Driving in Munich

Germany: 1 scheme to know about before you drive in.

The short answer for Munich

Munich has one driving restriction on our books: the Umweltzone München — zonales Diesel-Verkehrsverbot nach § 40 Abs. 1… (low emission zone). What is a low emission zone?

What it means for your car

Petrol or LPG. A green Umweltplakette, and nothing beyond it. Munich's diesel restriction does not reach petrol cars at all: the City's sentence is that "Benzin-Fahrzeuge oder Fahrzeuge mit anderen Antriebsarten dürfen die Münchner Umweltzone (inklusive Mittlerer Ring) befahren, wenn sie eine grüne Umweltplakette haben", so for petrol the test is the federal sticker and the answer is the same as in every other German Umweltzone. What the sticker maps to in Euro terms is set federally, in the 35. BImSchV, not by Munich, and this corpus holds that separately as Germany's national requirement rather than restating it per city. Two practical notes the City does make. The sticker is not the same thing as the Abgasnorm: a green sticker carries the digit 4 whatever the Euro class behind it, which is why a green sticker alone does not answer the diesel question. And the Abgasnorm itself is readable from the vehicle's own papers — "Die Abgasnorm steht auf dem Fahrzeugschein unter Punkt 14." Vehicles with other drives — electric, hydrogen, gas — are in the same position as petrol here: the sticker decides.
Diesel. Euro 5/V, plus the green sticker. This is the rule that makes Munich different from Berlin, and it is stated as an Abgasnorm rather than as a sticker colour: since 1 February 2023 a diesel of Euro 4/IV or worse may not enter the zone, and a diesel of Euro 5/V or better may, provided it also carries the green Umweltplakette. The City's word for how long is "bis auf Weiteres" — until further notice — in both directions: the restriction on Euro 4 stands until further notice, and Euro 5/V and better are "bis auf Weiteres nicht von der Zufahrtsbeschränkung betroffen". ⚠️ That second half is where a stale answer goes wrong. The 8. Fortschreibung of the Luftreinhalteplan planned to extend the ban to Euro 5/V from 1 October 2023 as stage 2, and that stage was suspended before it took effect, by the City's own adjustment published on 28 September 2023: "Das Dieselfahrverbot wird daher nicht wie in der 8. Fortschreibung des Luftreinhalteplans vorgesehen zum 01.10.2023 auf Diesel-Kfz der Schadstoffklasse Euro 5/V ausgeweitet." Stage 3, which would have removed the residents' and delivery exemption on 1 April 2024, was abolished in the same document. So a Euro 5 diesel is allowed today, and the suspension is expressly temporary rather than repealed. Two doors around the Euro 4 line, both stated by the City. A Euro 6/VI diesel is exempt outright. And a Euro 4 or Euro 5 diesel fitted with a nitrogen-oxide reduction system of high effectiveness — under 270 milligrams of NOx per kilometre — is exempt from traffic bans under § 47 Abs. 4a Satz 2 Nr. 2 BImSchG, which the City states as a retrofit route and refers to the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt for which systems are approved.

Sources last read on 2026-09-23, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2027-03-18.

The schemes, one by one

• Umweltzone München — zonales Diesel-Verkehrsverbot nach § 40 Abs. 1… Low emission zone

  Munich's Umweltzone asks two questions, not one, and a driver who answers only the first can still be turned away. The first is the German sticker question that every Umweltzone asks: a vehicle needs the green Umweltplakette, pollutant group 4, and the federal rules for that are the same in Munich as in Berlin.

  The second is Munich's own, and it is a diesel rule laid over the sticker rule: since 1 February 2023 a diesel car of Abgasnorm Euro 4/IV or worse may not enter the zone at all, green sticker or not.

  The City states the pair in one sentence each — "Bis auf Weiteres gilt eine Zufahrtsbeschränkung für Diesel-Fahrzeuge mit den Abgasnormen Diesel, Euro 4/IV und schlechter in der Münchner Umweltzone (inklusive Mittlerer Ring)" and "Diesel-Kraftfahrzeuge mit der Abgasnorm 5/V oder besser, Benzin-Fahrzeuge oder Fahrzeuge mit anderen Antriebsarten dürfen die Münchner Umweltzone (inklusive Mittlerer Ring) befahren, wenn sie eine grüne Umweltplakette haben." So a petrol car with a green sticker is fine; a diesel needs Euro 5/V or better as well as the sticker.

  The area is unusually easy to say and unusually easy to get wrong. It is the Mittlerer Ring and everything inside it — and the ring road itself counts, which is the part that catches people, because the Mittlerer Ring is the obvious way around a city centre.

  The Allgemeinverfügung spells it out as "B2R-Mittlerer Ring + Innerhalb des B2R-Mittleren Rings": before February 2023 the zone stopped short of the ring, and the 8. Fortschreibung of the Luftreinhalteplan extended it to include it. Two dates that are in every secondary source and are not the rule today.

  The 8. Fortschreibung set out three stages: stage 1 from 1 February 2023 (Euro 4/IV and worse), stage 2 from 1 October 2023 (Euro 5/V as well), stage 3 from 1 April 2024 (the general exemption for residents and delivery traffic would fall away).

  Stage 2 was suspended and stage 3 was abolished, both by the City's own adjustment published on 28 September 2023, on the ground that nitrogen dioxide was falling faster than planned — and the City's current page still says diesel Euro 5/V and better is "bis auf Weiteres nicht von der Zufahrtsbeschränkung betroffen".

  So the rule in force is stage 1 only, the residents' and delivery exemption still stands, and an answer built on the published timetable rather than on the City's current page would be wrong in the driver's favour on Euro 5 and wrong against them on residents.

  The City reports that the 40 µg/m³ annual limit for NO2 has been met across the whole city since 2024, and that the ninth Fortschreibung, in force since 20 October 2025, adds a 30 km/h limit on the Landshuter Allee rather than another diesel stage. One thing matters more here than in most records in this corpus, because it is the case a route planner creates: there is no transit exemption.

  "Für eine reine Durchfahrt durch die Umweltzone München kann keine Einzelausnahmegenehmigung erteilt werden" — if your start and your destination are both outside the zone, the City's answer is to drive around it. Not through it on a permit, and not through it on the Mittlerer Ring, because the ring is inside the rule.

Driving to Munich?

Starting from

Check the route to Munich

Lists the schemes on the road you would take, and when you would reach them.

Before you set off

Germany also has a national requirement

• Plakette nach der 35. BImSchV (Umweltplakette)Motor vehicles of categories M and N as defined in Annex II A of Directive 70/156/EEC — that is, passenger vehicles and goods vehicles. Stickers exist for pollutant groups 2, 3 and 4; group 1, the most polluting, gets no sticker.

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

Other cities in Germany

• Stuttgartabout 188 km away, 2 verified schemes
• Ludwigsburgabout 192 km away, 1 verified scheme
• Berlinabout 503 km away, 1 verified scheme