Innsbruck, Austria · Low emission zone
Official name Fahrverbote nach dem Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft auf der A 12 Inntal Autobahn — Euroklassenfahrverbote (LGBl. Nr. 43/2016), IG-L-Nachtfahrverbot (LGBl. Nr. 64/2010) und Sektorales Fahrverbot (LGBl. Nr. 44/2016)
Partly in force in Innsbruck right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:05 · Europe/Vienna
On Sundays and Austrian public holidays the night ban starts at 23:00 instead of 20:00 or 22:00, so on a public holiday falling Monday to Saturday the real ban begins later than this encoding shows — by up to three hours in winter. We hold no Austrian public-holiday calendar, so the encoding cannot tell which days those are. On a public holiday, read the Sunday line.
None of these rules reaches a car, a van, a motorhome or any vehicle at or below 7.5 tonnes. Every one of them is written for lorries, articulated vehicles and self-propelled work machines above that weight, so a driver in a car is outside all of it at every hour — what a car meets on this road is the permanent 100 km/h limit, which is a speed limit and not a ban.
This encoding cannot tell you where on the A 12 you are. The sectoral goods ban stops at km 72.00 in Ampass, the other two run on to km 90.00 in Zirl, and all three are shown for any journey near Innsbruck; between Ampass and Zirl the goods rule does not apply.
A Euro VI vehicle is outside the night ban only if its journey meets one of the conditions the Verordnung sets — loading or unloading in the Kernzone, both ends inside the erweiterte Zone, or using only the section between km 72.00 in Ampass and km 90.00 in Zirl for goods transport — and the marking has to be on the vehicle. The clock alone does not decide that case, and this encoding cannot see a journey's endpoints.
The Euro class ban and the sectoral ban carry no hours at all in the Verordnungen, so they are encoded as running all day, every day. That is the publisher's statement and not an assumption about unstated hours.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Austria enters this corpus not on a city centre but on a motorway, because that is where the country's air-quality driving bans actually are. The Landeshauptmann of Tyrol has declared a stretch of the A 12 Inntal Autobahn a Sanierungsgebiet under the Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft, and three separate Verordnungen restrict heavy traffic along it.
All three are stated on the issuing administration's own page, with their LGBl numbers and the date each step took effect.
The first is an emission ban and it is the reason this record is filed as a low emission zone: since 1 January 2021 a lorry, an articulated vehicle or a self-propelled work machine over 7.5 tonnes of Euro class 0, I, II, III, IV or V — anything emitting more than 0.4 g NOx per kWh — may not drive between Straßenkilometer 6.35 in Langkampfen and Straßenkilometer 90.00 in Zirl, in either direction, at any hour (Verordnung vom 18.
Mai 2016, LGBl. Nr. 43/2016, last amended by LGBl.
Nr. 141/2021). The second is a night ban over the same stretch (LGBl.
Nr. 64/2010, last amended by LGBl. Nr.
141/2021): the same weight classes may not drive at night, and the clock changes with the season.
The third is the sectoral ban, the one that has been to the Court of Justice of the European Union: on the shorter stretch from km 6.35 to km 72.00 in Ampass, thirteen named groups of goods — waste, stones, earth and excavated material, round timber and cork, other motor vehicles, ores, steel, marble and travertine, ceramic tiles, and since 1 January 2020 paper and cardboard, liquid mineral-oil products, cement, lime and burnt gypsum, pipes and hollow sections, and cereals — may not be carried by a vehicle over 7.5 tonnes at all (LGBl.
Nr. 44/2016, amended by LGBl. Nr.
115/2016 and LGBl. Nr. 48/2023).
None of the three asks what fuel the engine burns and none of them touches a car: the lightest vehicle any of them reaches weighs more than 7.5 tonnes, so a driver in a car or a van crosses all 90 kilometres unaffected. What a car driver does meet on the same road is a speed limit rather than a ban — a permanent 100 km/h, verordnet on 17 November 2014 (LGBl. Nr.
145/2014), running year-round over about 90 km of the A 12 from the German border to the western boundary of Zirl and about 12 km of the A 13 Brenner Autobahn between Innsbruck and Schönberg im Stubaital, signposted rather than left to be looked up.
The way out of the two heavy-vehicle emission bans is the same document in both: the Euro class has to be proved by the Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsplakette required since 1 May 2017 under § 14a IG-L and the IG-L-Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsverordnung, and a vehicle that meets the class but cannot show the marking is treated as though it did not.
One thing this record does not have is the text of any of the three Verordnungen. Tyrol's authentic Landesgesetzblatt has been published electronically through the federal RIS since 2014, and RIS answers us with a Myra Security bot check that will not even hand over its robots.txt (B-057); the Land's own copies stop at 2014.
