Katowice, Poland · Low emission zone
Official name Strefa Czystego Transportu Miasta Katowice
In force in Katowice right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:04 · Europe/Warsaw
The zone is always on; whether it reaches you depends on the engine and its emission class, which this timetable does not check. An electric, hydrogen or natural-gas vehicle is unaffected at every hour.
Nothing here is a charge, and unlike Warsaw and Szczecin there is no allowance of a few days a year. A vehicle that does not meet the standard has no lawful way in.
The tier for drivers from outside Katowice changes on 1 January 2034, not on any weekday.
The zone edge decides whether any of this applies, and we hold no polygon for it, so this warning is city-wide — and here that gap is wide, because the zone is a handful of central blocks inside a city of 160 square kilometres.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Katowice has run a clean transport zone since 29 June 2026, over a small block of the city centre bounded by ul. ks. Piotra Skargi, ul.
Moniuszki, ul. Pańki, ul. Dudy-Gracza, ul.
Warszawska, ul. Francuska, ul. Mariacka Tylna, ul.
Dworcowa and ul. Słowackiego. The national act bans everything but electric, hydrogen and natural-gas vehicles, and the council's exemptions decide the rest.
A driver from outside Katowice needs Euro 3 or a build year of 2000 for petrol, and Euro 5 or 2009 for diesel; that holds until the end of 2033, when it becomes Euro 4 and Euro 6. Residents of Katowice have a gentler tier and anyone from the wider Górnośląsko-Zagłębiowska Metropolia who already owned the vehicle before the zone opened is exempt indefinitely.
There is no charge, no windscreen sticker and no day allowance: entitlement is read straight out of the national vehicle register. Motorcycles, public-service buses, special, veteran and historic vehicles are outside the ban. The fine comes from the misdemeanours code and is up to 500 zloty.
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26 z dnia 27 kwietnia 2026 r. w sprawie ustanowienia na terenie miasta Katowice Strefy Czystego Transportu, as promulgated by the Wojewoda Śląski in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911
There is no charge of any kind. The enabling act lets a council admit otherwise-banned vehicles between 09:00 and 17:00 on payment for up to three years, capped at 2.50 zł an hour or 500 zł a month, and Katowice did not take that option.
It also did not take the windscreen-sticker route the act offers — § 5 names the central vehicle register as the sole means of checking entitlement, so there is no sticker to buy either, and unlike Warsaw and Szczecin there is no allowance of a few days a year for a vehicle that does not qualify. A vehicle either meets the standard, falls into one of the listed exemptions, or may not drive in.
The only money in this scheme is the fine, recorded under penalty.
Always. The resolution was searched on 14 September 2026 for godzina, the word Polish law uses for a clock time, and it does not appear anywhere in the six-page promulgated text — while Strefy, the control, appears throughout, so the search was working. Every date in it is a calendar date bounding an exemption tier rather than an hour of the day.
The zone is in effect at every hour of every day, and whether it reaches a particular driver is decided by the engine and its emission class.
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26, § 1–§ 7, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911
A small block of the city centre, north and east of the main railway station. The resolution covers the public roads managed by the Mayor of Katowice inside a ring it names street by street: a section of ul. ks.
Piotra Skargi from ul. Słowackiego to aleja Korfantego, then ul. Moniuszki, ul. prof.
Waleriana Pańki, a section of ul. Jerzego Dudy-Gracza to ul. Warszawska, a section of ul.
Warszawska to ul. Francuska, a section of ul. Francuska to ul.
Mariacka Tylna, ul. Mariacka Tylna, ul. Dworcowa to ul.
Słowackiego, and ul. Słowackiego back to ul. ks.
Piotra Skargi. Ulica ks. Stanisława Maślińskiego is carved out of the zone even though it lies inside the ring.
The ring roads themselves are outside the zone, with one exception the resolution makes explicitly: the stretch of ul. Dworcowa that is closed to traffic anyway stays inside it. Entrances and exits are signed D-54 and D-55, and traffic management has to leave a way round for a vehicle that may not enter.
