Driving in Thessaloniki: Heavy vehicle ban

Thessaloniki, Greece · Heavy vehicle ban

Official name Έγκριση τροποποίησης του ωραρίου φορτοεκφόρτωσης εμπορευμάτων στον Δήμο Θεσσαλονίκης (υπ' αρ. 52/2024 απόφαση της Μητροπολιτικής Επιτροπής Μητροπολιτικής Ενότητας Θεσσαλονίκης, ΦΕΚ Β' 6645/06.12.2024)

Partly in force in Thessaloniki right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 12:05 · Europe/Athens

  • In force A goods vehicle of up to 8 tonnes payload («ωφέλιμο φορτίο», the load it may carry, not its gross weight) stopping at the kerb to load or unload on any street of the Municipality of Thessaloniki. 🔑 This is the base band and it reaches every goods vehicle in the scheme, because the two smaller bands are extra permissions laid on top of it rather than replacements for it. 🚫 It does not reach a car, a motorcycle or a van that is being driven rather than used to load or unload.
  • Not in force The same goods vehicles on a Saturday. The decision's weekend permission begins at 17:00 on Saturday and runs to 07:00 on Monday, so Saturday carries a shorter restriction than a weekday and Sunday carries none.

Lifts Tuesday, 13 October 2026 at 19:00 local time.

🔑 Sunday is deliberately absent, and so is every public holiday. The weekend permission runs «από 17:00 το απόγευμα του Σαββάτου έως 07:00 το πρωί της Δευτέρας», which covers the whole of Sunday, and the decision adds «Τις αργίες η τροφοδοσία θα γίνεται ελεύθερα» — on public holidays supply is free. 🚫 Their absence from the timetable is the decision's own rule and not a gap in this encoding.

🚨 The two smaller payload bands get midday time this timetable cannot show, and only in marked bays. A lorry of up to 3.5 tonnes payload may also load 10:00–12:00 Monday to Saturday, and one of up to 1.5 tonnes 10:00–14:00, in both cases «αποκλειστικά και μόνο στις θέσεις φορτοεκφόρτωσης». For those vehicles, in a bay, the rule above over-warns during those hours. 🚫 The windows were not widened to suit them, because outside a bay the base band is the rule and widening it would under-warn every lorry at an ordinary kerb.

🚨 Three errands are exempt around the clock and the encoding cannot see any of them: delivery of ice and ice cubes by a lorry of up to 3.5 tonnes payload between 1 April and 30 October; delivery of medicines and pharmaceutical materials by a lorry of up to 1.5 tonnes, all year; and purely electric goods vehicles of up to 1.5 tonnes payload, all year. ⚠️ The last is a propulsion test rather than an emission class, and it is the only clause in the scheme that asks what drives the vehicle.

🚨 Pedestrian streets are not this rule and are far more restrictive. On every πεζόδρομος of the municipality the decision allows loading only by lorries up to 3.5 tonnes payload, 10:00–12:00 Monday to Saturday — and a pedestrian street is closed to ordinary traffic at every hour by the Highway Code, quite apart from this timetable. 🚫 A verdict of "not in force" from the rule above never means a pedestrian street is open.

🚨 The two historic market streets run a third clock. In the markets of the historic commercial centre «Βατικιώτη» and «Βλάλη» (Καπάνι), lorries up to 3.5 tonnes payload may load Tuesday to Friday 02:30–07:00, at weekends from 17:00 Saturday to 07:00 Monday, and on public holidays from 19:00 on the previous working day to 07:00 on the next. Those hours are not encoded because the decision gives no boundary for the two markets beyond their names.

⚠️ Bus lanes carry a prohibition with no clock this project holds. «Στις Ειδικές Λωρίδες Λεωφορείων (λεωφορειολωρίδες), απαγορεύεται η φορτοεκφόρτωση κατά τις ώρες λειτουργίας τους» — loading is forbidden in bus lanes during their hours of operation, and the decision does not say what those hours are. 🚫 Nothing is encoded for bus lanes rather than a guess at their timetable.

