Driving in Buenos Aires: Heavy vehicle ban

Buenos Aires, Argentina · Heavy vehicle ban

Official name Red de Tránsito Pesado (Código de Tránsito y Transporte de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Capítulo 9.10)

In force in Buenos Aires right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 06:04 · America/Argentina/Buenos Aires

  • In force Trucks and trailers weighing 12 tonnes or more individually, loaded or empty, on any city street that is not part of the Red de Tránsito Pesado

There is no timetable to read here, and that is the finding rather than a gap in ours: article 9.10.1 attaches no hour, weekday or season to the prohibition, so it is in force whenever you are driving.

Whether it reaches you is decided by the vehicle, not by the clock. Below 12 tonnes — which is every car, van and hire vehicle — none of this applies at any hour.

Being on a street the code lists as network is a complete answer for that street, and we cannot tell you which street you are on: we hold no geometry for the Red de Tránsito Pesado, because the city publishes it as text.

Leaving the network to reach a destination is lawful under 9.10.1 provided you take the shortest route to and from it. That exception is about your purpose, which no timetable can encode.

Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.

What applies

Buenos Aires bans heavy lorries from the whole city and then hands back a list of roads they may use. Chapter 9.10 of the city's traffic code prohibits trucks and trailers weighing 12 tonnes or more — each unit counted on its own, loaded or empty — from every artery in the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, except the 95 named streets and motorway sections that make up the Red de Tránsito Pesado.

Leaving the network is allowed for one reason only: to reach a destination and come back, by the shortest route to and from the network. There is no charge, no permit and no time window — it applies at every hour of every day — and it does not touch cars, vans or hire vehicles at any weight a driving licence covers. If you are driving anything a car licence covers, this scheme is not about you.

Source: Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires — Digesto Jurídico, Ley 6764/24, Anexo I, rama "Transporte y Tránsito" (letra O), consolidated text of the Código de Tránsito y Transporte, article 9.10.1 (IF-2024-35799351-GCABA-DGCCN, page 304 of 612)

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. Article 9.10.1 prohibits circulation; it does not price it, and the code offers no permit, day pass or exemption you can pay for. The only ways out are the four service categories listed in article 9.10.2, and those are what the vehicle is, not what its operator has paid.

When it operates

At all times. Article 9.10.1 states the prohibition without any hour, weekday or season attached to it — unlike the rest of chapter 9, which sets explicit windows where it means them, and unlike article 9.10.6, which says a bitrén may use its routes "sin restricción horaria" precisely because horarios exist elsewhere in the code.

So a 12-tonne lorry is barred from a non-network street at 04:00 on a Sunday exactly as it is at 09:00 on a Tuesday. The one thing that changes by time of day is nothing in this chapter: it is loading and unloading, which article 6.1.51 of the Régimen de Faltas fines separately for being done outside the hours fixed for it.

Source: Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires — Digesto Jurídico, Ley 6764/24, Anexo I, rama "Transporte y Tránsito" (letra O), consolidated Código de Tránsito y Transporte, articles 9.10.1 and 9.10.6.3 (IF-2024-35799351-GCABA-DGCCN)

Area covered

Every artery in the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires — the federal capital, not Greater Buenos Aires and not the surrounding province — minus the Red de Tránsito Pesado. The network is written into the code as a list of named streets rather than a map: 86 sections a lorry may use in either direction, headed by the AU1 25 de Mayo and AV1 Presidente Arturo Frondizi motorways and the Av. Gral.

Paz special heavy-traffic carriageways, plus 9 more that are one-way for this purpose, such as Av. Ricardo Balbín between Av. Donado and Av.

Triunvirato, which counts as network only travelling from the first towards the second. Article 9.10.6 adds a second, narrower network for bitrén combinations, defined as whole itineraries between the Puerto de Buenos Aires or the Centro de Transferencia de Cargas and each of the four motorway accesses. Nothing in this record says what the rules are once you cross Av.

Gral. Paz into the province: that is a different jurisdiction and we have not read it.

