São Paulo, Brazil · Heavy vehicle ban
Official name Zona de Máxima Restrição de Circulação — ZMRC (Decreto nº 56.920, de 8 de abril de 2016; limites e horários fixados pela Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB, alterada pela Portaria nº 154/18-SMT.GAB)
In force in São Paulo right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 06:04 · America/Sao Paulo
Lifts Tuesday, 13 October 2026 at 21:00 local time.
Article 1 of Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB restricts "excetuados os feriados", and the CET repeats "exceto feriados" in its own words, so every Brazilian public holiday is outside the scheme — and we hold no official, dated Brazilian holiday calendar to name those days. The verdict above therefore treats every weekday and Saturday as an ordinary day, which over-warns on a holiday rather than under-warning on a working day.
This timetable is the ZMRC and nothing else. Streets inside the zone that are signed as Vias Estruturais Restritas keep their own hours under the four paragraphs of article 2 of the same portaria, and streets signed with a plain R-9 or with R-10 are closed for longer. On those streets the specific regulation prevails, and this schedule will under-warn.
An AETC changes the answer and is not encoded here. A lorry authorised for refuse collection, concrete, removals or the other named services may enter during the hours listed in Anexo VI of the portaria, and a registered VUC may enter all day. The rules above will show the zone as closed to them.
The rodízio is a second scheme over much of the same ground, keyed to the last digit of the plate for 07:00–10:00 and 17:00–20:00. A lorry can be outside the ZMRC hours and still barred by the rodízio, or the other way round; read both records rather than either alone.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
São Paulo closes most of its central area to lorries for sixteen hours of every working day. Inside the Zona de Máxima Restrição de Circulação — the ZMRC — no caminhão may drive from 05:00 to 21:00 Monday to Friday, or from 10:00 to 14:00 on Saturday. Public holidays are outside it, and so is every hour of Sunday.
This is a different scheme from the rodízio, and a lorry driver in São Paulo meets both: the rodízio bars one pair of plate digits for three hours twice a day inside the Minianel Viário, while the ZMRC bars lorries as a class, for far longer, over an area the city delimits street by street. The way in is an authorisation rather than a payment.
A lorry that needs to enter during the restricted hours must hold an Autorização Especial de Trânsito para Caminhões (AETC), granted in advance by the Departamento de Operação do Sistema Viário for one of about twenty named services — refuse collection, concrete, removals, market access, postal work, breakdown recovery, access to a parking space the operator owns or rents — each with its own permitted hours.
Small lorries help themselves: a Veículo Urbano de Carga, at most 2.20 m wide and 7.20 m long and built from January 2005, may use the ZMRC at any hour once registered. Outside the restricted hours no authorisation and no prior registration are needed at all, and cars, vans and motorcycles are never in this scheme.
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET), Secretaria Executiva de Mobilidade e Trânsito, Prefeitura de São Paulo — "Perguntas Frequentes", the Caminhões section
Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. Article 1 of Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB prohibits lorry traffic in the ZMRC in the stated hours; it never prices the trip, and it creates no toll, day pass or payable exemption.
What exists instead of a payment is the AETC, an authorisation the DSV grants in advance against documents — vehicle registration, proof of the service, a CET dimension certificate for a VUC — and the portaria sets no tariff for it.
Article 42 makes the separation explicit from the other side: holding an AETC does not relieve the driver of Zona Azul parking cards or of public prices "quando exigidos", which are charges the portaria points at rather than levies.
Monday to Friday from 05:00 to 21:00, and Saturday from 10:00 to 14:00, with public holidays excepted. Article 1 of Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB puts it as the prohibition of lorry traffic in the ZMRC "nos seguintes dias e horários, excetuados os feriados: I - de 2ª a 6ª feira: das 05 às 21 horas; II - aos sábados: das 10 às 14 horas", and the CET restates the same two windows in its own FAQ.
Sunday is outside the scheme at every hour, and so is every hour outside those windows — the CET is explicit that if the journey falls outside the restricted hours, no special authorisation and no prior registration are required. Two things inside the zone keep their own clocks and are not covered by this timetable.
Streets inside the ZMRC that are signed as Vias Estruturais Restritas run to the separate hours set by the four paragraphs of article 2 of the same portaria, and streets signed with a plain R-9 or with R-10 are barred for longer or to more vehicles; article 1, paragraph 1 says those specific regulations prevail on those streets.
A registered VUC is released from the ZMRC for the whole day, but article 2, paragraph 1's Vias Estruturais Restritas stay closed to it during their restricted hours.
Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade e Transportes, Prefeitura de São Paulo — Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB, de 3 de agosto de 2018, article 1, published by the CET on its own server (a PDF the monitor reads in full, machine-watched since 2026-09-18)
The ZMRC is the part of São Paulo that concentrates retail and services — roughly the old centre and the districts around it — and the city delimits it street by street rather than drawing it in words. Annex II of Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB lists 57 numbered segments, each naming a street and the two points it runs between, and the list closes back on itself: it begins at R.
Júlio Conceição between the CPTM line and R. dos Italianos, runs east through Bom Retiro and Luz (R. Prates, R.
José Paulino, Pça. da Luz, Av. Tiradentes, R.
Mauá, R. da Cantareira), turns south along Av. do Estado through Ipiranga (R. do Grito, R. do Manifesto, Av.
Alm. Delamare, R. Silva Bueno), crosses to Av.
Pres. Tancredo Neves and the Complexo Viário Maria Maluf, then west through Jabaquara and Moema (R. Brasópolis, Av.