⚠️ A loading bay is not a parking space. Paragraph 4 allows a goods vehicle to stand in one for at most twenty minutes, and only during the hours loading is permitted; at all other hours the bays serve private cars. That limit is a duration, not a time of day, and has no place in a timetable.

🚫 The 2018 predecessor's hours must never be read off this page. Decision 57/2018 (ΦΕΚ Β' 6178/31.12.2018) permitted kerbside loading for up to 8 tonnes «Δευτέρα έως Παρασκευή από 20:30 έως 08:30 της επομένης» and from 17:00 Saturday to 08:30 Monday, and set street-by-street windows on twenty-nine named pedestrian streets. Paragraph 5 of the 2024 decision repeals any other provision referring to it. Those hours are eighty to ninety minutes different from the ones in force and are recorded on this page only as history.

The schedule is derived from `hours` and carries no fact that is not in the gazetted decision.

Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.

What applies

Thessaloniki is Greece's second city, the port the Balkans drive down to and the road gateway to Halkidiki, and its whole municipality runs one clock for goods vehicles. 🔑 The act in force is decision 52/2024 of the Metropolitan Committee of the Metropolitan Unit of Thessaloniki, gazetted in ΦΕΚ Β' 6645 on 6 December 2024.

In its own words it applies «Σε όλες τις οδούς του Δήμου Θεσσαλονίκης» — on every street of the municipality — and it permits a goods vehicle of up to 8 tonnes payload to stop at the kerb to load or unload only from 19:00 in the evening until 07:00 the next morning on Monday to Friday, and from 17:00 on Saturday until 07:00 on Monday. Public holidays are free.

Everything else in the scheme is a narrower permission laid on top of that one: lorries up to 3.5 tonnes payload may also work 10:00 to 12:00 Monday to Saturday and lorries up to 1.5 tonnes 10:00 to 14:00, but in both cases «αποκλειστικά και μόνο στις θέσεις φορτοεκφόρτωσης» — in marked loading bays and nowhere else. 🔑 Three errands are exempt around the clock and they are unusually specific: ice and ice cubes up to 3.5 tonnes between 1 April and 30 October, medicines and pharmaceutical supplies up to 1.5 tonnes all year, and purely electric goods vehicles up to 1.5 tonnes all year.

That last one is a propulsion exemption rather than an emission class, and it is the only place in this scheme where what is under the bonnet changes the answer. 🚨 This record replaced a predecessor rather than joining it.

The same committee's decision 57/2018, gazetted in ΦΕΚ Β' 6178 on 31 December 2018, set a different clock — 20:30 to 08:30 on weekdays — and listed twenty-nine named pedestrian streets with loading windows of their own. Paragraph 5 of the 2024 decision repeals «οποιαδήποτε άλλη διάταξη αναφέρεται στην υπ' αρ. 57/2018 (Β' 6178) απόφαση», so the 2018 hours and the 2018 street lists are history and are not encoded here.

They are described below only so that a reader who meets the older act, or an older sign, knows which one this page is about. ⚠️ Nothing here restricts a car. This is a goods-vehicle timetable, and a visitor in a hire car meets it only if they are driving a van on a delivery.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-24
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 6645/06.12.2024, ΤΕΥΧΟΣ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ, item 2 of the issue: decision 52/2024 of the Μητροπολιτική Επιτροπή of the Μητροπολιτική Ενότητα Θεσσαλονίκης, «Έγκριση τροποποίησης του ωραρίου φορτοεκφόρτωσης εμπορευμάτων στον Δήμο Θεσσαλονίκης», signed at Thessaloniki on 29 November 2024 by its President, ΑΘΑΝΑΣΙΟΣ ΚΙΚΗΣ

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. The decision sets hours and payload bands; it creates no zone entered on payment, no permit, no camera and no tariff, and the word «τέλος» appears nowhere in it. A driver who is at the kerb at the wrong hour is not short of a payment — the loading is simply not allowed then, and the consequence is the Highway Code penalty recorded under `penalty`.

