Budapest, Hungary · Limited traffic zone
Official name Budapest főváros védett övezetei (védett övezeti behajtási hozzájárulás)
In force in Budapest right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:04 · Europe/Budapest
A green verdict here NEVER means the road is open. Except in the 07:00–10:00 gap around the Basilica, these zones do not have free hours — they have permits. The windows a driver actually lives by belong to the permit type, not to the zone: 18:00–10:00 for goods delivery, plus 13:00–15:00 for perishable food, 18:00–12:00 for service calls, and no limit at all on one-off and sports permits. This encoding cannot know which permit you hold.
This encoding says when a zone's restriction is in force, not which zone you are in. We do not hold these boundaries as data — the authority publishes them street by street in prose — so the warning is at city level and a driver still has to read the zone definition.
The protected zones overlap the city's fifteen weight-restricted zones, which are a separate scheme with separate permits, separate prices and a separate Euro scale. Two of the eleven say so on the authority's own page: in the streets of District V that the protected ban does not cover, and around the Basilica between 07:00 and 10:00, the Pest 3.5-tonne zone's rules apply instead. A goods vehicle can therefore need both permits for one journey.
Waiting is limited even when entry is allowed. A goods-delivery permit buys twenty minutes and a service permit one hour, both shown on a disc behind the windscreen, and the disc may not be re-set without first leaving the space.
Normafa (JHx) is administered by a different authority. The District XII Hegyvidék local government handles the whole permit process there, so nothing on the road authority's application route applies to that zone.
Buda Castle (POx) has a second gate. Goods, public-interest goods and service permits cannot be issued at all above 12,000 kg; residential and one-off permits above 12,000 kg require a route plan; and the Buda Palace Quarter needs the Várkapitányság's own consent under government decree 313/2018. (XII. 27.) section 13(2).
No weekday, weekend or public-holiday rule is encoded, because the authority's pages name none. Hungary has public holidays; this scheme does not mention them, and no Hungarian holiday calendar is held in this corpus, so nothing is assumed either way.
The Lord Mayor may also issue permits in his own competence, and those are the ones a Euro 0 or Euro 1 vehicle cannot be granted at all. That is an eligibility rule rather than a timetable and is recorded in the emission fields.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
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.
Budapest Közút Zrt. — the road authority operating the capital's entry-permit system under a public-service contract, on its own 'Területi felsorolás' page for the protected zones, which enumerates all eleven with the authority's own codes and delimits each one street by street
There is a charge, we hold no figure for it, and the reason is the publisher's rather than ours: the operator publishes a CALCULATOR instead of a tariff, and the calculator's printable price sheet is broken in its own file. What is published, and is quotable, is the basis and the fixed costs.
The basis is the hourly parking fee of Budapest's 'A' parking zone, which the operator's own bulletin of 1 July 2026 says rose from 600 to 800 forint that day because decree 30/2010. (VI. 4.) changed — "A védett övezetekbe kiadható behajtási hozzájárulások díjszámítási alapját képező, »A« várakozási övezetre érvényes várakozási díj, 600 Ft-ról 800 Ft-ra emelkedik".
The fixed costs are 2,000 forint net for issuing a permit, a one-off vehicle registration of 2,000 forint net online or 3,000 forint net on paper, and an optional six-hour rush fee; the Euro discount and surcharge move the entry fee only and leave those three alone. The entry fee itself was read out of the operator's workbook, Dijak_2026_07_01.xlsx, and it is not a number that can be quoted.
Three measurements, all made on 16 September 2026. First, the sheet meant for the public — 'védett övezet árak' — contains 416 cells reading #REF!, and the cause is in the file: the defined name bkva, which every price formula on that sheet multiplies by, exists as a sheet-scoped name for the neighbouring 'Védett övezetek' sheet and as #REF! at workbook scope, so the printable sheet resolves it to nothing.
Second, the sheet that does compute is an interactive calculator, not a price list: its formulas read $G$3 for the number of days and $I$3 for the Euro category, both of which are EMPTY in the published file, and its day counter is TODAY() minus a fixed expiry that yields minus 1,702 days.