Jabaquara, Av. dos Bandeirantes, Al. dos Maracatins), joins Av. das Nações Unidas along the Pinheiros river past the Eusébio Matoso and Cidade Universitária bridges, and returns north through Vila Leopoldina (Av.
Queiroz Filho, Av. Imperatriz Leopoldina, Av. Mofarrej, Av.
Dr. Gastão Vidigal) to the CPTM line and back to R. Júlio Conceição.
On the ground the edge is signed: article 1, paragraph 2 requires the limits of the ZMRC to carry the R-9 "Proibido Trânsito de Caminhões" sign stating the day and hours of the ban, with the supplementary plate "ÁREA DE RESTRIÇÃO".
The ZMRC is not the same area as the rodízio's Minianel Viário and the two should not be read off one another, although they overlap heavily and several roads — Av. dos Bandeirantes, the Complexo Viário Maria Maluf, Av. Pres.
Tancredo Neves — appear in both. Separate from the ZMRC, the same portaria restricts named arterial roads across the city as Vias Estruturais Restritas, many of them well outside this perimeter, and Zonas Especiais de Restrição de Circulação in exclusively residential districts are closed to lorries around the clock.
Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade e Transportes, Prefeitura de São Paulo — Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB, Anexo II "Relação dos Limites da ZMRC" and article 1, paragraph 2, published by the CET on its own server (a PDF, so it carries no watched strings)
The authority's own map: Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET), Secretaria Executiva de Mobilidade e…
There is no emission standard to meet, and no petrol car is in this scheme at any hour. The ZMRC sorts vehicles by what they are — a caminhão or not — and not by what they emit: neither Decreto nº 56.920/16 nor Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB names a Euro class, a PROCONVE phase or a registration year for entry.
Emissions appear once, obliquely: article 2, V of the decree says a VUC must "observar condições adequadas quanto à emissão de poluentes", and article 4, paragraph 3 lets the secretariat require such conditions for registration. The portaria that was to set them defines the VUC by width, length and build year only, so there is no published emission threshold to report.
Not applicable, for the same reason as the petrol standard: the instruments never mention fuel. Diesel matters here only in that most lorries run on it, and a lorry is in the scheme whatever it burns.
What decides the case is the vehicle category, and the municipal instruments do not restate where it begins — neither the decree nor the portaria gives a tonnage or an axle count for "caminhão", leaving the federal Código de Trânsito Brasileiro to supply it, and the CET does not repeat that definition on any page we can read.
We could not read the CTB itself from here on 2026-09-13: www.planalto.gov.br completes TLS in 771 ms and then closes the connection on the request, so this is an HTTP refusal rather than an unreachable host, and we do not work around it.
The operative test the publisher does state is the sign — R-9 "proibido trânsito de caminhões" with the plate "ÁREA DE RESTRIÇÃO" — and the one dimensional figure it states is the VUC: at most 2.20 m wide and 7.20 m long, built from January 2005.
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Perguntas Frequentes", the Caminhões section, which prices a breach of the R-9 sign that article 1, paragraph 2 of Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB requires at the limits of the ZMRC: "Qual o valor da multa para caminhões que transitarem em horários e locais não permitidos sinalizados com o sinal R-9 … A multa é de R$ 130,16, infração média e 4 pontos na Carteira Nacional de Habilitação - CNH." It is an infração média and carries 4 points on the Brazilian licence as well as the money
Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade e Transportes — Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB, articles 1, 6 to 9 and 18 to 38 and Anexo VI, published by the CET on its own server (a PDF the monitor reads in full, machine-watched since 2026-09-18); the permitted hours per service are the CET's own summary table of the same annex
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Perguntas Frequentes", the Caminhões section: the publisher's own statement of what the ZMRC is, which instruments fix it, the hours, the sign, the fine, and that nothing is needed outside the restricted hours (the endpoint we monitor for all of those)
Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade e Transportes — Portaria nº 137/18-SMT.GAB, de 3 de agosto de 2018, the instrument that fixes the limits, the hours, the signing, the AETC and every exception; published in the Diário Oficial da Cidade on 04/08/2018 and in force 60 days later, hosted by the CET (a PDF the monitor reads in full, machine-watched since 2026-09-18)
Secretaria Municipal de Mobilidade e Transportes — Portaria nº 154/18-SMT.GAB, which amends article 36 of the 2018 portaria and suspends article 33, paragraph 4, from the same commencement date; published in the Diário Oficial da Cidade on 03/10/2018, hosted by the CET (a PDF the monitor reads in full, machine-watched since 2026-09-18)
Prefeitura do Município de São Paulo — Decreto nº 56.920, de 8 de abril de 2016, which creates the ZMRC, the ZERC, the VER, the AETC and the VUC as concepts and leaves their delimitation to the transport secretariat, hosted by the CET (a PDF the monitor reads in full, machine-watched since 2026-09-18)
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Locais com restrição ao caminhão", the publisher's own description of what each restricted class is and of the roads lorries may never use (the endpoint we monitor for the zone classes)
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Resumo das restrições", the CET's own rendering of Anexo VI: which service may enter which restricted area at which hours, and that an AETC is obligatory (the endpoint we monitor for the permitted hours and the commencement date)
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Exceções", the publisher's plain-language list of the services an AETC can be granted for (the endpoint we monitor for the exception classes)
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Legislação", the publisher's index of the instruments in force for lorry restrictions, with the date each took effect (the endpoint we monitor for which instruments are current)
Companhia de Engenharia de Tráfego (CET) — "Mapa", the page from which the authority's own maps of the ZMRC are offered (the endpoint we monitor for the map channel, whose files we do not hold: see boundary_coverage)
Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-12.
A city can run more than one scheme, and they do not always answer the same question.