Modena, Italy · Limited traffic zone
Official name Zona a Traffico Limitato del Centro Storico
In force in Modena right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:04 · Europe/Rome
Nothing here is conditional on the clock. The order forbids transit and parking to unauthorised vehicles permanently, so this timetable answers "in force" whenever it is asked. What decides a driver's case in Modena's centre is the plate, not the hour.
Public holidays make no difference to the ban itself for the same reason — it does not step back on any day. Public holidays do close some of the permit windows (authorised loading and maintenance are "festivi esclusi"), which makes those days stricter for a permit holder, not looser.
The hours that do appear in the order belong to permit classes and are narrower than the zone: loading and unloading Monday to Saturday 05:00–10:30 and Monday to Friday 13:30–16:30, maintenance Monday to Friday 07:30–18:30. Holding a permit does not mean holding it at every hour.
The pedestrian areas and the reserved lanes inside the perimeter run on their own, stricter orders, which this record does not hold. A ZTL authorisation is not an authorisation for them.
Modena runs a second scheme over different ground and on a different clock: the winter antismog ban, which covers the whole built-up area from 1 October to 31 March, 08:00–19:00 on weekdays and every Sunday. A car can be clear of one and caught by the other on the same journey, and the exemptions do not match — most sharply for hybrids, which the antismog rule exempts and the ZTL bars.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Modena's historic centre is closed to unauthorised vehicles permanently, not for part of the day. The coordinated order forbids movement, stopping and parking inside a perimeter drawn along the ring of viali, and the perimeter streets themselves stay open — they bound the zone without being inside it.
Thirteen camera gates read the plate of every vehicle going in and coming out, around the clock, and a plate that is not on the authorised list is fined. Bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles and L5e three-wheelers with two front wheels need nothing at all; nor do buses on tourist or school services setting down and picking up, taxis, hire cars with driver, emergency services and the named utility fleets.
For a visitor arriving by car there are two openings that work: a hotel, B&B, hostel or room rental inside the zone, which issues a windscreen pass and reports your plate, and a guarded paid car park inside the zone, which may be reached by the direct route only. ⚠️ A hybrid is not an electric car here.
The city's own answer page states that the order in force bars hybrid cars and that only fully electric vehicles may enter the historic centre — the opposite of Modena's other scheme, the winter antismog ban, where an electric or hybrid car is exempt outright. The two rules run over different ground in the same city, and a driver who reasons from one to the other is wrong in the direction that ends in a fine.
Comune di Modena — "Posso entrare in centro storico con la mia auto ibrida?", the city's own answer page, last updated 15 July 2026, read together with the standing ZTL topic page and with the Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL Prot. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, both of which are cited separately below
There is no charge for entering and nothing to buy at the gate. Access to Modena's ZTL is granted, not sold: the order bans every unauthorised vehicle permanently and then lists who may enter and who may be authorised.
A daily pass does exist and costs 5 euro, but it is not an entry ticket — it is issued for named purposes only (loading and unloading, maintenance, emergency call-out, weddings and civil unions, transporting someone with a temporary disability, and "particular needs"), and the portal that issues it can be reached only with SPID, CIE or CNS credentials, the Italian digital identities.
A visitor from abroad cannot obtain one and, for the ordinary case of driving in to look around, would not qualify for one either. The routes that are open to a visitor are set out under how to comply, and both are free.
All day, every day, all year. The order calls it a "divieto permanente" and repeats that inside the perimeter transit and parking are "permanentemente" forbidden to unauthorised vehicles; the city adds that the gate cameras are live 24 hours a day.
There is no hour at which the zone opens, no weekday on which it lapses and no seasonal start, so nothing here turns on when you arrive — only on whether your plate is authorised.
The time windows that do appear in the order belong to particular permit classes and are narrower, not wider: authorised loading and unloading runs Monday to Saturday 05:00–10:30 and Monday to Friday 13:30–16:30 with public holidays excluded, and authorised maintenance work Monday to Friday 07:30–18:30. The pedestrian areas and the reserved lanes inside the zone are governed by their own stricter rules.
Comune di Modena — Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL, Prot. P.G. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, Settore Pianificazione Territoriale e Sostenibilità Urbana / Ufficio Mobilità, Traffico e Urbanizzazioni; section B) and section B6). Listed by the city among its standing "Ordinanze a carattere generale" and named as the governing ZTL instrument on the antismog page
The historic centre inside the ring of boulevards, bounded by the streets the order lists one by one: Viale Martiri della Libertà, Viale Rimembranze, Piazzale Risorgimento Italiano, Viale Vittorio Veneto, Largo Sant'Agostino (between Largo Moro and the car-park entrance), Viale Berengario, Viale Fontanelli (between Via Berengario and Corso Cavour), Corso Cavour (between Viale Fontanelli and Viale Vittorio Emanuele), Piazzale D'Aleo e Basile, Corso Cavour again (between Viale Vittorio Emanuele and Corso Canalgrande), Corso Canalgrande (between Corso Cavour and Via San Giovanni del Cantone), Via San Giovanni del Cantone, Viale Caduti in Guerra (between Via San Giovanni del Cantone and Via Emilia Centro), and Largo Garibaldi. ⚠️ Those streets bound the zone without being in it — the order says so in as many words — so driving round the ring is not driving into the ZTL.
The cameras sit at the ways in and out: Largo Porta Bologna, Vicolo del Cane, Via Saragozza, Via Selmi, Corso Canalchiaro, Largo Porta Sant'Agostino, Via Ganaceto at Corso Cavour, Via III Febbraio, Corso Accademia Militare, Via Mascherella, Corso Canalgrande at San Giovanni del Cantone, Via Emilia Centro between Vicolo Squallore and Via Torre, and Corso Duomo.
