Munich, Germany · Low emission zone
Official name Umweltzone München — zonales Diesel-Verkehrsverbot nach § 40 Abs. 1 BImSchG i. V. m. § 1 Abs. 2 der 35. BImSchV und dem Luftreinhalteplan der Landeshauptstadt München, 8. Fortschreibung (Allgemeinverfügung vom 10. Januar 2023, geändert am 20. März 2023 und am 28. September 2023)
In force in Munich right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:03 · Europe/Berlin
The Allgemeinverfügung states the ban as ganzjährig — year-round — and states no hours at all, so it is encoded as running all day, every day. That is the publisher's own framing of a standing condition, not an assumption filling in unstated hours.
This encoding cannot see who you are, and in Munich that decides more than the clock does. Residents of the extended zone and delivery traffic are exempt from the diesel restriction by signage; so are Euro 6/VI diesels, holders of a Munich Handwerker-Parkausweis, taxis and hire cars, certain disabled badge holders, social and nursing services, and shift workers whose shift starts before 06:00 or ends after 24:00. Every one of those still needs the green sticker.
A journey that only touches the Mittlerer Ring is inside the rule, not outside it — the ring road is part of the zone. The single exception the City states is for streets that can only be reached or left via the ring, where using the ring by the shortest way is allowed.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
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.
Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz — "Umweltzone München", the City's own page for the zone. It states the area, the diesel restriction and which vehicles it reaches, the sticker requirement for everything else, the exemptions by signage, the fine, how the restriction is enforced, and the current Fortschreibung of the Luftreinhalteplan
There is no charge to enter. Munich's Umweltzone is a ban, not a toll: a vehicle either satisfies the sticker rule and the diesel rule or it stays out, and no day pass, entry fee or barrier appears anywhere on the City's pages. The only money in the scheme is a fee for an application, not for a journey.
An Einzelausnahmegenehmigung — an individually granted exemption under § 1 Abs. 2 der 35. BImSchV — costs 25 euros, reduced to 10 euros in hardship cases such as receipt of social assistance or an income below the attachment threshold, and it is paid once when the permit is issued rather than per entry.
It is also not available for the case a route planner produces most often: the City states that no individual exemption can be granted for a pure transit through the zone. So for a driver simply passing through, there is nothing to buy at any price.
Year-round, and the Allgemeinverfügung says so in the word it chose: "Ab dem 01.02.2023 gilt ein ganzjähriges zonales Verkehrsverbot für den Bereich der Umweltzone". Ganzjährig settles the calendar — there is no summer season, no winter smog period and no holiday suspension, which is a real difference from the schemes in this corpus that only run part of the year.
What it does not settle is the clock, and nothing here invents one: no source read states a start or end time for the restriction, and the City writes it as a standing condition on entering the zone rather than as a timetable. The sensible reading, and the one encoded below, is that the rule applies whenever you are inside the zone.
The one thing that does change with the hour is not the ban but an exemption: shift workers are exempt where their shift begins before 06:00 or ends after 24:00, which the City states as the test for that group rather than as hours of the zone.
Landeshauptstadt München — Amtsblatt der Landeshauptstadt München Nr. 1/2023 of 10 January 2023, which carries both the public notice of the 8. Fortschreibung des Luftreinhalteplans and the Allgemeinverfügung itself. The Allgemeinverfügung opens with the words quoted here, and it is the source of "ganzjährig"
The Mittlerer Ring and everything inside it. The City says it in one sentence — "Zur Umweltzone gehört der Mittlere Ring und alles, was innerhalb des Mittleren Rings liegt" — and the Allgemeinverfügung says it in notation: the zone is "B2R-Mittlerer Ring + Innerhalb des B2R-Mittleren Rings", B2R being the Bundesstraße 2 R that the ring carries.
The ring road belongs to the zone, and that is the part worth reading twice, because the Mittlerer Ring is exactly the road a driver takes to avoid a city centre. It was not always so: before 1 February 2023 the Umweltzone stopped inside the ring, and the 8. Fortschreibung of the Luftreinhalteplan extended it to take the ring in.
The City's own geodata still carries both shapes under their own names, "Umweltzone Bestand" for the old area and "Umweltzone Erweiterung um Mittlerer Ring (ab 01.02.2023)" for what was added, which is a useful confirmation that today's zone is the two of them together.
The same dataset publishes ten further polygons called Transferflächen — transfer areas at motorway ends and a few named street pairs — which are not part of the ban but places the City allows a vehicle to pass to reach or leave the ring, and they are not treated here as zone.
In extent this is a compact area: the published geodata bounds it between roughly 11.516 and 11.625 degrees east and 48.096 and 48.182 degrees north, about 8 km across and 9 km from north to south, inside a city that measures 21 by 27 km.
Nothing in the zone reaches Munich's outer districts, the airport, or the A9, A92, A94, A95, A96 and A8 motorways that ring the city, and the record's warning is at city level rather than at the perimeter, which is wider than the rule.