Third, the cached numbers in it are somebody else's session: cell A8's own formula is IF($I$3<4,"NEM ADHATÓ",…), which with the shipped inputs would print "cannot be issued", while the value cached beside it is 12000. Publishing that 12,000 as the city's price would be publishing a stranger's spreadsheet state.
The operator itself says where the number comes from, twice: "A díjkalkulátor segítségével tájékozódhat a behajtási díjról", and "Az online ügyfélszolgálati felületen még az igénylés véglegesítése előtt tájékozódhat a hozzájárulás díjáról". Apply in TOBI and you will be quoted the amount before you commit.
Assume you will have to pay and that we cannot tell you how much. ⚠️ Do not read across from this project's other Budapest record: the weight-restricted zones price a different permit off a different grid with a different Euro scale.
The zone has no timetable; the PERMIT has one, and that is the whole shape of this scheme. Ten of the eleven protected zones are published with no hour of the day at which the restriction lifts — the road authority's zone list gives each one's boundary and its exclusions and names no window — so a vehicle without a permit is outside the rules at every hour. What varies is which permit lets you in and when.
An áruszállítási behajtási-várakozási hozzájárulás, for regular goods deliveries in the zone, admits you "18.00 és 10.00 óra között" and allows twenty minutes' waiting, shown on a disc behind the windscreen which may not be re-set without leaving the space. The közhasznú version, for perishable food, adds a second window of 13:00 to 15:00.
A szervizszolgáltatási permit, for fault repair, runs "18.00 és 12.00 óra között" and allows up to one hour's waiting on the same disc. An eseti behajtási-várakozási hozzájárulás carries no time limit in either direction: its holder "az érvényesség ideje alatt bármikor behajthat vele az övezetbe" and may wait without limit.
A sportszervezeti permit — for a sports federation or club with a seat, site or venue contract on Margaret Island — is the same, unlimited in both.
A gazdálkodói behajtási hozzájárulás is not a time permission at all: it is issued to a business holding an off-street or exclusive on-street parking space inside the zone, for cars, motorcycles, mopeds and goods vehicles up to 3,500 kg, and it entitles the holder only to reach that space and leave it.
One zone has a clock of its own, published on the zone list rather than on the permit page: around St Stephen's Basilica (SBx) there is a "teljes behajtási tilalom" — a total entry ban — from 10:00 to 07:00, and between 07:00 and 10:00 the rules of the Pest 3.5-tonne weight zone apply there instead.
The same read-across appears in District V: in the streets of the VÖx zone that the ban does not cover, the Pest 3.5-tonne zone's rules apply. No weekday, weekend or public-holiday distinction appears anywhere in the scheme.
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Védett övezeti hozzájárulások', the operator's own page for the six permit types, which states each one's window and waiting allowance; and its 'Területi felsorolás' page for the one zone-specific clock, around St Stephen's Basilica
Eleven separate places, each delimited by the road authority as a perimeter of named streets, and each carrying the authority's own code.
District V's inner third (VÖx) is the area bounded by Eötvös tér, Széchenyi tér, József Attila utca, Erzsébet tér, Deák Ferenc tér, Károly körút, Kossuth Lajos utca, Ferenciek tere, Szabad sajtó út, Váci utca, Pesti Barnabás utca, Március 15. tér, Petőfi tér and Belgrád rakpart — with fourteen named exceptions cut out of it, including Apáczai Csere János utca, Bécsi utca, Petőfi Sándor utca, Szervita tér and Vigadó tér, and parts of Aranykéz utca, Dorottya utca, Gerlóczy utca, Petőfi tér and Szende Pál utca.
Around St Stephen's Basilica (SBx) it is Hercegprímás utca between József Attila utca and Szent István tér, plus the south side of Szent István tér. Népliget (NLx) is the signposted part of the area bounded by Kőbányai út, the MÁV railway land, Üllői út and Könyves Kálmán körút.
