Driving in Linz: Low emission zone

Linz, Austria · Low emission zone

Official name Verordnung des Landeshauptmannes von Oberösterreich, mit der ein emissionsabhängiges Fahrverbot für Lastkraftfahrzeuge für eine Teilstrecke der A1 West Autobahn angeordnet wird — the Land's own short name for it is "LKW-Fahrverbotsverordnung"

What applies

Upper Austria is the fourth Austrian Land in this corpus, and like Tyrol it enters on a motorway rather than a city centre, because that is where the emission ban is.

The Landeshauptmann of Upper Austria has declared a stretch of the A1 West Autobahn south of Linz a Sanierungsgebiet under the Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft, and one of the Verordnungen made for it is an emission-dependent driving ban for lorries — the Land itself calls it the LKW-Fahrverbotsverordnung.

The Land's own explanation of it is one sentence long and it is the sentence this record is built on: "Auf der A1 in Oberösterreich zwischen Haid und Enns trat daher ein Fahrverbot für schwere LKW mit Baujahren älter als 2000 mit Juli 2016 in Kraft." So the ban is on the A1 between Haid and Enns, it reaches heavy lorries built before 2000, and it has been in force since July 2016.

The Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land, the district authority that prosecutes it, writes the same rule as Euro classes instead of build years: its Tatbestandskatalog für Anonymverfügungen lists "Missachtung des Fahrverbotes Sanierungsgebiet A1 West Autobahn Enns-Steyr Haid für Euro 0, 1 und 2", and separately a Kennzeichnungspflicht for Euro 3, 4, 5 and 6 in the same Sanierungsgebiet — meaning a newer lorry may drive there but has to be able to show which class it is.

Why this matters to a driver crossing Austria: the A1 is the country's main west-east transit motorway, Salzburg and Germany at one end, Vienna at the other, and the restricted section sits on it immediately south of Linz. Two things this record deliberately does not do. It does not print a tonnage.

The Verordnung is written for Lastkraftfahrzeuge and the Land's own word for them is "schwere LKW", but no source we can read states a weight threshold, and Austria has already shown that the threshold is the Land's decision and not the country's: Tyrol's A 12 bans start above 7.5 tonnes, while Lower Austria's ban is written for lorries "ALLER Gewichtsklassen".

Carrying 7.5 tonnes over from Tyrol would be inventing the one number a van driver would most want. And it does not claim hours. The Land's own explanation rejects a night ban for this stretch as ineffective and describes this measure as a ban on old lorries instead, so it is not a night restriction — but no operating hours are stated for it either, so none are encoded.

The reason all of this comes from the administration describing its own rules, rather than from the Verordnung, is the same wall the three other Austrian records hit: Upper Austria's authentic Landesgesetzblatt is published through the federal RIS, and RIS answers this project with a Myra Security bot check that will not hand over even its robots.txt (B-057).

The Land links the Verordnung to RIS and names it; we read the Land, not the Gesetzblatt. What a car driver meets on the same stretch is not a ban but a speed limit, and a switched one: since 2008 the A1 between Linz and Enns carries an immissionsabhängige, flexibly switched 100 km/h under the IG-L, evaluated by the Land every year.

A separate Verordnung, which this record does not cover, exists to stop lorry traffic diverting off the motorway onto the Bundesstraße or through residential areas.

Source: Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der Oö. Landesregierung — "Fragen zu Tempo 100", the Land's own FAQ for the IG-L measures on the A1. It states the lorry ban in the Land's own words, with the section ("zwischen Haid und Enns"), the vehicles ("schwere LKW mit Baujahren älter als 2000") and the date it took effect ("mit Juli 2016"), and it also states why the Land chose a ban on old lorries over a night ban. The Verordnung itself is linked to RIS, which refuses us (B-057), so this is the issuing administration describing its own rule

Daily charge

There is nothing to buy. This is an emission ban, not a charging scheme: a lorry either satisfies the class the Verordnung demands or it does not use the section. No day pass, no fee and no toll appears in any source we can read, and none is invented here.