The one quasi-permit in the scheme costs nothing either: the marked loading bays that the 3.5-tonne and 1.5-tonne midday windows depend on are existing public bays, and the decision adds only that a lorry may stand in one for at most twenty minutes while the hours allow loading.

When it operates

The scheme is a permission timetable, and the restriction is its shadow: whatever hour is not permitted is an hour in which a goods vehicle may not stand at the kerb to load. 🔑 The base band, which every goods vehicle up to 8 tonnes payload gets, is in the decision's own words: «Δευτέρα έως Παρασκευή από 19:00 το απόγευμα, έως 7:00 το πρωί της επομένης και τα Σαββατοκύριακα από 17:00 το απόγευμα του Σαββάτου έως 07:00 το πρωί της Δευτέρας.

Τις αργίες η τροφοδοσία θα γίνεται ελεύθερα».

Read as a restriction that is Monday to Friday 07:00–19:00 and Saturday 07:00–17:00; Sunday carries no restriction at all, because the weekend permission runs straight through it. 🔑 Two narrower bands add midday time that the base band does not give, and both are confined to marked bays: up to 3.5 tonnes payload «από Δευτέρα έως Σάββατο, από 10:00 το πρωί έως 12:00 το μεσημέρι», and up to 1.5 tonnes «από Δευτέρα έως Σάββατο, από 10:00 το πρωί έως 14:00 μετά το μεσημέρι». 🔑 Pedestrian streets run a clock of their own: «Σε όλους τους πεζόδρομους καθορίζεται ωράριο φορτοεκφόρτωσης για φορτηγά ωφέλιμου φορτίου μέχρι 3,5 τόνους, από Δευτέρα έως Σάββατο, από 10:00 το πρωί έως 12:00 το μεσημέρι», with the markets «Βατικιώτη» and «Βλάλη» (Καπάνι) run on a third: Tuesday to Friday 02:30–07:00, weekends from 17:00 Saturday to 07:00 Monday, and on public holidays from 19:00 on the previous working day to 07:00 on the next. 🚨 Bus lanes are closed to loading «κατά τις ώρες λειτουργίας τους» — during their hours of operation — and this project does not hold those hours, so that clause is stated and not encoded. ⚠️ The decision prints no commencement clause of its own.

The words «Έναρξη ισχύος» in ΦΕΚ Β' 6645 belong to the unrelated first item of the issue, an agricultural subsidy amendment; the Thessaloniki item ends at its signature. Every occurrence of «ισχύ» in the issue was read on 2026-09-24 and none of them attaches to this decision.

The date below is therefore the gazette's publication date, which is when a decision under the Highway Code takes effect absent a clause saying otherwise — it is not a date the publisher wrote for this act.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-24
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 6645/06.12.2024: the operative part of decision 52/2024, section Α) paragraphs 1 to 4

Area covered

The whole municipality, stated as such rather than drawn.

The decision's operative heading is «Α) Σε όλες τις οδούς του Δήμου Θεσσαλονίκης» — on all streets of the Municipality of Thessaloniki — with no perimeter, no street list and no coordinate, so the only edge this rule has is the municipal boundary, which the Greek state publishes as an administrative limit and not as a traffic zone. 🔑 Measured on 2026-09-24 through Overpass: OpenStreetMap carries exactly one administrative relation named «Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης», relation/1770680 at admin level 7, whose furthest corner is 7.19 km from the anchor used for this city, with a north–south extent of 7.50 km and an east–west extent of 7.64 km.

That is comfortably inside the default warning band, so no radius override is set. ⚠️ Thessaloniki's built-up area is very much larger than its municipality: the anchor this corpus holds for the city is itself contained by Δήμος Νεάπολης - Συκεών, a neighbouring municipality, which is measured and recorded in the city registry.

