Driving in Sofia

Bulgaria: 2 schemes to know about before you drive in.

The short answer for Sofia

Sofia has 2 driving restrictions on our books: the Зона „Голям ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества (low emission zone) and the Зона „Малък ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества (low emission zone). What is a low emission zone?

What it means for your car

Зона „Голям ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества

Petrol or LPG. Eco group two or better is required in this zone in the 2026/27 season: only group one is banned. For a petrol car the group is not the Euro class by itself. Наредба № Н-32, article 37a(1)(1), sorts spark-ignition M1 and N1 vehicles by Euro category, date of first registration and the carbon monoxide measured in the exhaust at idle, all three together. Group one — the only group banned here today — is a car with no Euro category first registered up to 1 July 1992 with CO up to 4.5%, or a Euro 1 or Euro 2 car registered up to 1 January 1996 with CO up to 3.5%. Group two, which is allowed here but not in the inner ring, is Euro 1, 2 or 3 registered between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 2007 with CO up to 0.5% at low idle and 0.3% at high idle. Group three is Euro 3 to Euro 6 registered from 1 July 2002 with CO up to 0.3% and 0.2%; group four is Euro 4 to Euro 7 registered from 1 September 2009 with CO up to 0.2% and 0.1%; group five is battery electric, fuel-cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles, never restricted here. Three rules cut the other way. A vehicle that lands in no group after the measurement is put in group one — so a failed or missing measurement is the worst outcome, not a neutral one. A spark-ignition vehicle never fitted with emission control from the factory is group one whatever its age. And a vehicle less than three years old is put in the highest group its propulsion allows without being measured. From 1 December 2027 group two is banned in this zone as well.
Diesel. Eco group two or better, the same threshold as petrol — but reached by a different table, and a diesel usually sits a group lower than the petrol equivalent of the same Euro class. Наредба № Н-32, article 37a(1)(2), sorts compression-ignition M1 and N1 vehicles by Euro category, date of first registration and smoke opacity measured at the test. Group one — the only group banned here today — is a diesel with no Euro category or Euro 1, 2 or 3, first registered up to 31 December 2002, with opacity up to 2.5 m⁻¹ naturally aspirated or 3.0 m⁻¹ turbocharged. That band is wide: a Euro 3 diesel can be in group one and therefore banned from this zone. Group two, allowed here but not in the inner ring, is Euro 3, 4, 5 or EEV registered between 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2007 with opacity up to 1.5 m⁻¹. Group three is Euro 4 to Euro 6 from 1 January 2005 with opacity up to 0.7 m⁻¹, group four Euro 5, EEV, Euro 6 or Euro 7 from 1 September 2009 with opacity up to 0.5 m⁻¹. The measurement can demote a vehicle its paperwork would place higher, and the same three side rules apply as for petrol: no group after measurement means group one, and a vehicle under three years old is placed in the highest group for its propulsion without measurement. From 1 December 2027 group two is banned here as well.

Зона „Малък ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества

Petrol or LPG. Eco group three or better is required in this zone in the 2026/27 season: groups one and two are banned. For a petrol car the group is not the Euro class by itself. Наредба № Н-32, article 37a(1)(1), sorts spark-ignition M1 and N1 vehicles by Euro category, date of first registration and the carbon monoxide measured in the exhaust at idle, all three together. Group one is a car with no Euro category first registered up to 1 July 1992 with CO up to 4.5%, or a Euro 1 or Euro 2 car registered up to 1 January 1996 with CO up to 3.5%. Group two is Euro 1, 2 or 3 registered between 1 January 1993 and 31 December 2007 with CO up to 0.5% at low idle and 0.3% at high idle. Group three, the first group allowed in here, is Euro 3 to Euro 6 registered from 1 July 2002 with CO up to 0.3% and 0.2%. Group four is Euro 4 to Euro 7 registered from 1 September 2009 with CO up to 0.2% and 0.1%, and group five is reserved for battery electric, fuel-cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which are never restricted here. Three rules cut the other way and a driver should know them. A vehicle that does not land in any group after the measurement is put in group one — so a failed or missing measurement is the worst outcome, not a neutral one. A spark-ignition vehicle never fitted with emission control from the factory is group one whatever its age. And a vehicle less than three years old is put in the highest group its propulsion allows without being measured at all. From 1 December 2028 group three is banned here too, leaving only groups four and five.
Diesel. Eco group three or better, the same threshold as petrol — but the group is reached by a different table and a diesel of a given Euro class usually sits one group lower than the petrol equivalent. Наредба № Н-32, article 37a(1)(2), sorts compression-ignition M1 and N1 vehicles by Euro category, date of first registration and the smoke opacity coefficient measured at the test. Group one is a diesel with no Euro category or Euro 1, 2 or 3, first registered up to 31 December 2002, with opacity up to 2.5 m⁻¹ naturally aspirated or 3.0 m⁻¹ turbocharged. Group two is Euro 3, 4, 5 or EEV registered between 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2007 with opacity up to 1.5 m⁻¹. Group three, the first allowed in this zone, is Euro 4 to Euro 6 registered from 1 January 2005 with opacity up to 0.7 m⁻¹. Group four is Euro 5, EEV, Euro 6 or Euro 7 registered from 1 September 2009 with opacity up to 0.5 m⁻¹. Note what that means in practice: a Euro 3 diesel can be in group one, and a Euro 4 diesel that smokes above 0.7 m⁻¹ on the day falls to group two and is banned here — the measurement can demote a vehicle its paperwork would place higher. The same three side rules apply as for petrol: no group after measurement means group one, and a vehicle under three years old is placed in the highest group for its propulsion without measurement. From 1 December 2028 group three is banned here as well.