Source: Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires — Digesto Jurídico, Ley 6764/24, Anexo I, rama "Transporte y Tránsito" (letra O), consolidated Código de Tránsito y Transporte, articles 9.10.1, 9.10.5 letters a) and b), and 9.10.6 (IF-2024-35799351-GCABA-DGCCN, pages 305-312 of 612)

Why there is no map here
The banned area is the whole city, so a zone outline here would be the city outline and nothing more — there is no edge inside Buenos Aires to route around, in the same way there is none inside Mexico City. What would genuinely help is the opposite shape, the Red de Tránsito Pesado a lorry may use, and that is not published as geometry: the code gives it as 95 named street sections, and the city's open data portal carries 454 datasets with no layer for it (its own package list, read 2026-09-10). Drawing that network ourselves from street names would produce a map that looks exactly as authoritative as one the city published, and would decide whether a driver is committing an offence.

The authority's own map: Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires — Buenos Aires Data

Petrol standard

There is no emission standard to meet. Chapter 9.10 sorts vehicles by weight and by nothing else: 12 tonnes or more individually, loaded or not. A Euro 6 lorry and a thirty-year-old one are treated identically, and no exhaust class buys access to a non-network street.

Diesel standard

Not applicable, for the same reason as the petrol standard. The chapter never mentions fuel, exhaust or engine type — only mass, and the four service categories in article 9.10.2.

Penalty if you do not comply

The code sets no amount of its own, and the fine it points at is not expressed in money. Article 9.10.4 says breaches of 9.10.1 "serán sancionadas de acuerdo a lo establecido en el Régimen de Faltas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires" and stops there, without naming an article — so we do not name one either.

Two articles of that regime cover this on their face: 6.1.41 fines a driver who circulates "excediendo los límites dimensiones, peso o potencia, permitidas para la vía transitada" at 150 unidades fijas, and 6.1.42 fines breaching rules that regulate circulation "por razones de día, horario y/o características de los vehículos" at 100 unidades fijas.

Either way it is a unidad fija, not a peso figure: article 20 of the same law defines one UF as the average price in the city of half a litre of the highest-octane petrol, as reported by the city statistics office and reset every six months, converted into money only when the fine is paid. We hold no sourced figure for the current half-year and will not estimate one.

Article 9.10.4 also allows the vehicle to be held under article 5.6.1 of the traffic code, so the cost of getting this wrong is not only the fine.

How to comply
  • Work out whether you are in the scheme at all. It catches trucks and trailers whose individual weight is 12 tonnes or more — the tractor and the trailer counted separately, not as a combination — and whether they are loaded makes no difference. Cars, vans and hire vehicles are outside it.
  • If you are, plan the trip on the Red de Tránsito Pesado. The network is the list in article 9.10.5 of the traffic code, and it is a list of named streets and motorway sections, not a published map.
  • Nine of those sections only count as network in one direction, so a road that is legal northbound may not be legal southbound. Article 9.10.5 letter b) names them individually.
  • You may leave the network, but only to reach a destination and return, taking the shortest route to and from the network. Any other reason for being off it is the offence.
  • A bitrén combination has its own, much narrower network in article 9.10.6: whole itineraries between the port or the Centro de Transferencia de Cargas and one of the four motorway accesses, and no other route.
  • The exemptions are about what the vehicle is, not what you are carrying: fire, police and city rescue vehicles, public utility and breakdown-recovery vehicles, press outside-broadcast units, and ready-mix concrete lorries with a mixing drum. Article 9.10.3 requires an exempt vehicle to be visibly marked with its activity and its operator's name — an unmarked one is not exempt in practice.
  • This is the city only. Crossing Av. Gral. Paz puts you in the Province of Buenos Aires, under rules we have not read and do not describe here.
Source: Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires — Digesto Jurídico, Ley 6764/24, Anexo I, rama "Transporte y Tránsito" (letra O), consolidated Código de Tránsito y Transporte, articles 9.10.1 to 9.10.6 (IF-2024-35799351-GCABA-DGCCN)

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-10.

Before you set off

Other cities in Argentina