One door does open on application rather than on payment, and we know it exists because the district authority's penalty catalogue names it: there is such a thing as a "zuerkannte Individualausnahme" for this Sanierungsgebiet, an individually granted exemption, with a marking that goes with it.

What the catalogue does not say — and what the Verordnung would say, if RIS let us read it (B-057) — is who may apply, on what grounds, or whether anything is charged for it. So the exemption is stated here as existing, and not as a price.

When it operates

No hours are stated, and this record does not fill them in. Neither the Land's own explanation of the ban nor the district authority's penalty catalogue attaches any time window to it, so encoding it as a 24-hour rule would be our assumption rather than the publisher's statement.

What the Land does say is the nearest thing to an answer, and it points away from a clock: it explicitly considered a night ban for this stretch of the A1 and rejected it as ineffective — "Ebenfalls wenig wirksam wäre ein Fahrverbot für Lastkraftfahrzeuge in der Nacht" — because on a transit route the traffic would simply move into the evening and morning hours, when car traffic is already heavy.

The measure it chose instead is the ban on old lorries that this record covers. So this is not a night restriction, and a driver should not expect it to lift after dark; but the hours are absent from the sources rather than known to be round the clock, and that is why nothing is encoded.

There is a second, unrelated timetable on the same road that a driver will notice: the 100 km/h speed limit here is immissionsabhängig, switched on and off by measured pollution rather than fixed, and the Land's own evaluation reports count how many hours a year it is active. That is a speed limit, not a ban, and it applies to every vehicle.

Area covered

A numbered stretch of one motorway, about twenty kilometres of it, and the numbers are the Landeshauptmann's own. The Sanierungsgebiet was designated by Verordnung LGBl. Nr.

101/2008, whose § 2 the Land quotes verbatim in its own programme under § 9a IG-L: "Als Sanierungsgebiet gemäß § 2 Abs.

8 IG-L wird die Teilstrecke der A1 West Autobahn zwischen der Anschlussstelle Enns-Steyr bei km 154,966 und dem Knoten Haid bei km 175,574 festgelegt." That is the interchange Enns-Steyr at kilometre 154.966 to the Knoten Haid at kilometre 175.574 — about 20.6 km of the A1 running south and west of Linz, and since the A1's kilometres count up from Vienna, Enns is the eastern end and Haid the western one.

The Land's short description of the same thing is "zwischen Haid und Enns", and the district authority names the Sanierungsgebiet "A1 West Autobahn Enns-Steyr Haid", which is the same two ends in the same words. ⚠️ One link in this chain is stated by name rather than by number.

The kilometre markers above come from the 2008 designation; the lorry ban is a later Verordnung, in force since July 2016, and the text we cannot read is that later Verordnung. What connects them is that the authority enforcing the ban calls its area the Sanierungsgebiet A1 West Autobahn Enns-Steyr Haid — the same designation, by name.

So treat the two kilometre markers as the designation's own precision and not as a quotation from the ban. Neither end of the stretch is inside Linz: Haid is in Ansfelden and Enns is its own Stadtgemeinde, both in the Bezirk Linz-Land, and the anchor for this record is Linz because that is the city a route is measured against and the city the Land names when it describes the corridor ("die A1 zwischen Linz und Enns").

Nothing here reaches Linz's streets: this is a motorway rule.

Source: Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz — "Programm nach § 9a IG-L zur Verringerung der Belastung mit den Schadstoffen PM10 und NO2 für den oberösterreichischen Zentralraum", version of 26 September 2011, section 5.5.4 "NO2 und PM10 an der Autobahn A1" on page 66. It quotes § 2 of Verordnung LGBl. Nr. 101/2008 in full, which is where the two kilometre markers of the Sanierungsgebiet come from, and it states that the same area is taken for PM10. A programme under § 9a IG-L is promulgated by the Land itself, and this one is published on the Land's own host