A driver in Kalamaria, Pylaia, Evosmos or Neapoli is outside this decision, and this project holds no act for those municipalities. 🚫 The absence of a rule for them is not evidence that they have none. 🔑 Two sub-areas inside the municipality are named by the decision and are not mapped by it: the pedestrian streets, which it addresses collectively as «όλους τους πεζόδρομους», and the markets of the historic commercial centre «Βατικιώτη» and «Βλάλη» (Καπάνι).

Neither is given a boundary, and none was derived here. 🆕 What the pedestrian-street network contains is being added to while this record stands, and one addition can be sourced end to end.

ΦΕΚ Β' 1828/26.03.2024 approved the exclusion of vehicle traffic from the stretch of οδός Ασημάκη Φωτήλα between οδός Κατσάνου and οδός Παπαδιαμαντοπούλου, and ΦΕΚ Δ' 749/01.11.2024 then amended the approved town plan to designate that same stretch «ως πεζόδρομου», taking effect on publication. 🔑 That pairing matters because the traffic decision suspends itself until it happens: it states «Οι κυκλοφοριακές ρυθμίσεις της παρούσης ισχύουν με την ολοκλήρωση της διαδικασίας τροποποίησης του ρυμοτομικού σχεδίου του υπό παρέμβαση οδικού τμήματος και εφαρμόζονται με την τοποθέτηση - εγκατάσταση της σχετικής κατακόρυφης - οριζόντιας σήμανσης». 🚫 Three further streets were approved the same way and this project could find no town-plan act for any of them, so by the acts' own words their traffic regulations are not yet in force: οδός Αγνώστου Στρατιώτη between Ολύμπου and Αγίου Δημητρίου (ΦΕΚ Β' 4947/21.09.2022), and οδός Κορίνθου between Αιτωλικού and Παπάφη together with οδός Οδυσσιτών between Κορίνθου and Στρ.

Γενναδίου (ΦΕΚ Β' 1225/07.03.2023). They are named here so that a reader who finds those decisions does not read them as closures already in force.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-24
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 6645/06.12.2024, section Α) of decision 52/2024 for the extent, and paragraph 3 for the pedestrian streets and the two markets; OpenStreetMap through Overpass for the measured size of the municipal relation

Why there is no map here
There is no map to hold, because the rule was never drawn. The decision addresses «Σε όλες τις οδούς του Δήμου Θεσσαλονίκης» and names no perimeter, so its only boundary is the municipal limit — published by the Greek state as an administrative boundary, not by the Metropolitan Committee as a traffic zone. The issue is four pages of prose with no diagram of any kind: measured on 2026-09-24, scripts/read-source.mjs returns 25 931 characters and every one of them is running text. 🚫 No boundary was derived from the two named sub-areas either. The pedestrian streets are addressed collectively as «όλους τους πεζόδρομους» with no list in the act in force, and the markets «Βατικιώτη» and «Βλάλη» are given by name alone; drawing either would be this project's line rather than the publisher's, which D-096 forbids. 🔑 What was measured instead is the size of the containing municipality, so that the city-level warning can be judged: OpenStreetMap relation/1770680, the single administrative relation worldwide named «Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης», has a furthest corner of 7.19 km, well inside the default band.

The authority's own map: Μητροπολιτική Επιτροπή Μητροπολιτικής Ενότητας Θεσσαλονίκης / Περιφέρεια…

Petrol standard

No Euro class, fuel type or registration year gates this scheme for a petrol vehicle, and the absence is structural. The decision is a supply-hours instrument made under article 52 of the Highway Code: it measures a vehicle by payload — 8 tonnes, 3.5 tonnes, 1.5 tonnes — by errand and by the clock, and never by what comes out of its exhaust.

Diesel standard

The same for diesel, with one clause worth naming so that it is not mistaken for an emission threshold. The decision exempts «αμιγώς ηλεκτροκίνητων φορτηγών οχημάτων ωφέλιμου φορτίου έως 1,5 τόνο» — purely electric goods vehicles of up to 1.5 tonnes payload — from the timetable for the whole twenty-four hours.

