Belo Horizonte, Brazil · Heavy vehicle ban
Official name Restrição à circulação de veículos de carga na área central e em corredores de tráfego (Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009, alterada pelas Portarias BHTRANS DPR nº 077/2014 e nº 004/2019)
Partly in force in Belo Horizonte right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 06:04 · America/Sao Paulo
Two of these six rules never switch off, so this schedule reports the scheme as partly in force at three in the morning on a Sunday. That is not a rounding error: it is the articulated-vehicle ban in the Área Central and the 24-hour closure of the two Av. do Contorno stretches, both of which really do run at that hour. Read the rule labels rather than the headline — a rigid lorry under 5.5 tonnes of load capacity, and any car, is bound by neither.
Which timetable applies to you is decided by the road, and we hold no geometry for any of these places. BHTRANS publishes the restricted area as a printable PDF map and the boundaries as street lists in the portarias, so we warn at city level and cannot tell you whether the street you are on is inside the Área Central, on a listed corridor or on neither.
Below the threshold none of this applies at any hour. The scheme reaches a goods vehicle only if its capacidade de carga is over 5.5 tonnes or it is longer than 6.50 m, or if it is a carreta or caminhão-trator; every car, van and motorcycle is outside it.
Public holidays are not encoded because the publisher does not mention them. "Feriado" appears nowhere in Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 or its two amendments, so unlike São Paulo's lorry scheme this one states no holiday exception and this schedule treats a public holiday as an ordinary weekday or Saturday.
An Autorização Especial para Trânsito de Veículo changes the answer and is not encoded here. A vehicle BHTRANS has authorised for an exceptional or indivisible load may enter at the address and in the hours its authorisation states; the rules above will show the scheme as closed to it.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Belo Horizonte keeps heavy goods vehicles out of its central districts for most of the working day, and keeps articulated ones out altogether.
The test is the vehicle rather than what it emits: a goods vehicle whose capacidade de carga — its rated load capacity — is over 5.5 tonnes, or which is longer than 6.50 m, may neither drive through nor load and unload in the Área Central, which BHTRANS names as the Hipercentro, Savassi, Lourdes, Assembleia/Barro Preto and Hospitalar, nor on Av. Nossa Senhora do Carmo.
There it is barred from 07:00 to 20:00 Monday to Friday and from 07:00 to 15:00 on Saturday. Carretas and caminhões-trator — articulated units and tractor cabs — are barred from that same area at every hour of every day, Sunday included. On the corridors that feed the centre, a closed list of named avenue segments, both classes are barred 07:00–09:00 and 17:00–20:00 on weekdays and 07:00–09:00 on Saturday.
Two one-way stretches of Av. do Contorno, the pair BHTRANS calls the tobogã, are closed to both classes around the clock. Below the threshold nothing applies: a vehicle of at most 5.5 t load capacity and no more than 6.50 m long circulates and loads freely at any hour in every one of these places, and so does any car, van or motorcycle.
There is nothing to pay and no day pass to buy. The only way through for a vehicle that is over the limit is an Autorização Especial para Trânsito de Veículo, which BHTRANS grants in advance and at its own discretion for exceptional cases — indivisible loads, special vehicles — against a stated address and stated hours.
BHTRANS (Empresa de Transportes e Trânsito de Belo Horizonte S/A), Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte — "Áreas de carga, descarga e com restrições", the operator's own table of which class is barred where and when
Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 and Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 077/2014 prohibit; they never price the trip, and they create no toll, day pass or payable exemption.
We searched all three instruments for a fine, a penalty and a charge and found none: "multa", "infra" and "penalidade" match nothing in the 10,192 characters of the 2009 portaria, the 2,547 of the 2014 one or the 1,413 of the 2019 one.
What exists instead of a payment is an authorisation: article 9 of the 2009 portaria and article 3 of the 2014 one both let BHTRANS grant one "para casos excepcionais", "a critério da BHTRANS, mediante especificação de endereço e horários a serem cumpridos", and neither sets a tariff for it.
Whether the city charges a fee for issuing that authorisation is not something we can state: BHTRANS's own Autorizações Especiais page names the AETV and gives no price, and the municipal service page it links to (servicos.pbh.gov.br) served us nothing but "This application requires JavaScript to be enabled" on 2026-09-13.
Three different timetables run inside this one scheme, and which one you are on is decided by the road, not by the hour. In the Área Central and on Av.
Nossa Senhora do Carmo, a goods vehicle over 5.5 t of load capacity or over 6.50 m long is barred from 07:00 to 20:00 Monday to Friday and from 07:00 to 15:00 on Saturday — article 1, II and article 7, II of Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 put it as "de segunda-feira a sexta-feira, de 07:00 às 20:00, e aos sábados, entre 07:00 e 15:00", and BHTRANS restates the same two windows as "7h às 20h" and "7h às 15h" in its own table.
On the listed traffic corridors the windows are shorter and there are two of them a day: 07:00–09:00 and 17:00–20:00 on weekdays, 07:00–09:00 on Saturday, under article 6, II. Sunday is outside both of those timetables at every hour, and BHTRANS writes "Livre" against it. Two things do not stop on Sunday and do not stop at night.