Why there is no map here
The Land does show where the Sanierungsgebiet is, and it is still not a boundary we can hold. Two reasons, and the first would stand even with perfect data: the restriction is linear. It is one carriageway of one motorway between kilometre 154.966 and kilometre 175.574, while our boundary contract is a MultiPolygon, so any area we produced would be a corridor we buffered ourselves rather than a shape the Landeshauptmann drew. The second is the form. What the Land publishes is "Abbildung 48: Sanierungsgebiet Autobahn A1 für PM10 und NO2", a figure on page 66 of its programme under § 9a IG-L — a picture of the section, not geometry — and the precision worth having from that document is already carried as text in this record's area field, in the designation's own numbers. So the warning is at city level, and for this record that means Linz, which is the city a route past this stretch is measured against and the city the Land itself names when it describes the corridor. Linz is not inside the ban: both ends of the stretch lie in the Bezirk Linz-Land, in Ansfelden and in Enns. The record says so in its own area field, and a driver reading the page is told the kilometre markers rather than left to infer a city-wide lorry ban that does not exist.

The authority's own map: Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, Abteilung Umweltschutz

Petrol standard

There is no petrol test in this ban, and there is very little petrol in the vehicles it reaches. The Verordnung is written for Lastkraftfahrzeuge — heavy lorries, in the Land's own words "schwere LKW" — and the question it asks about the engine is its emission class, expressed either as a build year by the Land or as a Euro number by the district authority, never as a fuel.

A petrol car, a petrol van or a petrol motorhome is outside the ban because it is not a lorry, not because it passed a petrol threshold. Nothing is estimated here, and this says nothing about Austria as a whole: it covers this stretch of the A1 and nothing else.

Diesel standard

Two formulations of the same line, from two Upper Austrian authorities, and a driver should know both. The Land states it as a build year: the ban reaches "schwere LKW mit Baujahren älter als 2000", heavy lorries built before 2000, and it has applied since July 2016.

The Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land, which prosecutes breaches in this Sanierungsgebiet, states it as Euro classes: its Tatbestandskatalog für Anonymverfügungen names "Missachtung des Fahrverbotes Sanierungsgebiet A1 West Autobahn Enns-Steyr Haid für Euro 0, 1 und 2".

Read together, and consistent with each other, that puts the line between Euro II and Euro III — a heavy lorry of Euro 0, I or II may not use the stretch, and Euro III and above may.

The same catalogue shows that being new enough is not the end of it: it also lists "Missachtung der Kennzeichnungspflicht Sanierungsgebiet A1 Westautobahn Enns-Steyr Haid für Euro 3, 4, 5 und 6", so a lorry that is allowed through is nevertheless expected to be able to show its class, which in Austria means the IG-L Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsplakette. ⚠️ The Euro numbers and the marking duty come from that catalogue, and the catalogue's own status limits what can be claimed from it: it is published in the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land document folder on the Land's own host, its file name calls it a Vorschlag — a proposal — and the document carries no date.

So the Euro classes here are stated as what the district authority's catalogue says, corroborating the Land's build-year sentence, rather than as a quotation from the Verordnung. The Verordnung, which would settle it, is published through RIS and RIS refuses us (B-057). ⚠️ And one figure is deliberately missing: no source we can read states a tonnage.

"Lastkraftfahrzeuge" and "schwere LKW" are the publishers' words, and Austria has already proved that the weight line belongs to the Land — 7.5 tonnes on Tyrol's A 12, "ALLER Gewichtsklassen" in Lower Austria. Whether a van registered as an Lkw is inside this one is a question this record cannot answer, and does not answer by borrowing a number from a different Land.

Source: Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der Oö. Landesregierung — "Fragen zu Tempo 100", where the Land states in its own words which lorries the ban reaches ("schwere LKW mit Baujahren älter als 2000") and since when ("mit Juli 2016"). The Euro-class formulation quoted in this field, and the marking duty for Euro 3 to 6, come from the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land Tatbestandskatalog für Anonymverfügungen listed in this record's sources — an undated document whose file name calls it a Vorschlag, which is why it corroborates this page rather than replacing it

Penalty if you do not comply

We have seen a figure and we are not printing it, and the reason is worth stating rather than hiding.

Breaching an IG-L driving ban is a Verwaltungsübertretung under § 30 of the federal Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft, so the range lives in federal law rather than in the Land's Verordnung — and the federal text is published through RIS, which answers this project with a Myra Security bot check and will not release even its robots.txt (B-057).

