read out of 909 (timeouts). The centers without a page (1,576) are not measured: the results hold for the centers that have a page.
• Reading: by Scalon with the Claude Haiku 5.5 model (Anthropic); checks by Claude Opus 5.5 (the writing session for prices, a fresh reviewer for the other fields), with no human review; versioned instruction (mesure_v7/consigne.txt), exact quote found in the page; prices in an image or a PDF not read; 3 seconds between two pages of the same website. Price without a promo ("normal price"): precise car rate, otherwise "starting at" price; the Autovision listings, whose "starting at" price does not say for which vehicle, are counted among the pages with a price (624) but excluded from the comparison. Two booking formats that the instruction leaves empty (several prices depending on the slot) are read by a fixed rule applied to all pages: slots "PROMO from €x €y" (135 pages) and "↘ Discount of" markdowns (60 pages); the Dekra online payment discount (90 pages) applies to the base price and cannot be combined with a discounted time slot. "Equal": less than €0.50 apart.
• Comparison with the comparison site: 1,441 centers with a normal price and a declared rate; equal 964, higher 311 (21.6%, from 19.5 to 23.8% at 95%), lower 166. By source of the price: precise car rate 94 higher out of 449; "starting at" price 186 out of 858; slots 31 out of 133. Rate from 2020: 204 of the 311 "higher," 296 of the 964 "equal" (gap of 34.9 points, from 28.7 to 40.7).
• The cheapest in their département: in the 90 départements with at least 20 centers, the first tenth by declared rate, rounded up (638 centers, 539 websites read, 202 with a normal price); other centers of the same départements, excluding ties at the threshold (1,173 with a normal price). "Higher": 87 out of 202 against 208 out of 1,173. Compared prices: medians. The group is defined by the declared rate, one of the two values being compared: part of the gap is mechanical (regression to the mean), so we make no causal inference.
• Promos: reduced price at least €0.50 below the normal price shown (or, failing that, the declared rate); a promo limited to a customer group (returning customers) or another vehicle category is not counted. 1,143 out of 4,015 (28.5%); median saving €10 on 1,132 pages with both prices.
• Networks: the table does not give booking by network: on Dekra websites, the network's booking links do not let us say whether the booking applies to the center (10 uncertain cases out of 15 at the check); Dekra's share would be underestimated. Promo: center's page only (booking page not read).
• Declared retest: minimum and maximum price from the DGCCRF form, 6,093 centers; "free in some cases" = minimum at €0.
• Blind rereads (rule F1): (1) prices, reread by the session without the declared rate or the retained value (seed 20261011): 30 "higher," 10 "equal," 10 "lower." 2 "higher" came from listings in the Autovision format reused on another website: the rule that excludes them now applies to all pages; 0 errors among the "equal"; 2 "lower" wrong (a promo price read as a normal price): this count is a maximum. Promos: 2 amounts corrected by the fixed rules (flash sales, decimals), 1 promo missed out of 50. (2) new fields, checked by a fresh reviewer without the first review's answers (seed 20261012): 64 retained values checked, 30 blank results with clues adjudicated, and 11 "uncertain" cases set aside. False positives: 0 (reduced price 0 out of 20, retest 0 out of 20, booking 0 out of 24). False negatives: reduced price 0 out of 10 blank results rechecked, retest 1 out of 15, booking 3 out of 5 adjudicated cases (10 uncertain: generic network links on the Dekra listings). The share of websites that offer online booking is therefore a minimum. A "free" retest only for the visual inspection was read as a price (1 case).
• Not published: no center name; the cities cited are cited for the gap between official rates, which are public.

• Rereads: Among 94 randomly selected records checked again without seeing the first answer, no recorded value was absent from the page; a few booking buttons were missed, so slightly more than 8 websites in 10 probably offer online booking. Out of 50 prices reread, 43 were right; 4 of the 7 errors were corrected on all pages by a fixed rule. The remaining errors involve promos mistaken for regular prices or missed altogether: these errors may slightly underestimate the share of websites with a promo and can only slightly underestimate, rather than overestimate, the share with prices higher than the comparison site's.
• What the measurement does not see: a price shown online can change from one day to the next (slots, flash promos): it is the one from October 8 and 9, 2026; the centers with no page online, or whose page could not be read, are not measured; the official rate is the one the center declared; we do not know what it charges at the counter.

Scalon Observatory, "Cheap contrôle technique: how to pay €70 or less," October 14, 2026: out of the websites of 4,015 contrôle technique centers read on October 8 and 9, 2026, 1,143 show a reduced price for a car (a saving of €10 in general); out of 1,441 websites that show a price without a promo, 311 show more than the rate declared to the DGCCRF (09/24/2026). https://scalon.fr/en/blog/cheap-controle-technique

• DGCCRF, dataset "prix-controle-technique", data.economie.gouv.fr, export of 09/24/2026; comparison site: https://prix.conso.gouv.fr/controle-technique
• Autovision, Dekra, Autosur and Sécuritest locators, collected on 09/24/2026; center websites read on October 8 and 9, 2026 (Scalon Observatory).
• Service-public.fr, news item "comparateur des prix du contrôle technique", 03/18/2026: https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/actualites/A18846
• Service-public.fr, sheet F2878, verified on 01/01/2026, accessed on 10/09/2026: https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F2878
• DGCCRF, practical sheet "Contrôle technique", 02/05/2025: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/les-fiches-pratiques/vehicule-automobile-controle-technique
• DGCCRF, survey of contrôle technique centers, 03/02/2023: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/dgccrf/laction-de-la-dgccrf/les-enquetes/centres-de-controle-technique-des-vehicules-des
• Autosphere, "Contrôle technique offert à vie," accessed on 10/12/2026: https://www.autosphere.fr/controle-technique-offert-a-vie
• UTAC-OTC, 2025 light-vehicle report (6,784 approved centers on 12/31/2025): https://www.utac-otc.com/Bilan%20Annuel/Derni%C3%A8res%20publications/document_integral_VL_2025.pdf
• DGCCRF, price declaration form (FAQ), accessed on 10/08/2026: https://teleassistance.dgccrf.finances.gouv.fr/?app=prix-controle-technique
• mondial.paris, 09/28/2026: https://mondial.paris/actualites/auto-pratique/prix-du-controle-technique-2026-tout-ce-qu-il-faut-savoir-90055.html
• idGarages, page dated 10/01/2026: https://www.idgarages.com/fr-fr/prestations/controle-technique
• UFC-Que Choisir, 10/06/2024: https://www.quechoisir.org/actualite-controle-technique-auto-un-nouveau-comparateur-de-prix-pas-vraiment-a-jour-n131786/
• L'argus, 02/26/2025: https://www.largus.fr/actualite-automobile/controle-technique-pas-cher-nos-bons-plans-pour-payer-moins-30039117.html
• Code de la route, article R. 323-13-1 (décret n° 2025-1180), in force on 01/01/2026: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000053003288/2026-01-02