Sources last read on 2026-09-16, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-11-15.

How the schemes in Sofia compare

The schemes, one by one

• Зона „Голям ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества Low emission zone

  The outer of Sofia's two low emission rings, and the newer one: it first restricted a vehicle on 1 December 2025, two years after the inner ring did. „Голям ринг“ is the area enclosed by thirteen named roads — бул. Сливница, бул.

  Данаил Николаев, бул. Ситняково, бул. Михай Еминеску, бул.

  П. Яворов, бул. Никола Й.

  Вапцаров, ул. Атанас Дуков, ул. Люба Величкова, ул.

  Сребърна, бул. Х. Ибсен, бул.

  П. Ю. Тодоров, бул.

  И. Е. Гешов and бул.

  К. Величков — roughly 17 km² covering central Sofia and the inner suburbs around it. From 1 December of each year to the last day of February of the next, cars and vans in the FIRST Bulgarian eco group may not drive in it.

  That is the only difference from the inner ring and it is the difference that matters: group two is still allowed here, and is not allowed in Малък ринг, which sits wholly inside this zone. From 1 December 2027 group two is banned here too, and this zone then matches the inner ring as it stands today. There is no charge and no day pass — it is a ban.

  Everything else is shared with the inner ring, because both come from one instrument, the Столична община ordinance on creating low emission zones, adopted by council decision № 931 of 15 December 2022 and in force since 1 December 2023.

  The test is the Bulgarian eco group, assigned at the periodic roadworthiness inspection from the Euro category, the date of first registration and the carbon monoxide or smoke opacity measured on the day — not the Euro class alone, and a vehicle that lands in no group at all is treated as group one.

  The exemptions are residency and disability rather than vehicle: residents of the ring holding the local paid-parking vignette, residents who register with Център за градска мобилност, and holders of a disabled parking card. Emergency vehicles and public passenger transport are outside the ordinance entirely. Enforcement is round-the-clock camera surveillance and the fine comes from national law.

  One warning the operator gives in its own words and this record repeats: living inside Голям ринг does not let you drive through Малък ринг during the ban.

• Зона „Малък ринг“ — зона с ниски емисии на вредни вещества Low emission zone

  Bulgaria enters this corpus on a low emission zone that only exists for three months of the year. Sofia has two concentric rings and this is the inner one, the ring the city calls „Малък ринг“, bounded by бул. Васил Левски, бул.

  Патриарх Евтимий, бул. Ген. Скобелев, ул.

  Опълченска and бул. Сливница — about 3.4 km² around the centre. From 1 December of each year to the last day of February of the next, cars and vans in the first and second Bulgarian eco groups may not drive in it at all.

  There is no charge, no day pass and no barrier: this is a ban. Outside those three months the zone does not operate, and a driver who reads a Sofia map in June will find nothing to obey. Two things make it unlike most zones in this corpus.

  The test is not the Euro class on its own.

  Bulgaria sorts M1 and N1 vehicles into five eco groups at the periodic roadworthiness test, and the group depends on the Euro category, on the date of first registration AND on the carbon monoxide or smoke opacity actually measured on the day — so two Euro 3 cars of the same year can end up in different groups, and any car that fails to land in a group at all falls into the first.

  The second is the phasing, which is written into the ordinance years in advance: group one was banned here from 1 December 2023, group two was added from 1 December 2024, and group three follows from 1 December 2028. That makes the 2026/27 season the same as the last one — groups one and two — with no further act needed.

  The exemptions are narrow and none of them is about the vehicle: residents of the ring who hold the local paid-parking vignette are free of it, as are residents without one who register with Център за градска мобилност, and holders of a disabled parking card. Emergency vehicles and public passenger transport are outside the ordinance entirely, and the mayor may open the zone by order for a declared event.

  Enforcement is round-the-clock camera surveillance, and the fine is set by national law rather than by the city. The ordinance survived a court challenge: on 10 February 2025 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the rejection of a challenge to article 3, chapters two and four, and article 22 of this very instrument.

  One caution about geography: the same ordinance makes the whole municipality a low emission zone for burning solid fuel at home, which has nothing to do with driving, and the outer ring — „Голям ринг“ — is a separate, weaker restriction held as its own record here.

Driving to Sofia?