One local rule belongs to the area rather than to the vehicle: for streets that can only be entered or left over the Mittlerer Ring — the City names Oberaudorferstraße, Schloss-Berg-Straße and part of the Einsteinstraße as examples — driving the ring by the shortest way is permitted, and the vehicle has to leave again at the first opportunity.
Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz — "Umweltzone München", for the extent in the City's own words and for the shortest-way rule on streets reachable only over the Mittlerer Ring. The B2R notation and the fact that the ring was added on 1 February 2023 come from the Allgemeinverfügung in Amtsblatt Nr. 1/2023, and the two named shapes and the bounding box from the City's own Umweltzone geodata layer, both listed in this record's sources
The authority's own map: Landeshauptstadt München, Kommunalreferat — GeodatenService
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.
Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz — "Umweltzone München", which states the green-sticker condition for petrol and other drives, and warns in its own FAQ that the green sticker's digit 4 is not the Abgasnorm
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.
Landeshauptstadt München, Kreisverwaltungsreferat — "Ausnahmegenehmigungen zum Befahren der Umweltzone", the service page for the restriction, which states the date it began and that Euro 5/V and better remain outside it until further notice. The suspension of stage 2 and the abolition of stage 3 come from the City's Amtsblatt Sondernummer 2 of 28 September 2023, and the retrofit exemption from the Umweltzone page, both listed in this record's sources
Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz — "Umweltzone München", under "Kontrolle der Zufahrtsbeschränkung". The City states the fine from the federal Bußgeldkatalog, the total once fees and disbursements are added — 128.50 euros — and that no points are recorded in the Fahreignungsregister. The legal basis it names is the Bundesimmissionsschutzgesetz
Landeshauptstadt München — "Umweltzone München" for the sticker and diesel rules, the exemptions by signage and Allgemeinverfügung, the retrofit route, the enforcement and the fine, together with the Kreisverwaltungsreferat's service page "Ausnahmegenehmigungen zum Befahren der Umweltzone" for the application fee, the shift-work test and the statement that no exemption exists for a pure transit
Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz — "Umweltzone München". The operative page: the extent of the zone, the diesel restriction and the sticker rule, the exemptions by signage and by Allgemeinverfügung, the retrofit route under § 47 Abs. 4a BImSchG, the enforcement practice, the fine of 100 euros and 128.50 euros with fees, the FAQ on reading the Abgasnorm, the residents' definition, the shortest-way rule for streets reachable only over the Mittlerer Ring, and the ninth Fortschreibung of the Luftreinhalteplan in force since 20 October 2025
Landeshauptstadt München, Kreisverwaltungsreferat, Hauptabteilung II Fahrzeugzulassungs- und Fahrerlaubnisbehörde — "Ausnahmegenehmigungen zum Befahren der Umweltzone". The service page for the individual exemption: the date the restriction began, that Euro 5/V and better remain outside it until further notice, the fee of 25 euros and 10 euros in hardship cases, the evidence each category of applicant must bring, the shift-work test, and the statement that no exemption can be granted for a pure transit. It names the legal basis as § 1 Abs. 2 der 35. BImSchV in conjunction with § 40 Abs. 1 BImSchG
Landeshauptstadt München — Amtsblatt der Landeshauptstadt München Nr. 1/2023 of 10 January 2023, the City's own official gazette. Page 13 carries the public notice under § 47 Abs. 5a BImSchG of the 8. Fortschreibung des Luftreinhalteplans, in force from 11 January 2023, with its three stages; and immediately after it the Allgemeinverfügung over exemptions from the traffic bans, whose first sentence defines the zone as "B2R-Mittlerer Ring + Innerhalb des B2R-Mittleren Rings" and the ban as ganzjährig from 1 February 2023
Landeshauptstadt München — Amtsblatt Sondernummer 2 of 28 September 2023. The document that changed what secondary sources still repeat: it suspends stage 2 of the 8. Fortschreibung, so the diesel ban was not extended to Euro 5/V on 1 October 2023, and abolishes stage 3, so the exemptions for residents and delivery traffic survive beyond 31 March 2024. It gives the ground — the favourable development of nitrogen dioxide — and amends the Allgemeinverfügung of 10 January 2023, itself last amended on 20 March 2023. ⚠️ Neither Amtsblatt is machine-watched, and that was measured rather than assumed: a verify_contains taken from our own reading of this four-page file was reported gone by the monitor on the same day, because the monitor's PDF reader and ours break the lines differently. Watching our own line breaks would withdraw a correct record, so both gazettes are re-read by hand instead
Landeshauptstadt München, Kommunalreferat — GeodatenService — the metadata record for the City's own "Umweltzone" geodata layer (mor_wfs:miv_umweltzone_poly), which names the two zone features and the ten Transferflächen, the coordinate reference system, the bounding box used in this record's area field, and the licence and attribution the City sets for the data. Held here as the source of the extent's numbers; the geometry itself is not in this corpus yet, and the boundary_coverage field says why
Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-18.
This is owed on the country's roads, not inside this scheme. What Germany asks, with the source