Driving in Schwechat: Low emission zone

Schwechat, Austria · Low emission zone

Official name LKW-Fahrverbot nach der NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10) — Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland

What applies

This is Austria's second emission-based driving ban in this corpus, and it is built the opposite way round from the first. On the Tyrolean A 12 every ban starts at 7.5 tonnes, so no car and no van is ever inside it.

Here the Land of Lower Austria states its ban with no tonnage at all: "Das derzeit geltende LKW-Fahrverbot gilt für Lkw und Sattelzugfahrzeuge ALLER Gewichtsklassen mit einem Euro-1-Motor, und mit Euro 2-Motor im Wiener Umland." Lorries and articulated vehicles of every weight class — the emphasis on ALLER is the publisher's own — with a Euro 1 engine may not drive, and in the Wiener Umland a Euro 2 engine is barred as well.

The page's own subtitle widens it at the other end: "Fahrverbot für LKW der Euroklasse 0 bis 2 in NÖ", so a vehicle with no Euro class at all is inside it too. The rule comes from the NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10), made after repeated exceedances of the PM10 limits; besides grit-spreading and agriculture it contains provisions for traffic.

Schwechat is the anchor because it is named in the Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland, in the Bezirk Bruck an der Leitha group, which means both halves of the sentence reach it — a Euro 1 lorry and a Euro 2 lorry are equally barred here, where elsewhere in the Land only the Euro 1 half is stated. A driver in a car is outside this rule: it is written for Lkw and Sattelzugfahrzeuge, not for passenger cars.

A driver in a van should read it more carefully than the Tyrolean one, because "all weight classes" is the publisher's phrase and a light commercial vehicle registered in Austria as an Lkw falls inside that wording rather than under a tonnage threshold that would exclude it.

Vehicles from Euro class 3 upwards, which may still be used, have had to carry an Abgasplakette since 2015, obtained from a garage for a fee the page does not name. What this record does not have is the operative text.

The Verordnung and the federal Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft behind it are both published through RIS, the federal legal information system, which answers this project with a Myra Security bot check and will not release even its robots.txt (B-057), and we do not work around bot protection.

So the hours, the exemptions, the commencement dates and the fine are all absent here and named as absent, and everything that is stated comes from the issuing administration describing its own rule on its own host.

Source: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht — "LKW-Fahrverbot in Niederösterreich", the Land's own statement of the driving ban its Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub imposes: which vehicles it reaches, which Euro classes, the municipalities of the Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland, and the marking duty for everything from Euro class 3 upwards

Daily charge

Nothing in this ban is for sale. The Land states a prohibition, not a tariff: a lorry either has an engine of Euro class 3 or better, or it may not be driven here. There is no day pass, no entry charge and no permit price anywhere on the page.

One thing does cost money and the page says so without naming a sum — the Abgasplakette that every vehicle from Euro class 3 upwards has had to carry since 2015 is obtained "bei Autowerkstätten kostenpflichtig", from garages for a fee.

The Land does not set or publish that fee, it is charged by the issuing garage rather than by the authority, and it buys a marking that proves a class the vehicle already has rather than admission for a vehicle that does not qualify. No figure is invented for it here.

When it operates

The Land states this ban with no clock at all. Its page gives no start time, no end time, no weekday list and no season; it says only that the ban is "derzeit geltend", currently in force, for the vehicles and Euro classes it names.

That reads as a rule that applies whenever the vehicle is driven, and nothing on the page suggests a window during which such a vehicle would be allowed through — but the sentence that would settle it is in the NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10) itself, and that text is published through RIS, which answers this project with a Myra Security bot check (B-057).

We have not read it, so no timetable is encoded and none is guessed. Treat the ban as being in force at the time you are driving, and read the Verordnung before relying on any hour of the day being exempt.

Area covered

Two extents, and the Land's own sentence carries both. The Euro 1 half is stated for Lower Austria — the page is headed "Fahrverbot für LKW der Euroklasse 0 bis 2 in NÖ" and the body names the Euro 1 engine without attaching a place to it. The Euro 2 half is attached to a named area: "und mit Euro 2-Motor im Wiener Umland".

That area is then listed municipality by municipality, and it is 61 Gemeinden across five districts.

In the Bezirk Bruck an der Leitha: Bad Deutsch-Altenburg, Bruck an der Leitha, Ebergassing, Enzersdorf an der Fischa, Fischamend, Göttlesbrunn-Arbesthal, Götzendorf an der Leitha, Hainburg an der Donau, Haslau-Maria Ellend, Himberg, Höflein, Klein-Neusiedl, Lanzendorf, Leopoldsdorf, Maria-Lanzendorf, Petronell-Carnuntum, Rauchenwarth, Rohrau, Scharndorf, Schwadorf, Schwechat, Trautmannsdorf an der Leitha and Zwölfaxing.