Normafa (JHx) is bounded by Budakeszi út, Árnyas út, Remete út, Zugligeti út, Béla király út, Csillagvölgyi út, Alkony utca, Gereben utca, Normafa út, Eötvös út, Konkoly Thege Miklós út and the city limit, excluding Janka utca, Pihenő út, Szilassy út and part of Mátyás király út.
Margitsziget (MSx) is the whole island except the northern paying car park, the hotels' waiting places and the roads leading to them from Árpád híd. Városliget (VLx) is the signposted part of the area bounded by Állatkerti körút, Hermina út, Ajtósi Dürer sor, Dózsa György út and Hősök tere; separately, Kós Károly sétány carries a sign banning goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes.
The Opera House zone (OPx) is three street sections: Hajós utca between Andrássy út and Lázár utca, Lázár utca between Hajós utca and Dalszínház utca, and Dalszínház utca between Lázár utca and Andrássy út. Buda Castle (POx) is the area inside the castle walls, plus the barriered sections of Palota út and Hunyadi János út, plus Gimnázium utca. Óbudai Fő tér (OFx) is the signposted part of Fő tér and Szentlélek tér.
Római-part (RPx) is Római part and Kossuth Lajos üdülőpart.
Óbudai-sziget (HSx) is the signposted part of the island. ⚠️ Four of the eleven are defined by SIGNS rather than by the street list alone — Népliget, Városliget, Óbudai Fő tér and Óbudai-sziget are each 'a jelzőtáblákkal megjelölt része', the signposted part of a larger area — so the perimeter named here is the outer bound and the actual zone is whatever the signs enclose inside it.
That is the authority's own construction and it is the reason these boundaries could not be drawn even if we wanted to.
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Területi felsorolás', the road authority's register of the eleven protected zones, each with its code and its street-by-street delimitation, its exclusions, and the note that four of them are defined by signs
The authority's own map: Budapest Közút Zrt.
There is no petrol standard to meet, because the Euro class does not decide admission here — it decides price. A permit is needed for every vehicle in these eleven zones whatever its engine, and the road authority applies the Euro class as a discount or a surcharge on the entry fee: no discount at Euro 4, minus 30 per cent at Euro 5 and above, plus 10 per cent at Euro 3 and plus 20 per cent at Euro 2.
The discount and the surcharge touch the entry fee only; they leave the 2,000 forint issuing cost, the vehicle registration cost and the rush fee untouched.
One rule at the bottom of the scale does become a hard exclusion, and it is stated here because it is the only place where an engine can stop a vehicle outright: "Az EURO 0 vagy az EURO 1 besorolású járművek részére a főpolgármester hatáskörébe tartozó behajtási hozzájárulás és a behajtási-várakozási hozzájárulás – városrendészeti behajtási-várakozási, valamint a városrendészeti behajtási hozzájárulás kivételével – nem adható ki." A Euro 0 or Euro 1 vehicle therefore cannot be granted the entry and entry-waiting permits that fall in the Lord Mayor's competence, the two municipal-policing permits excepted.
The authority publishes no petrol-specific test anywhere in the scheme. Not estimated. ⚠️ This scale is NOT the one on this project's other Budapest record: the weight-restricted zones use a different Euro scale with a different age component, and reading one across to the other would misprice both.
Nor a diesel standard, and for the same reason and from the same table: the road authority's discount and surcharge are written by Euro category alone and never distinguish diesel from petrol anywhere in the scheme. A Euro 5 or better diesel takes the same 30 per cent off the entry fee as a petrol vehicle, a Euro 4 diesel gets nothing, a Euro 3 pays 10 per cent more and a Euro 2 pays 20 per cent more.
The same single hard exclusion applies at the bottom: a Euro 0 or Euro 1 vehicle cannot be granted the permits in the Lord Mayor's competence, the two municipal-policing permits excepted.
What does gate a diesel here is weight and permit type rather than emissions, and only in one zone: in Buda Castle a goods, public-interest goods or service permit cannot be issued above 12,000 kg at all, and a residential or one-off permit above 12,000 kg only with a route plan. Not estimated.
