Greece: 2 schemes to know about before you drive in.
Sifnos has 2 driving restrictions on our books: the Απαγόρευση της διέλευσης οχημάτων βαρέως τύπου, άνω των 3,5 τόνων, από… (heavy vehicle ban) and the Περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση και απαγόρευση διέλευσης οχημάτων στους οικισμούς… (limited traffic zone). What is a heavy vehicle ban?
Sources last read on 2026-09-23, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-12-22.
| Scheme | Kind | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Απαγόρευση της διέλευσης οχημάτων βαρέως τύπου, άνω των 3,5 τόνων, από το κέντρο της Απολλωνίας Δήμου Σίφνου (απόφ. Δ.Σ. 67/2025, ΦΕΚ Β' 4260/13.07.2026) | heavy vehicle ban | €150.00 |
| Περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση και απαγόρευση διέλευσης οχημάτων στους οικισμούς Αρτεμώνα, Απολλωνίας, Καμαρών, Βαθέος, Φάρου και Καταβατής Δήμου Σίφνου (αποφ. Δ.Σ. 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 και 72/2025, ΦΕΚ Β' 4260/13.07.2026) | limited traffic zone | €350.00 |
For two months of every summer, heavy vehicles are barred from the centre of Apollonia, the capital of the Cycladic island of Sifnos.
The rule is one clause of a decision gazetted on 13 July 2026: «την απαγόρευση της διέλευσης οχημάτων βαρέως τύπου, άνω των 3,5 τόνων από το κέντρο της Απολλωνίας Δήμου Σίφνου, από 1η Ιουλίου έως και 31 Αυγούστου για κάθε έτος» — a ban on the passage of heavy vehicles, over 3.5 tonnes, from the centre of Apollonia, from 1 July to 31 August every year.
One sign is ordered, at the Greek national grid point 563832 4091983, and its code is Ρ-24. 🔑 This is a different question from the pedestrian closures on the same island and in the same act, which is why it is a separate record: there, the question is where you are driving; here it is what you are driving. A car is never in this scheme at any hour of any day.
What is in it is a motorhome above 3.5 tonnes, a hired Luton van, a horsebox, a builder's tipper — and on a small island in high summer, the traffic this is plainly aimed at is delivery and construction. 🚨 There is a contradiction between the act's words and the sign it orders, and it matters to anyone near the threshold. The act says «άνω των 3,5 τόνων» of a heavy vehicle, which reads naturally as gross weight.
The Highway Code defines Ρ-24 as «Απαγορεύεται η είσοδος σε οχήματα βάρους ανά άξονα που υπερβαίνει τους … τόνους» — vehicles whose weight **per axle** exceeds the stated figure — and gives gross weight its own separate sign, Ρ-23. Three and a half tonnes per axle and three and a half tonnes in total are very different vehicles.
We record what the publisher printed and do not resolve it; a driver at 3.6 tonnes gross on two axles cannot safely assume either reading. ⚠️ As with every closure in this act, the daily hours are not published.
The clause orders the sign «μαζί με τις απαραίτητες πρόσθετες πληροφοριακές πινακίδες για την περίοδο και το ωράριο εφαρμογής», with supplementary plates for the period **and the hours**, and prints only the period. ⚠️ And the act's third condition makes the measure effective «από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης», from the day the signs go up, without saying when that is.
Sifnos is a Cycladic island of about 2 500 people that fills with visitors between spring and autumn, and a decision gazetted on 13 July 2026 closes the middle of six of its villages to vehicles for exactly that part of the year.
It is one act approving seven separate council decisions at once, and the six that matter to a driver are these: the central road inside the traditional settlement of **Artemonas**, closed 1 June to 30 September; the central street called «Στενό» inside the traditional settlement of **Apollonia**, the island's capital, closed 1 April to 30 October; the section of road from the harbour at **Kamares** towards Apollonia, where vehicles are barred over the same 1 April to 30 October; the settlement of **Vathy**, 1 April to 30 October; the central road down to the jetty at **Faros**, 1 April to 30 October; and the central unnamed road inside the traditional settlement of **Katavati**, 1 April to 30 October. 🔑 The Kamares one is the one a visitor meets first and is worth reading twice.
Kamares is where the ferry from Piraeus and from the other Cyclades docks, so a driver coming off a boat between April and October is landing beside a stretch of road that the act closes to vehicles, and the closure is signed Ρ-7 — «Απαγορεύεται η είσοδος σε όλα τα οχήματα», no entry for any vehicle at all. ⚠️ The largest thing this record cannot tell you is what time of day each closure starts and ends, and that is a gap in what the publisher printed rather than a gap in our reading.
Every one of the six clauses orders the vertical sign «μαζί με τις απαραίτητες πρόσθετες πληροφοριακές πινακίδες για την περίοδο και το ωράριο εφαρμογής» — together with the supplementary plates for the period **and the hours** of application — so an ωράριο exists; the gazette simply does not print it.
It applies each closure «σύμφωνα με τα προβλεπόμενα στον ισχύων κανονισμό πεζοδρόμησης», and item 7 of the act's own preamble names that regulation: decision 65/2025 of the Sifnos council, ΑΔΑ 6ΞΖ7Ω1Τ-ΗΝΚ, «Κανονισμός Λειτουργίας Πεζοδρόμησης του Δήμου Σίφνου». That document is not in the gazette, is not on the municipality's website, and lives on Διαύγεια, which is closed to this project by its own robots.txt.
So this page gives you the six places and the six seasons with certainty and refuses to invent the clock. ⚠️ And it cannot tell you the day any of it started either: the act's third condition makes the measures effective «από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης» — from the moment the signs go up — and gives no date for that.