So every fact here comes from the administration that issued the bans describing its own rules, plus its own explanatory notes and its own map of the sectoral stretch, all of them on a host that lets us read them.
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L", the issuing administration's own statement of the three Verordnungen its Landeshauptmann made. It names each Verordnung with its date and LGBl number, the vehicles each one reaches, the kilometre markers between which each applies, and the date each tightening took effect
Nothing in these bans is for sale. There is no day pass, no toll and no fee that buys a heavy vehicle through the restricted stretch: a vehicle either satisfies the Euro class, the goods rule and the night rule, or it does not drive there.
The only door that opens on application is a discretionary one — the Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde may grant an exemption in an individual case, and the administration states the test it applies rather than a price: the applicant must prove a public interest that exceptionally outweighs the interest in clean air. No amount appears anywhere on the page for that, and none is invented here.
The Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsplakette needed to prove a Euro class is issued by Ausgabestellen listed by the Wirtschaftskammer rather than by the Land, and this page does not state what it costs either, so that figure is absent rather than guessed.
Two of the three bans never stop and the third changes with the season. The Euro class ban and the sectoral goods ban are stated without any hours at all: since 1 January 2021 a Euro 0 to V heavy vehicle may not use the stretch, and a vehicle over 7.5 tonnes carrying one of the thirteen listed goods groups may not use the shorter stretch, at any time of day or night.
The night ban is the one with a clock, and the administration publishes it as two seasons with a different Sunday: "Zeitraum 1. Mai bis 31 Oktober: 22.00 Uhr bis 05.00 Uhr, an Sonn- und Feiertagen 23.00 Uhr bis 5.00 Uhr" and "Zeitraum 1. November bis 30.
April: 20.00 Uhr bis 05.00 Uhr, an Sonn- und Feiertagen 23.00 Uhr bis 5.00 Uhr". So from 1 May to 31 October the road closes to those vehicles at 22:00 and reopens at 05:00; from 1 November to 30 April it closes two hours earlier, at 20:00; and on Sundays and public holidays, in either season, it closes at 23:00.
The public-holiday half of that sentence is the publisher's own and it is the part this record cannot resolve to dates: Austria's holidays are not in our holiday corpus, so a driver planning a Tuesday that happens to be a national holiday should read the Sunday line rather than the weekday one.
Nothing in the three bans is suspended for a season, a holiday period or a weekend — the night ban runs every night of the year, and the other two run continuously.
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L", under "Nachtfahrverbot für Schwerfahrzeuge", where the two seasonal windows and the Sunday and public-holiday variant are stated, and under the Euroklassenfahrverbote and the sectoral ban, which are stated with no hours because they run around the clock
A motorway, measured in kilometre markers rather than a line around a district, and two different lengths of it.
The Euro class ban and the night ban both run "auf dem Teilabschnitt der A 12 Inntal Autobahn zwischen Straßenkilometer 6,35 im Gemeindegebiet von Langkampfen und Straßenkilometer 90,00 im Gemeindegebiet von Zirl", in both directions — about 84 km of the Inn valley, entering near the German border at Kufstein and ending west of Innsbruck.
The sectoral goods ban is shorter at the western end: km 6.35 in Langkampfen to km 72.00 in Ampass, which is the interchange immediately east of Innsbruck, again in both directions.
The Land's own map of that stretch says the same thing in three words and two numbers — "Sektorales Fahrverbot gemäß IG-L auf der A12 (Inntalautobahn)", "km 6,35 (Langkampfen)" and "km 72,0 (Ampass)" — and it is a picture of the valley with the section drawn on it, not a boundary we can hold. Two further areas matter, and they are not parts of the restricted road but the places a journey may start or end to escape it.
The Kernzone is five political districts: "Die Kernzone umfasst die politischen Bezirke Imst, Innsbruck-Land, Innsbruck- Stadt, Kufstein und Schwaz." The erweiterte Zone is a ring of roughly 100 km around the Sanierungsgebiet and crosses two borders: in Austria the districts Kitzbühel, Landeck, Lienz, Reutte and Zell am See; in Germany the Landkreise Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Miesbach, Rosenheim including the city, and Traunstein; in Italy the Bezirksgemeinschaften Eisacktal, Pustertal and Wipptal.
A lorry whose load is picked up or dropped inside the Kernzone, or picked up and dropped inside the erweiterte Zone, is exempted from the goods ban and from the night ban if it also meets the Euro class for that year — which is why the restricted stretch and these districts are two different geographies and both belong in this record.
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L" for the kilometre markers of all three bans and for the two exemption zones, together with the Land's own map of the sectoral stretch, "A12_Sektorales_Fahrverbot.pdf", which carries the same two markers as text
The authority's own map: Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz
There is no petrol test, and there is no petrol vehicle in these bans to test. All three Verordnungen are written for Lastkraftwagen, Sattelkraftfahrzeuge and selbstfahrende Arbeitsmaschinen over 7.5 tonnes, and the question they ask about the engine is its NOx emission expressed as a Euro class, not the fuel it burns.