In the Bezirk Gänserndorf: Aderklaa, Andlersdorf, Deutsch-Wagram, Eckartsau, Engelhartstetten, Gänserndorf, Glinzendorf, Groß-Enzersdorf, Großhofen, Haringsee, Lassee, Leopoldsdorf im Marchfelde, Mannsdorf an der Donau, Marchegg, Markgrafneusiedl, Obersiebenbrunn, Orth an der Donau, Parbasdorf, Raasdorf, Strasshof an der Nordbahn, Untersiebenbrunn, Weiden an der March and Weikendorf.

In the Bezirk Korneuburg: Bisamberg, Gerasdorf bei Wien, Hagenbrunn, Korneuburg and Langenzersdorf. In the Bezirk Mödling: Achau, Biedermannsdorf, Brunn am Gebirge, Guntramsdorf, Hennersdorf, Laxenburg, Münchendorf, Vösendorf and Wiener Neudorf. In the Bezirk Tulln: the single municipality of Klosterneuburg.

Schwechat is in the first of those lists, so the stricter Euro 2 line applies at this anchor as well as the Euro 1 one. What the page does not say, and this record will not fill in, is whether the Euro 1 half really runs across the whole of Lower Austria or only inside a Sanierungsgebiet that the Verordnung defines and the page does not reproduce.

Both readings put Schwechat inside the ban — it is named in the Wiener Umland list either way — which is why the record can be written here and why it is anchored here rather than in a Lower Austrian town outside that list.

The ring is the eastern edge of the Land where it wraps around Vienna: the airport and refinery town of Schwechat and the Fischa valley in the south-east, the Marchfeld out to the Slovak border, the Danube bank at Korneuburg and Klosterneuburg in the north, and the industrial belt from Vösendorf to Wiener Neudorf in the south. Vienna itself is a separate Land and is not part of this list.

Source: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht — "LKW-Fahrverbot in Niederösterreich", which names the Wiener Umland as the area where the Euro 2 ban applies and then enumerates the Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland municipality by municipality under its five districts

Why there is no map here
The Land does publish where the Sanierungsgebiet is, and publishes it twice, but neither form is geometry we can hold. The map is a picture: "Sanierungsgebiet der NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM10)", one page dated March 2016, 332 320 bytes, drawn by the Land's own GIS section at 1:750,000 over a BEV base map — its text layer contains the title, the scale, the neighbouring countries and the district names scattered out of reading order, and no coordinates at all. The other form is the list of 61 municipalities on the ban's own page, which is a boundary definition in words and a good one, but turning it into a polygon would mean unioning 61 municipal outlines from a third-party source and publishing the result as the Land's Sanierungsgebiet. That is a shape assembled by us, from someone else's geometry, standing in for one the authority drew itself, and it is a decision that deserves its own investigation rather than a by-product of this record. So the municipalities are carried in the area field in the Land's own words and order, the warning is at city level, and Schwechat — named by the Land in the Bezirk Bruck an der Leitha group — is where it is anchored.

The authority's own map: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelttechnik und Abteilung Hydrologie…

Petrol standard

Euro 3, and the fuel is not what decides it. The Land writes the ban in Euro classes and in vehicle categories, never in fuels: a Lkw or Sattelzugfahrzeug of Euro class 0 to 2 is barred here, and one from Euro class 3 upwards "die noch eingesetzt werden dürfen" — which may still be used — has to carry the Abgasplakette.

A petrol-engined lorry is inside that sentence exactly as a diesel one is, which is worth saying because it is the opposite of the Tyrolean A 12 bans, where the weight threshold takes a petrol car or van out of the rule before its engine is ever considered. The class itself is the same either way, so no petrol-specific figure exists to report and none is constructed.

A passenger car is a different matter and a different reason: it is not an Lkw or a Sattelzugfahrzeug, so this record's threshold does not reach it at all, whatever it burns.

Source: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht — "LKW-Fahrverbot in Niederösterreich", which states the ban by Euro class and vehicle category and states the marking duty from Euro class 3 upwards, without distinguishing fuels anywhere

Diesel standard

Euro 3, and here in the Wiener Umland that is the whole of it. The Land's operative sentence bars Lkw and Sattelzugfahrzeuge of all weight classes with a Euro 1 engine, and with a Euro 2 engine in the Wiener Umland; the page's subtitle states the range as Euro class 0 to 2, so a vehicle with no Euro class at all is inside the ban too.