The operator publishes no amount, and the amount is not ours to supply. Budapest Közút's general terms for the TOBI permit system carry a section on checking and sanctions which says that road-use entitlement is checked by the body designated in an Act or government decree and that Budapest Közút must supply that body with the data for the check; it names no figure. The figure itself would be in decree 30/2010.
(VI. 4.) Főv. Kgy. and in the national road-traffic rules, and both of those are published in the Nemzeti Jogszabálytár at njt.hu, which does not answer: TLS completes on TLSv1.3 with a valid certificate and the server then closes the socket having sent zero bytes, for the site root and for robots.txt alike (B-062).
Because robots.txt itself could not be read there is no crawl rule to honour, so nothing further was requested from that host and no user agent was substituted. Assume there is a penalty and that it is enforced — the zones are signed and the permits are checked — and ask Budapest Közút or read the decree if you need the figure. Not estimated.
Not captured.
Budapest Közút Zrt. — the operator's own four pages for the scheme: 'Védett övezeti hozzájárulások' for the six permit types and their windows, 'Területi felsorolás' for the zones and the Normafa and Buda Castle exceptions, 'Kedvezmények és környezetvédelmi felár' for the Euro scale and the Euro 0/1 exclusion, and 'Díjak' for the issuing cost, the vehicle registration cost and the rush fee
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Területi felsorolás', the road authority's register of the eleven protected zones. The denominator for this record: every zone it publishes, with the authority's own code, its street-by-street delimitation, its exclusions, and the two zones that are administered differently — Normafa by the District XII local government, and Buda Castle with the Várkapitányság's separate consent
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Védett övezeti hozzájárulások', the six permit types with their windows, their waiting allowances and their eligibility, and the Buda Castle weight rule that caps goods and service permits at 12,000 kg and requires a route plan above it
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Kedvezmények és környezetvédelmi felár', the Euro scale that prices a protected-zone permit and the one place an engine excludes a vehicle outright
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Díjak', the only published costs in the scheme: 2,000 forint net to issue a permit, a one-off vehicle registration of 2,000 forint net online or 3,000 forint net on paper, and an optional six-hour rush fee. It is also the page that says where the entry fee comes from instead of stating it — a downloadable calculator, and a quote in the online system before the application is finalised
Budapest Közút Zrt., Teherforgalmi Osztály — the TOBI system's news feed, bulletin 'Védett övezeti díjak emelkedése' of 1 July 2026 06:44:02. This is the only place the scheme's legal basis and its price basis are stated together: it names Budapest Municipal Assembly decree 30/2010. (VI. 4.) on parking as the instrument that changed, and says that the 'A' parking zone hourly fee which forms the calculation base for protected-zone entry permits rose from 600 to 800 forint. ⚠️ Carries NO watched strings on purpose: this is a ROLLING feed, ten items on the front page, and the bulletin will scroll off it in the ordinary course of business. A watched string here would break for a reason that has nothing to do with the rule. Its value is as a version pointer for a human re-read — a NEW 'Védett övezeti díjak' bulletin means the calculation base moved again
Budapest Közút Zrt. — 'Díjkalkulátor', the operator's own fee workbook in force from 1 July 2026. Cited because it is what makes the empty charge a measurement rather than a gap: its public-facing sheet 'védett övezet árak' contains 416 cells reading #REF!, caused by the defined name bkva being sheet-scoped to the neighbouring sheet and #REF! at workbook scope; the sheet that does compute is an interactive calculator whose day and Euro input cells are empty in the published file and whose day counter evaluates to minus 1,702; and its cached figures came from a session whose inputs are not in the file, provable because cell A8's own formula would print 'NEM ADHATÓ' with the shipped inputs while the value cached beside it is 12000. What IS readable from it and is quoted in this record: the 'A1 alapdíj' constant of 800 forint, the 27 per cent VAT rate, the per-vehicle-class multipliers and the per-permit-type annual factors. No watched strings: the monitor reads a spreadsheet as binary noise (D-077)
Next scheduled re-check: 2027-01-15.
A city can run more than one scheme, and they do not always answer the same question.