Carretas and caminhões-trator — cavalos mecânicos — are barred from the Área Central and from Av.
Nossa Senhora do Carmo "em qualquer horário" by article 1, III and article 7, III, which BHTRANS renders as "Proibido 24h" on all three days of its table; and on the two one-way stretches of Av. do Contorno covered by article 1 of Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 077/2014 — between Rua dos Inconfidentes and Rua Ceará in that direction, and between Rua Andaluzita and Av.
Afonso Pena in that direction — the ban runs "em qualquer horário" for both classes. The threshold itself moved once: article 1 of Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 004/2019 raised the free-circulation limit from 5 t to 5.50 t of load capacity and left everything else "vigente e inalterado". Public holidays are not mentioned.
The word "feriado" does not appear anywhere in the 2009 portaria — no match in 37 lines and 10,192 characters — nor in either amending portaria, so unlike São Paulo's lorry scheme this one states no holiday exception, and we do not invent one for it.
BHTRANS — Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009, de 16 de dezembro de 2009, articles 1, 6 and 7, published in the Diário Oficial do Município de Belo Horizonte edition 3487 of 18/12/2009 and served as HTML by the city's own DOM API (human-readable copy at dom-web.pbh.gov.br/visualizacao/ato/199503)
The scheme is not one shape but three kinds of place, and Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 defines each of them by naming streets rather than by drawing a line. The first is the Área Central, which BHTRANS's own table names as the Hipercentro, Savassi, Lourdes, Assembleia/Barro Preto and Hospitalar.
The portaria builds it in five perimeters that took effect one after another and does not use those district names: article 1 covers the streets inside Viaduto B (Av. Pedro II), Av. Olegário Maciel, R. dos Caetés, Av. do Contorno, R.
Rio de Janeiro, R. dos Guaicurus, R. Espírito Santo, Av. do Contorno, Av. dos Andradas, Alameda Ezequiel Dias, R.
Pernambuco, R. dos Timbiras, Av. Álvares Cabral, R. dos Aimorés, Av.
Bias Fortes, R. dos Guajajaras, R. Rio Grande do Sul and Av. do Contorno; article 2 (from 25 January 2010) the block bounded by R. dos Timbiras, Av.
Afonso Pena, Av. do Contorno clockwise and R. da Bahia; article 3 (from 26 April 2010) the block bounded by R. dos Guajajaras, Av.
Bias Fortes, R. dos Aimorés, Av. Álvares Cabral, R. dos Timbiras, R. da Bahia, Av. do Contorno clockwise and Av.
Olegário Maciel; article 4 (from 26 July 2010) the block bounded by R. Rio Grande do Sul, R. dos Guajajaras, Av.
Olegário Maciel, Av. do Contorno and R. dos Goitacazes; and article 5 (from 25 October 2010) the block bounded by Alameda Ezequiel Dias, Av. dos Andradas clockwise, Av. do Contorno, Av.
Getúlio Vargas, R. Bernardo Guimarães, Av. do Contorno clockwise, R. dos Inconfidentes, Av.
Afonso Pena and R. Pernambuco. Article 8 then fuses them: one year after each of articles 2 to 5 was implemented, that area moves onto the same regulation as article 1's, which is why BHTRANS's table today shows a single Área Central on a single timetable.
Article 7 adds one road on the article 1 timetable but outside the centre — Av. Nossa Senhora do Carmo (BR 356) between Av. do Contorno and R.
Professor Rodrigues Seabra, where BHTRANS also runs a monitoring post 24 hours a day near the Ponteio. The second kind of place is the corridors. Article 6, as amended by the sole paragraph of article 1 of Portaria nº 077/2014, lists them and the list closes: Av.
Afonso Pena between Av. do Contorno and Av. Bandeirantes; Av.
Prudente de Morais; Av. Raja Gabáglia between Av. do Contorno and Av.
Barão Homem de Melo; Av. Amazonas between Av. do Contorno and Av.
Silva Lobo; Av. Tereza Cristina between Av. do Contorno and Av.
Silva Lobo; the Elevado Castelo Branco; Av. Dom Pedro II between Av. Nossa Senhora de Fátima and Av.
Presidente Carlos Luz; Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos between Av. Nossa Senhora de Fátima and Av.
Bernardo Vasconcelos; the Túneis Presidente Tancredo Neves and Prefeito Souza Lima; Av. Cristiano Machado between those tunnels and Av. Silviano Brandão; Av. dos Andradas between Av. do Contorno and Av.
Silviano Brandão; R. Itajubá between Av. do Contorno and R.
Pouso Alegre; R. Pouso Alegre between Av. Flávio dos Santos and R.
Jacuí; R. Jacuí between R. Pouso Alegre and Av.
Cristiano Machado; and four one-way stretches of Av. do Contorno itself. The third is the pair of Av. do Contorno stretches BHTRANS calls the tobogã — between R. dos Inconfidentes and R.
