Hungary: 2 schemes to know about before you drive in.
Budapest has 2 driving restrictions on our books: the Budapest főváros össztömeg-korlátozott forgalmú övezetei (behajtási… (heavy vehicle ban) and the Budapest főváros védett övezetei (védett övezeti behajtási hozzájárulás) (limited traffic zone). What is a heavy vehicle ban?
Sources last read on 2026-09-16, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2027-01-15.
Budapest is covered, not ringed. Fifteen weight-restricted zones tile most of the city, each one carrying a sign with a maximum permitted laden weight on it, and a goods vehicle heavier than the figure on that sign may not drive in the zone at all unless it has bought an entry permit — a behajtási hozzájárulás — before it gets there. There are three tiers.
Four zones are set at 3.5 tonnes: Buda (code B35) and Pest (P35), which between them cover the two inner districts either side of the Danube, plus Kelenvölgy (KV35) and Dél-Pest (DP35). Four are set at 7.5 tonnes: Észak-Buda (EB75), Közép-Pest (P75), Pesterzsébet (DP75) and Csepel-Csillagtelep (CS75).
Seven are set at 12 tonnes and they take in most of the rest of the city: Észak-Buda (EB1), Hegyvidék (HB1), Dél-Buda (DB1), Észak-Pest (ÉP1), Kelet-Pest (KP1), Dél-Pest (DP1) and Csepel (CS1), the last of which is simply the whole XXI district.
The zones are defined by street, and the road authority publishes the definitions that way: each entry names the roads that bound the area, whether the bounding roads are themselves inside it, the motorway approaches and through-routes that are cut out of it, and a further list of streets that may be used by destination traffic only.
The rule is the vehicle's registered maximum permitted laden weight — the F.1 code on the registration document — measured against the zone's figure, so a 7.5-tonne van needs nothing in a 12-tonne zone and a permit in a 3.5-tonne one.
Who runs it is worth knowing, because the permit is not sold by the city hall: Budapest Közút Zrt. has operated the capital's freight entry system under a public-service contract since 1 April 2016, and it issues the permits in the name of the Municipality of Budapest through an online system called TOBI.
What it costs depends on the vehicle, the zone tier, the number of days and the vehicle's Euro class and age, and the authority publishes the whole grid as a spreadsheet rather than as a single price.
A one-day permit for the lightest vehicle that needs one — a 3.5 to 4.5 tonne lorry in a 3.5-tonne zone, or a 12 to 13 tonne lorry in a 12-tonne zone — is 172.60 forint including VAT; a one-day permit for an articulated combination over 32 tonnes in a 3.5-tonne zone is 2,174.79 forint; and a 360-day permit for that same combination is 782,926.03 forint.
On top of the entry fee every application carries a fixed cost recovery of 4,000 forint net, which is why the cheapest single day of access is not the 172.60 figure on its own. Vehicle registration in the system is required for these zones but is free.
The emission rules run through the price rather than through a ban, with one exception that is a ban: a Euro 0, 1 or 2 vehicle pays a 50 per cent surcharge and a Euro 3 vehicle 25 per cent, while a vehicle no older than five years takes 20 per cent off and one between five and ten years takes 10 per cent off — and the road authority states that a new entry permit can no longer be issued at all to a Euro 0 or Euro 1 vehicle for the 3.5-tonne and 7.5-tonne zones.
Hours are part of the rule and they differ by zone. Nine of the fifteen apply around the clock; Buda, Pest, Észak-Buda and Közép-Pest apply from 07:00 to 18:00 and again from 22:00 to 05:00, which leaves an unrestricted window in the early evening and the early morning; and Dél-Pest (DP35) applies from 12:00 to 17:00 and from 19:00 to 10:00.
Alongside these fifteen the same authority runs eleven separate protected zones — the Buda Castle, the inner third of district V, Margitsziget, Városliget, the Opera House surroundings and others — under a different municipal decree with its own permit types and its own fee basis. Those are not this record.
Budapest's second entry-permit scheme, and the one a car driver actually meets. The city's fifteen weight-restricted zones only bite on goods vehicles; these eleven protected zones bite on everything.
They are the places the capital treats as worth shielding — the inner third of District V around Vörösmarty tér and Váci utca, the block around St Stephen's Basilica, the Opera House's three streets, the Buda Castle inside its walls, Margaret Island, Városliget, Népliget, Normafa, Óbuda's Fő tér, the Római-part and the Óbudai-sziget — and inside them a vehicle needs a védett övezeti behajtási hozzájárulás whatever it weighs and whatever its engine.
The governing instrument is not the freight decree: it is Budapest Municipal Assembly decree 30/2010. (VI. 4.), the parking decree, and the operator that issues the permits says so in its own news bulletin.
Six kinds of permit exist and each one carries its own clock rather than the zone carrying one: a goods-delivery permit admits you between 18:00 and 10:00 with twenty minutes' waiting on a windscreen disc, a public-interest food-delivery permit adds 13:00 to 15:00, a service-call permit runs 18:00 to 12:00 with an hour's waiting, and one-off and sports-organisation permits have no time limit at all.
A business permit is different in kind — it only lets you reach and leave a parking space you already hold inside the zone.
The Euro class never decides whether you may enter; it decides what you pay, minus 30 per cent for Euro 5 and above, nothing for Euro 4, plus 10 for Euro 3 and plus 20 for Euro 2 — except at the bottom, where a Euro 0 or Euro 1 vehicle simply cannot be granted the permits in the Lord Mayor's competence at all. Two zones are not run like the other nine.
Normafa's permits are administered end to end by the District XII local authority, not by the road authority. And the Buda Castle has a second gatekeeper: goods and service permits cannot be issued above 12 tonnes there, residential and one-off permits above 12 tonnes need a route plan, and the Buda Palace Quarter needs the Várkapitányság's separate consent under government decree 313/2018. (XII.
27.). What this record cannot tell you is the price. The charge exists, it is calculated from the hourly parking fee of the 'A' parking zone — 800 forint since 1 July 2026, up from 600 — multiplied by a vehicle-class factor and a permit-type factor, and the operator publishes a spreadsheet calculator rather than a tariff.
That spreadsheet's printable price sheet is broken at the publisher: 416 of its cells read #REF!. The fixed costs are published and small: 2,000 forint net per permit, plus a one-off vehicle registration of 2,000 forint online or 3,000 forint on paper, plus an optional six-hour rush fee.