That is a propulsion test with a single pass mark, not a Euro-class ladder: a Euro 6 diesel van gets nothing from it, and no diesel or petrol vehicle of any age is treated differently from any other.

Penalty if you do not comply
€150.00 The decision prints no figure of its own; it sets hours and leaves the sanction to the Code, and the Code that applies is the one now in force. 🔑 Article 55 §8 of ν. 5209/2025 is the successor of the provision this kind of decision is made under — it permits the fixing of supply hours for businesses, supermarkets and other shops, and states that a breach «κατατάσσεται στην κατηγορία Ε2-Α». Article 108 §5 β) βα) prices a category Ε2-Α offence at «διοικητικό πρόστιμο εκατόν πενήντα (150) ευρώ». Article 114 §4 keeps regulatory acts issued under the 1999 Code in force, which is why a decision taken under article 52 of that Code still stands after its repeal. ⚠️ The figure is therefore read from the statute rather than from the Thessaloniki decision, and it is the same chain this corpus already applies to the Attica supply-hours cases. 🚨 Two honest limits. A vehicle standing where it may not stand is also exposed to the ordinary stopping and parking provisions of the Code, which this record does not attempt to enumerate for every kerb. And the twenty-minute limit on standing in a loading bay is set by the decision without any sanction of its own being named.Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-24
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας». Article 55 §8 for the delegation to fix supply hours and for the Ε2-Α classification of a breach; article 108 §5 β) βα) for the €150 administrative fine; article 114 §4 for the survival of acts made under the 1999 Code