Schwechat is one of the 61 municipalities of the Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland, which means the Euro 2 line applies here and the first class that may still be driven is Euro 3.

Proof is required rather than assumed: everything from Euro class 3 upwards that may still be used has had to carry an Abgasplakette since 2015, obtained from a garage for a fee, so a vehicle that meets the class but cannot show the marking is in the same practical position as one that does not meet it. Two limits on this figure are worth stating.

It is the class the Land names on its own page, not the class read out of the Verordnung — the NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10) is published through RIS, which refuses this project (B-057), so any later tightening that has not yet reached this page would not be visible to us.

And it is a class for lorries: the threshold says nothing about what a car may be, because a car is not the kind of vehicle this rule is written for.

Source: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht — "LKW-Fahrverbot in Niederösterreich", which names the Euro 1 and Euro 2 engines that are barred, states the range as Euro class 0 to 2 in its subtitle, and makes the Abgasplakette compulsory from Euro class 3 upwards

Penalty if you do not comply

We do not have the figure, and the reason is the same one that keeps the Tyrolean record's fine empty. Breaching a driving ban made under the Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft is a Verwaltungsübertretung under that federal act, not under Lower Austrian law, so the amount is written in the federal statute rather than in the Land's Verordnung — and the Land's page for the ban does not repeat it.

Both texts, the federal IG-L and the NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10), are linked from that page to RIS, the federal Rechtsinformationssystem, 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.

So the sum a driver would pay is real and is written down in Austrian federal law, and we have not read it from an official source we are permitted to fetch. It is not carried over from the Tyrolean record, not taken from a motoring club or a chamber of commerce, and not estimated.

How to comply
  • If you are driving a passenger car, this ban is not about you. It is written for Lkw and Sattelzugfahrzeuge — lorries and articulated vehicles — and a car is neither, whatever its Euro class and whatever it burns.
  • If you are driving a van, check what it is registered as before you assume the same. Lower Austria states this ban for lorries and articulated vehicles "ALLER Gewichtsklassen", all weight classes, and the emphasis is the Land's own. There is no tonnage floor here of the kind that keeps every van out of the Tyrolean A 12 bans, so a light commercial vehicle registered in Austria as an Lkw is inside the wording.
  • Find your Euro class. Euro class 0 to 2 is the banned range as the Land states it: a Euro 1 engine is named for Lower Austria and a Euro 2 engine for the Wiener Umland, and the page's subtitle covers a vehicle with no class at all. Schwechat is inside the Wiener Umland, so both lines apply at this anchor and the first class that may still be driven here is Euro 3.
  • Carry the Abgasplakette. Every lorry from Euro class 3 upwards that may still be used has had to be marked with one since 2015. You get it from a garage and you pay for it; the Land does not publish what it costs.
  • Know which municipalities you are in. The Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland is 61 named Gemeinden in five districts — Bruck an der Leitha, Gänserndorf, Korneuburg, Mödling and Tulln — and the Land lists every one of them on its page. Schwechat, Klosterneuburg, Korneuburg, Gerasdorf bei Wien, Brunn am Gebirge, Wiener Neudorf, Vösendorf, Deutsch-Wagram and Groß-Enzersdorf are all in it.
  • Do not read this as a Vienna rule. Every municipality on the list is in Lower Austria; the city of Vienna is a separate Land with its own arrangements, and crossing the boundary does not mean the same ban continues.
  • Do not expect to buy your way through. The Land publishes a prohibition and no tariff: there is no day pass and no entry charge in this scheme at all.
  • Do not expect an hour of the day to be safe. The Land states the ban without any hours, seasons or weekdays. We have not read the Verordnung, so this record encodes no timetable — plan on the ban applying while you are driving.
  • If you need the exemptions, the commencement dates or the fine, you need the Verordnung itself: the NÖ Sanierungsgebiets- und Maßnahmenverordnung Feinstaub (PM 10), and behind it the federal Immissionsschutzgesetz-Luft. Both are linked from the Land's page to RIS. We cannot fetch RIS (B-057), so none of those three things is stated here.
  • There is a second kind of lorry ban in Lower Austria and it is not this one. The same page points to the Durchfahrtsverbote, transit bans on individual roads, which are made for different reasons and do not turn on your Euro class. Checking one does not answer the other.
Source: Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht, read 2026-09-18
Full citation

Amt der NÖ Landesregierung, Abteilung Umwelt- und Anlagenrecht — "LKW-Fahrverbot in Niederösterreich", which states the vehicle categories and weight classes, the Euro classes, the 61 municipalities of the Sanierungsgebiet Wiener Umland, the Abgasplakette duty from Euro class 3 upwards, and the pointer to the separate Durchfahrtsverbote

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