A petrol car, a petrol van and a petrol motorhome are outside all three at every hour: the weight threshold excludes them before the emission question is ever reached. Not estimated, and not a statement about Austria as a whole — this record covers the Tyrolean A 12 bans and nothing else.
Euro VI, and the vehicle has to be able to prove it. Since 1 January 2021 the Euroklassenfahrverbot bars every heavy vehicle over 7.5 tonnes of Euro class 0, I, II, III, IV or V — the administration defines the line by emission rather than by label, "NOx-Emission mehr als 0,4 g/kWh" — so on the stretch between km 6.35 and km 90.00 only Euro VI still passes.
Under the night ban a Euro VI vehicle is also exempt, but only if its journey has a source or destination in the Kernzone, or both ends in the erweiterte Zone, or uses solely the section between km 72.00 in Ampass and km 90.00 in Zirl.
Under the sectoral goods ban the escape is narrower still and dated twice: since 1 January 2020 a Euro VI vehicle first registered after 31 August 2018 may carry the listed goods, and a vehicle serving the Kernzone or the erweiterte Zone needed Euro V or VI (not more than 2.0 g NOx per kWh) from 1 January 2020 and Euro VI (not more than 0.4) from 1 January 2023.
Proof is not optional and it is not the same document for every vehicle: a lorry or articulated vehicle proves its class by the Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsplakette required since 1 May 2017 under § 14a IG-L and the IG-L-Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsverordnung (BGBl. II Nr. 120/2012, last amended by BGBl.
II Nr. 272/2014), and for the sectoral ban it must also carry a document showing the first registration date, for instance the Zulassungsschein. A self-propelled work machine, which has no plaque, carries a COP document, a registration showing the NOx figure, or an original manufacturer's certificate identifying chassis and engine — and the administration states that naming the pollutant class alone is not enough.
Independently of the class, a vehicle with a pure electric drive or a hydrogen fuel cell is not caught by these bans at all, and § 16 Abs. 2 IG-L adds monovalent methane vehicles and plug-in hybrids with at least 50 km of electric range.
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L", which states the Euro class cut for each of the three bans, the dates each step took effect, and how the class must be proved for a lorry and for a self-propelled work machine
We do not have the figure, and the reason is worth stating rather than leaving as silence. Breaching an IG-L driving ban is a Verwaltungsübertretung under the federal Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft, not under a Tyrolean act, so the amount lives in the federal statute rather than in any of the three Verordnungen — and the administration's page for the bans does not repeat it.
The authentic text of the federal law is published through RIS, the Rechtsinformationssystem des Bundes, which answers this project with a Myra Security bot check and will not release even its robots.txt (B-057); we do not work around bot protection. The Land's own Landesgesetzblatt copies stop at 2014 for the same reason — Tyrol's authentic LGBl has been published through RIS since then.
So the sum a driver would pay is real, it is written down in Austrian federal law, and we have not read it from an official source we are allowed to fetch. It is not estimated from news reports or from what other countries charge.
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L", which sets out the vehicle classes, the goods groups, the two exemption zones, the night windows, the exemptions for individual journeys and the marking duty under § 14a IG-L, including where on the windscreen the plaque belongs
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Fahrverbote nach IG-L". The operative page for all three Verordnungen: their dates and LGBl numbers, the vehicles and goods each reaches, the kilometre markers, the night windows, the Euro class steps with their dates, the exemptions, the Kernzone and erweiterte Zone, the marking duty since 1 May 2017, and the permanent 100 km/h under LGBl. Nr. 145/2014. The Verordnungen themselves are linked to RIS, which refuses us (B-057), so this is the issuing administration describing its own rules
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung — "Erläuterungen zu den einzelnen Bestimmungen der Sektorales Fahrverbot-Verordnung", the official explanatory notes to LGBl. Nr. 44/2016 and its amendments LGBl. Nr. 115/2016 and LGBl. Nr. 81/2019. Eleven pages, readable text, published by the Land on the same host. They state that § 2 designates the A 12 section as the Sanierungsgebiet under § 10 Abs. 1 IG-L on the strength of the Vomp-Raststätte and Kundl measuring stations, that the goods were chosen for their suitability for rail, and that the erweiterte Zone was drawn at roughly 100 km around the Sanierungsgebiet
Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung — the Land's own map of the sectoral ban, "Sektorales Fahrverbot gemäß IG-L auf der A12 (Inntalautobahn)". A single page whose text layer carries the title and the two kilometre markers that bound the restricted stretch, over a picture of the Inn valley
Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-18.
This is owed on the country's roads, not inside this scheme. What Austria asks, with the source