How to comply
  • If you are driving a car, a motorcycle or a camper, none of this reaches you. The decision is about goods vehicles loading and unloading, and it measures them by payload. Read on only if you are delivering.
  • 🔑 The simple version for a goods vehicle of up to 8 tonnes payload: you may stand at the kerb to load anywhere in the Municipality of Thessaloniki from 19:00 to 07:00 on weekdays, from 17:00 on Saturday right through to 07:00 on Monday, and freely on public holidays. In the daytime — 07:00 to 19:00 Monday to Friday, 07:00 to 17:00 on Saturday — you may not.
  • 🔑 If your lorry is smaller you get a midday window, but only in a marked bay. Up to 3.5 tonnes payload: 10:00 to 12:00, Monday to Saturday. Up to 1.5 tonnes: 10:00 to 14:00, Monday to Saturday. The decision's words are «αποκλειστικά και μόνο στις θέσεις φορτοεκφόρτωσης» — exclusively and only in the loading bays. 🚫 At an ordinary kerb in those hours the daytime prohibition still applies.
  • ⚠️ Twenty minutes is the limit in a bay. Paragraph 4 permits a goods vehicle to stand in a loading bay for at most twenty minutes, and only during the hours loading is allowed; outside those hours the bays serve private cars.
  • 🔑 Three deliveries are exempt around the clock, and they are the exact words of the act: ice and ice cubes, by a lorry of up to 3.5 tonnes payload, from 1 April to 30 October; medicines and pharmaceutical material, up to 1.5 tonnes, all year; and purely electric goods vehicles up to 1.5 tonnes payload, all year. If you are running any of those, the timetable does not bind you.
  • 🚨 Do not drive into a pedestrian street to make the delivery easier. On every πεζόδρομος of the municipality loading is confined to lorries of up to 3.5 tonnes payload between 10:00 and 12:00, Monday to Saturday — and outside that window a pedestrian street is closed to vehicles by the Highway Code itself, which is a separate and heavier prohibition than this timetable.
  • 🔑 The two market streets are the exception to the exception. In the markets of the historic commercial centre «Βατικιώτη» and «Βλάλη» (Καπάνι), a lorry up to 3.5 tonnes payload may load Tuesday to Friday from 02:30 to 07:00, at weekends from 17:00 on Saturday to 07:00 on Monday, and on a public holiday from 19:00 on the previous working day to 07:00 on the next.
  • 🚫 Never load from a bus lane while it is operating. «Στις Ειδικές Λωρίδες Λεωφορείων (λεωφορειολωρίδες), απαγορεύεται η φορτοεκφόρτωση κατά τις ώρες λειτουργίας τους». The decision does not publish those hours and this project does not hold them, so read the lane's own sign.
  • ⚠️ An older set of hours is still in circulation and is no longer the rule. Decision 57/2018 ran the weekday permission from 20:30 to 08:30 and named twenty-nine pedestrian streets with windows of their own; the 2024 decision repeals any provision referring to it. If a sign, a leaflet or a shopkeeper gives you 20:30, that is the 2018 act.
  • 🆕 ⚠️ A second older timetable exists, it is the municipality's own, and unlike the 2018 one it has NOT been repealed in writing. «ΚΑΝΟΝΙΣΜΟΣ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΙΑΣ ΠΕΖΟΔΡΟΜΩΝ ΔΗΜΟΥ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΗΣ» — council decision 1712/19-12-2016, published by the municipality rather than in the gazette and read here on 2026-09-25 — gives pedestrian streets four loading bands for lorries of up to 8 tonnes payload, according to where the street is: 06:30–08:30 inside the commercial historic centre and its wider area, 02:30–08:30 on weekdays for the streets there in exclusively commercial or other non-residential use, 06:30–08:30 and 20:30–22:30 outside that perimeter, and 06:00–07:30 for streets adjoining school complexes, with holidays free throughout. Its paragraph 4.5 opens «εφόσον δεν έχει με σχετική Απόφαση Δημοτικού Συμβουλίου καθοριστεί διαφορετικά» — unless otherwise fixed by a council decision — and adds that the loading timetable may be modified by council decision and must remain «αναπόσπαστο και μικρότερο τμήμα του γενικού ωραρίου φορτοεκφόρτωσης». 🚨 Decision 52/2024 is later, covers «όλους τους πεζόδρομους» of the municipality, and does not mention the regulation at all: all seven occurrences of «κανονισ» in ΦΕΚ Β' 6645 were read on 2026-09-25 and every one belongs to the unrelated first item of that issue. 🔑 Follow the 2024 hours — 10:00 to 12:00, Monday to Saturday, up to 3.5 tonnes payload — because they are both the later act and the narrower permission. 🚫 But no publisher has written down that the regulation's bands are gone, and this page does not write it down for them.
  • 🚫 The municipality is smaller than the city. This decision binds the Δήμος Θεσσαλονίκης only. Kalamaria, Pylaia-Chortiatis, Neapoli-Sykies, Pavlou Mela, Ampelokipoi-Menemeni and the rest of the conurbation each make their own traffic decisions and this project holds none of them — the absence of a page for them is not permission.
  • 🆕 Expect the pedestrian network to grow. ΦΕΚ Δ' 749/01.11.2024 designated the stretch of οδός Ασημάκη Φωτήλα between Κατσάνου and Παπαδιαμαντοπούλου as a pedestrian street in the town plan, with effect from publication, after ΦΕΚ Β' 1828/26.03.2024 had approved excluding vehicles from it. 🚫 Three further streets — Αγνώστου Στρατιώτη, Κορίνθου and Οδυσσιτών — were approved the same way but this project found no town-plan act completing them, and each approval says in its own words that its regulations take effect only when that plan amendment is complete and are applied only when the signs go up.
  • Nothing is payable and nothing is to be bought in advance. There is no permit, no registration and no charge attached to any of this.
Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-24
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 6645/06.12.2024, decision 52/2024, section Α) paragraphs 1 to 5, together with ΦΕΚ Β' 1828/26.03.2024 and ΦΕΚ Δ' 749/01.11.2024 for the pedestrian-street conversion named in the last item

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-23.

Before you set off

Also in Thessaloniki

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