Ceará in that direction, and between R. Andaluzita and Av. Afonso Pena in that direction — which Portaria nº 077/2014 closed around the clock from 1 July 2014.
Those two appear in both places on BHTRANS's page: in the corridor list and again on their own 24-hour line, and the 24-hour line is the one that governs them.
BHTRANS — Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 (articles 1 to 8, the perimeters and the corridor list) read together with Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 077/2014 (article 1 and its sole paragraph, the Av. do Contorno stretches), both served as HTML by the city's own Diário Oficial API; the district names of the Área Central are BHTRANS's, from its own restrictions table
The authority's own map: BHTRANS (Empresa de Transportes e Trânsito de Belo Horizonte S/A), Prefeitura…
There is no emission standard to meet, and no petrol car is in this scheme at any hour. The rule sorts vehicles by what they can carry and how long they are — over 5.5 t of capacidade de carga, or over 6.50 m — and by whether they are a carreta or a caminhão-trator.
Neither Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009 nor either of its amendments names a Euro class, a PROCONVE phase or a registration year, and the only threshold any of the three states is the one the 2019 portaria moved: from 5 t to 5.50 t of load capacity.
Not applicable, for the same reason as the petrol standard: the instruments never mention fuel, and a goods vehicle is in the scheme whatever it burns.
What decides the case is "capacidade de carga" — the vehicle's rated load capacity, the term Portaria nº 077/2014 substituted throughout the 2009 portaria in place of "lotação" — and none of the three instruments defines it further or converts it to a gross weight, so we report the publisher's own measure rather than a tonnage of our own.
We could not read the federal Código de Trânsito Brasileiro from here on 2026-09-13 either: www.planalto.gov.br completes TLS and then closes the connection on the request (B-040), an HTTP refusal by a healthy host rather than an unreachable one, and we do not work around it. It would not have settled this in any case, because these portarias never cite it.
Assume there is a fine and that we cannot tell you its size: the publisher does not state it.
The instruments themselves are silent — searching all three for "multa", "infra" and "penalidade" matched nothing, 0 of 37 lines and 10,192 characters in Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009, 0 of 15 lines and 2,547 characters in Portaria nº 077/2014, 0 of 11 lines and 1,413 characters in Portaria nº 004/2019 — and none of the three cites the federal Código de Trânsito Brasileiro at all, by article or otherwise.
Enforcement is real and BHTRANS says so: its page on the Detectores de Tráfego em Locais Proibidos, updated on 3 September 2026, states that the two portarias fix the roads and hours and that the operator "passou a utilizar equipamentos de fiscalização eletrônica", alongside a monitoring post that runs 24 hours a day on the BR 356 near the Ponteio.
So a breach is detected and penalised; BHTRANS simply does not state the amount or the infraction class on any page we can read, and following D-053 we will not read a figure out of the national fine table on our own authority.
BHTRANS — "Áreas de carga, descarga e com restrições" for the classes, the places and the hours, with the authorisation step taken from BHTRANS's own "Autorizações Especiais" page and the enforcement statement from its "Detectores de Tráfego em Locais Proibidos" page, both listed below
BHTRANS — "Áreas de carga, descarga e com restrições": the operator's own table of the two vehicle classes, the three kinds of place and the hours for each, plus the closed list of corridor segments (the endpoint we monitor for all of that)
BHTRANS — Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 138/2009, de 16 de dezembro de 2009: the consolidating instrument that fixes the perimeters, the corridor list, the two timetables, the 24-hour ban on articulated units and the discretionary authorisation. Published in the Diário Oficial do Município edition 3487 of 18/12/2009 and served as HTML by the city's own DOM API; human-readable copy at dom-web.pbh.gov.br/visualizacao/ato/199503
BHTRANS — Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 077/2014, de 25 de junho de 2014: closes the two one-way stretches of Av. do Contorno around the clock from 1 July 2014, rewrites the Av. do Contorno entry in the 2009 corridor list, and replaces "lotação" with "capacidade de carga" throughout. Published in the Diário Oficial do Município edition 4585 of 27/06/2014; human-readable copy at dom-web.pbh.gov.br/visualizacao/ato/293524
BHTRANS — Portaria BHTRANS DPR nº 004/2019, de 25 de janeiro de 2019: the only change since 2014, raising the free-circulation limit from 5 t to 5.50 t of load capacity and leaving the rest of both portarias "vigente e inalterado". Published in the Diário Oficial do Município edition 5702 of 29/01/2019; human-readable copy at dom-web.pbh.gov.br/visualizacao/ato/375340
BHTRANS — "Detectores de Tráfego em Locais Proibidos (DTLP)", updated 3 September 2026: the publisher's own present-tense statement that these two portarias fix the restricted roads and hours and that it enforces them with electronic equipment and a 24-hour monitoring post on the BR 356 (the endpoint we monitor for whether the scheme is still being operated)
BHTRANS — "Autorizações Especiais", updated 21 May 2026: the publisher's description of the AETV, the only way past the restriction for a vehicle that is over the limit (the endpoint we monitor for the authorisation route)
Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-12.