Two stretches inside the zone are stricter still and are watched in both directions of travel: Via Emilia Centro between Vicolo Squallore and Via Torre, and Corso Duomo, both reserved lanes. Piazza Grande and a long list of other squares and streets inside the perimeter are pedestrian areas closed to all vehicles under their own rules, which this record does not hold.
Comune di Modena — Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL, Prot. P.G. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, section B) "PERIMETRO" and section A ter) on the reserved lanes, read together with the city's own gate list on "Mappa dei varchi elettronici"
The authority's own map: Comune di Modena — Settore Smart City, servizi demografici e partecipazione
No Euro class lets a petrol car in, and none keeps it out: for a private car the ZTL turns on authorisation, not on emissions. What the fuel does decide is the fully electric case — the city states that its order bars hybrid cars and that only vehicles running on electricity alone may enter the historic centre, under a separate standing order, Prot. n.
129454 of 30 October 2013, whose own title says it covers electric vehicles "esclusi quelli ibridi". Electric access is still applied for rather than automatic; the city runs a request service for it. For goods vehicles the order does set emission floors, and they are stated under the diesel field because the order writes them for diesel and petrol together.
Comune di Modena — "Posso entrare in centro storico con la mia auto ibrida?", the city's own answer page, last updated 15 July 2026
A diesel car is in the same position as a petrol one: the Euro class changes nothing, and authorisation decides. Goods vehicles are the exception the order does write in emission terms, and it writes them for diesel and petrol together.
Commercial vehicles of categories N1, N2 and N3, including those carrying an operator's own goods, are banned if they are pre-Euro or Euro 1 and do not meet directive 98/69 A EC or 99/96 A EC or later; the same ban extends to Euro 2 vehicles first registered more than ten years earlier.
Since 1 June 2012 goods vehicles of N1, N2 and N3 working for hire and reward are banned below Euro 4 where they do not meet directive 98/69 EC B or later.
Four things are carved out of both bans: vehicles already authorised, until their permit runs out; vehicles carrying perishables — fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh meat and fish, cut flowers, live animals for slaughter and its by-products, fresh dairy — or anything needing an unbroken cold chain; vehicles supplying newsstands; and special-purpose vehicles permanently fitted with special equipment. ⚠️ Separately from emissions, no vehicle over 6 tonnes laden mass can hold a ZTL authorisation at all; above that weight only a temporary permit naming the route and the conditions is possible.
Comune di Modena — Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL, Prot. P.G. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, section B) letters a) and b) with the four exclusions that follow, and section B5) on laden mass
Modena does not state a figure for the offence a visitor is most likely to commit, and we will not supply one. Driving into the ZTL without authorisation is an offence under the Codice della Strada, not under the city's order, and the order says as much: its own penalties "si applicano in concorso con quelle del Codice della Strada".
What the order does price are its own administrative offences, and those are real amounts a visitor could still meet: failing to display the pass on the windscreen, or displaying it so it cannot be read, is €25.00 to €150.00; using the authorisation improperly — another vehicle, another purpose, someone unconnected to the permitted activity — is €77.00 to €462.00; using a photocopy of the pass is €40.00 to €240.00; and a property that issues the hotel-guest pass to someone who is not its guest faces €77.00 to €462.00.
Missing the deadline for notifying the plate is itself €25.00 to €150.00. Payment falls due within 60 days of the notice, and the sum is increased by 20% if it is paid later. ⚠️ Do not read the €168–679 range on Modena's winter antismog record across to this one: that figure belongs to the antismog order and is stated in it, and nothing in the ZTL order sets it.
Comune di Modena — Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL, Prot. P.G. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, sections B1), B2), B3), B4), B5), B6) and C), read together with the city's standing ZTL topic page
Comune di Modena — Testo coordinato Ordinanza ZTL, Prot. P.G. n. 85253 del 01/04/2020, Settore Pianificazione Territoriale e Sostenibilità Urbana / Ufficio Mobilità, Traffico e Urbanizzazioni. The operative instrument: it draws the perimeter, makes the ban permanent, lists who enters without authorisation and who may be authorised, fixes the permit windows and prices the order's own offences. Still listed among the city's standing "Ordinanze a carattere generale" on 2026-09-22, and named as the governing ZTL text by the antismog page
Comune di Modena — "ZTL", the city's standing topic page for the zone: automatic access control, the thirteen camera gates by name, and the vehicle categories that enter without any authorisation
Comune di Modena — "Posso entrare in centro storico con la mia auto ibrida?", the city's own answer page, last updated 15 July 2026. The freshest statement the city makes about what a visitor's car may do, and the one that separates hybrid from electric
Comune di Modena — "Circolazione e sosta dei veicoli elettrici in ZTL e sosta in deroga al pagamento", Ordinanza Prot. n. 129454 del 30 ottobre 2013, still listed among the standing general ordinances. The instrument behind the electric exception, and its own summary is where the exclusion of hybrids is stated in the order's words
Comune di Modena — "Mappa dei varchi elettronici", the city's own list of where the ZTL cameras stand
Comune di Modena — service record "ZTL Zona Traffico Limitato - Permessi giornalieri a pagamento", the price of a day pass and the identity credentials needed to buy one. Cited through the site's own Plone REST endpoint because the human-facing page assembles its text in the browser: the served HTML normalises to 1 454 characters and contains none of these sentences, while the ++api++ representation of the same object serves them in full
Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-21.
A city can run more than one scheme, and they do not always answer the same question.