What we did find is one step closer to a driver than the statute: the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land publishes a Tatbestandskatalog für Anonymverfügungen that names fixed amounts for exactly this ban — for the breach itself, for a missing marking where an individual exemption has been granted, and for the marking duty on the newer Euro classes.

But that document's file name calls it a Vorschlag, a proposal, and the document carries no date anywhere in it. An undated proposal is not evidence of what a driver would be asked to pay today, so the amounts are not printed here and they are not estimated from the amounts another Land charges. The sum is real, it is written down in Austrian federal law, and the Land does not state it on any page we can read.

How to comply
  • If you are driving a car, a motorhome or anything that is not a lorry, this ban does not apply to you anywhere on the A1. What does apply to you is the speed limit: between Linz and Enns the A1 carries an IG-L limit of 100 km/h that is switched by measured pollution, so read the gantry signs rather than assuming 130.
  • If you are driving a lorry, the first question is its emission class. A heavy lorry built before 2000 — Euro 0, I or II in the district authority's wording — may not use the A1 between the Enns-Steyr interchange and the Knoten Haid, a stretch of about 20 km immediately south and west of Linz. Euro III and above may.
  • Carry proof of the class even if you are allowed through. The district authority's own penalty catalogue lists a Kennzeichnungspflicht for Euro 3, 4, 5 and 6 in this Sanierungsgebiet, which in Austria means the IG-L Abgasklassen-Kennzeichnungsplakette in the vehicle. A class you cannot show is a class that does not help you at a roadside check.
  • ⚠️ Do not assume a tonnage threshold in either direction. No source we can read states one for this ban. If your van is registered as an Lkw, this record cannot tell you whether you are inside it — and it will not guess, because Tyrol's comparable bans start above 7.5 tonnes while Lower Austria's are written for lorries of every weight class. Ask the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land, or read the Verordnung, before relying on either answer.
  • Know where the stretch is before you plan a detour. It runs from kilometre 154.966 at the Anschlussstelle Enns-Steyr to kilometre 175.574 at the Knoten Haid, in the Bezirk Linz-Land — not inside the city of Linz. The A1 kilometres count up from Vienna, so you meet Enns first if you are driving west.
  • Do not plan to leave the motorway to get around it. The Land states that a separate Verordnung exists precisely to stop lorry journeys being diverted onto the Bundesstraße or through residential areas. That rule is not covered by this record, and this record cannot tell you which roads it names.
  • There is no fee and no day pass. The only door that opens is an individually granted exemption — the district authority's catalogue confirms that a "zuerkannte Individualausnahme" exists for this Sanierungsgebiet and that a marking goes with it — but the conditions for granting one are in the Verordnung we cannot read. Apply to the Bezirkshauptmannschaft before you travel rather than at the roadside.
  • Do not expect the ban to lift at night. The Land considered a night ban for this stretch and rejected it as ineffective, choosing the ban on old lorries instead. No operating hours are published for it, so treat it as applying whenever you are on that stretch.
  • If you are crossing Austria on the A1 and your lorry is Euro III or newer, this particular ban is not your problem — but Austria's other Länder ask a different question. Tyrol's A 12 bars Euro 0 to V above 7.5 tonnes, and Vienna and Lower Austria bar Euro 0 to 2 lorries on their own terms. Check each Land on your route rather than reading one of them as the national rule.
Source: Amt der Oö. Landesregierung, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der Oö. Landesregierung — "Fragen zu Tempo 100" for the ban itself, the vehicles it reaches, the date it took effect, the Land's rejection of a night ban, the switched 100 km/h and the existence of a separate Verordnung against diverting lorry traffic off the motorway; together with the Bezirkshauptmannschaft Linz-Land Tatbestandskatalog für Anonymverfügungen and the 2011 programme under § 9a IG-L, both listed in this record's sources, for the Euro classes, the marking duty, the individual exemption and the two kilometre markers

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-18.

Before you set off

Austria also has a national requirement

This is owed on the country's roads, not inside this scheme. What Austria asks, with the source

Other cities in Austria