Driving in Piacenza

Italy: 1 scheme to know about before you drive in.

The short answer for Piacenza

Piacenza has one driving restriction on our books: the Divieto di circolazione dinamica nel centro abitato della città di… (low emission zone). What is a low emission zone?

What it means for your car

Petrol or LPG. Petrol cars of Euro 0, Euro 1 and Euro 2 are banned — "veicoli alimentati a benzina EURO 0, EURO 1 ed EURO 2, non conformi alla direttiva 98/69/A CE e successive o alla direttiva 99/96/A CE e successive" — so a petrol car needs to be Euro 3 or better. Bi-fuel vehicles running on LPG/petrol or methane/petrol are treated identically and banned up to and including Euro 2. Mopeds are banned up to and including Euro 2 where they do not comply with Directive 2013/60/EC or later, and motorcycles up to and including Euro 2 where they do not comply with Directive 2003/77/EC or later. None of these four lines moves anywhere in the scheme: petrol, bi-fuel, mopeds and motorcycles are caught at Euro 2 on weekdays, on the twenty ecological Sundays and while the emergency measures are running alike. It is only the diesel line that moves.
Diesel. Diesel cars are banned up to and including Euro 4 from Monday to Friday — "veicoli diesel EURO 0, EURO 1, EURO 2, EURO 3 ed EURO 4 non conformi alla direttiva 2005/55/CE B2 e successive o alla direttiva 99/96 fase III oppure Riga B2 o C e successive" — so a diesel needs to be Euro 5 or better on a weekday. 🚨 On each of the twenty ecological Sundays the line moves one class further and Euro 5 is banned as well: "veicoli diesel EURO 0, EURO 1, EURO 2, EURO 3 ed EURO 4 ed EURO 5 non conformi al regolamento 715/2007*692/2008 (Euro 6 A o Euro 6 B)". The same Euro 5 extension applies whenever the region's emergency measures are running, on any day of the week. A Euro 5 diesel is therefore legal here on a Tuesday and illegal on 18 October, and only a Euro 6 diesel is clear of every list. 🚨 And there is a second trap in this scheme that has nothing to do with the order itself. National law had already set a deadline for Euro 5 diesel: the order's preamble cites Legge n. 105 of 18 July 2025, converting Decreto-Legge n. 73 of 21 May 2025, which requires air-quality plans to carry a structural limitation on Euro 5 diesel "a decorrere dal 1° ottobre 2026, in via prioritaria per i Comuni aventi popolazione maggiore di 100.000 abitanti" — from 1 October 2026, as a priority for municipalities over 100,000 inhabitants. Piacenza is one: the same order records a resident population of 102,364 at 31/12/2021. Emilia-Romagna then legislated that limitation into force itself, at L.R. n. 9 of 28/07/2026 article 15 paragraph 1, for 1 October to 31 March each year, cars and N1/N2/N3 commercial vehicles, "dalle ore 8.30 alle ore 18.30, dal lunedì al venerdì" — the exact weekday window this scheme uses. 🔑 It is not in force, and the reason is in the same preamble. Article 15 paragraph 7 of that regional law lets the Giunta substitute compensating measures, and DGR n. 1505 of 07/09/2026 did so "al fine di prescindere dall'attuazione della limitazione strutturale dei veicoli diesel euro 5" in Emilia-Romagna municipalities over 100,000 inhabitants, in exchange for three things: the heating season starting on 1 November, a biomass-heater ban during emergency measures, and widening the emergency circulation window to 08:00–19:00. So a Euro 5 diesel driver who reads the national headline and concludes they are banned in Piacenza on weekdays from 1 October 2026 has it backwards, and the 08:00–19:00 emergency window they will meet instead is part of the price the region paid for that.

Sources last read on 2026-09-28, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-12-28.

The schemes, one by one

Divieto di circolazione dinamica nel centro abitato della città di… Low emission zone
Piacenza closes its built-up area to older vehicles for the winter half of the year, from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.

Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 18:30, the ban catches petrol cars up to and including Euro 2, LPG/petrol and methane/petrol up to and including Euro 2, diesel cars up to and including Euro 4, and mopeds and motorcycles up to and including Euro 2. 🚨 On top of that the order names twenty individual Sundays — "domeniche ecologiche" — on which the same hours apply and the diesel line moves one class further to catch Euro 5 as well.

This is the point where Piacenza parts company with its neighbours: the Sunday ban here is a closed list of dates, not "every Sunday", and there is no ecological Sunday at all in December. Nothing is on sale. There is no day ticket, no charge and no payable derogation — a banned car does not become admissible by paying.

It is a mayoral order under articles 5, 6 and 7 of the Italian Highway Code implementing the region's air-quality plan, the PAIR 2030, and it is re-issued every year. Three things make it survivable for a visitor whose car is on the list.

The order excludes three whole neighbourhoods inside the perimeter — Besurica, Montale and Le Mose — on the express ground that they are not yet sufficiently served by public transport.

It excludes some thirty-five named roads and stretches so that traffic arriving from outside does not have to cross the city and can reach the park-and-ride sites, among them the whole Tangenziale Sud, Via Emilia Parmense, Via Caorsana and Via Cremona.

And a guest staying at hotel-type accommodation inside the restricted area is exempt for the journey to and from the accommodation itself, on a booking or on a later attestation. Electric and hybrid vehicles, cars carrying at least three people, and vehicles registered for specific transport or special uses are outside the ban altogether.

The ban is on circulation — the order says "circolazione dinamica" — so it is driving, not parking, that is caught.

Driving to Piacenza?

Before you set off

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