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26, załącznik nr 1 (Granice obszaru Strefy) and § 3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911. The boundary annex is in the promulgated PDF; the HTML edition of this journal carries the operative articles only
The authority's own map: Rada Miasta Katowice, through the Wojewoda Śląski's official journal
Euro 3, or first built in 2000 or later, for a spark-ignition vehicle — and that holds from the zone's opening on 29 June 2026 until 31 December 2033, whether or not the driver lives in Katowice. From 1 January 2034 it becomes Euro 4, or a 2005 build year, with no end date.
Unusually for a Polish clean transport zone the resolution draws no distinction by weight: the petrol requirement is written once and applies to a car and a lorry alike. Residents of Katowice sit under a separate schedule with the same petrol figures, so on the petrol side a visitor is no worse off than a resident.
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26, załącznik nr 3 ust. 1–5 (Pojazdy dodatkowo wyłączone od zakazu wjazdu do Strefy), as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911. The annex is in the promulgated PDF; the HTML edition of this journal carries the operative articles only
Euro 5, or first built in 2009 or later, for a compression-ignition vehicle driven by anyone who is not a resident of Katowice. That runs from the zone's opening on 29 June 2026 until 31 December 2033, and from 1 January 2034 it becomes Euro 6, or a 2014 build year, with no end date.
Residents get a slower ladder — Euro 4 or 2005 until 30 June 2029, Euro 5 or 2009 to the end of 2033, then Euro 6 — so a visiting diesel faces a tighter test than a local one for the first three years. As with petrol, the resolution sets no separate figure for heavy vehicles: the same standard covers a car and a lorry.
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26, załącznik nr 3 ust. 1–5 (Pojazdy dodatkowo wyłączone od zakazu wjazdu do Strefy), as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911. The annex is in the promulgated PDF; the HTML edition of this journal carries the operative articles only
Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej — Kodeks wykroczeń, art. 96c, in the consolidated text announced by the Marshal of the Sejm on 21 May 2025 (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 734) and published by the Government Legislation Centre on eli.gov.pl, whose own metadata for that item records inForce = IN_FORCE. The figure is the statutory maximum, not a fixed ticket: the provision reads "Kto nie przestrzega zakazu wjazdu do strefy czystego transportu podlega karze grzywny do 500 złotych". The penalty is national and identical in every Polish clean transport zone; the city resolution sets no fine of its own. This source is a PDF — the consolidated code has no HTML edition on the register — and the monitor reads a PDF's own text (D-163), so art. 96c is watched here on the sentence that sets the fine; the register's metadata for the same item is watched separately, because only that carries the inForce field
Rada Miasta Katowice — Uchwała nr XXVII/505/26, § 5 and załącznik nr 3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego 2026 poz. 2911. The exemption annex is in the promulgated PDF; the HTML edition carries § 5 and the rest of the operative articles
Wojewoda Śląski — Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Śląskiego, the journal's own ELI record for 2026 poz. 2911, carrying its status field. The field is alive and it is the evidence that this resolution has not been struck down: across the same 2026 volume, 5,589 acts, it takes five values — obowiązujący 5,185, stwierdzono nieważność aktu 174, stwierdzono częściową nieważność aktu 168, akt uchylony 43, akt wygasł 19. A court annulment therefore shows in it, in this very volume, and this act reads obowiązujący. The inForce field in the same payload is 0 with sentinel dates and is deliberately not used
Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej — Ustawa z dnia 11 stycznia 2018 r. o elektromobilności i paliwach alternatywnych, art. 39 and art. 40, the national framework that creates these zones, in the consolidated text announced on 19 August 2024 (Dz.U. 2024 poz. 1289) as published by the Government Legislation Centre on eli.gov.pl. Art. 39 ust. 1 sets the ban and names the three fuels outside it; ust. 3 requires the zone to run indefinitely or for at least five years; ust. 4 is the power the council used to write its exemptions; art. 40 ust. 6 makes the resolution akt prawa miejscowego, which is why it is promulgated in the voivodeship journal rather than nationally
Government Legislation Centre (Rządowe Centrum Legislacji) — eli.gov.pl, the register's own metadata for the enabling act Dz.U. 2018 poz. 317, recording inForce = IN_FORCE and entryIntoForce = 2018-02-22. The field is alive: the same register returns NOT_IN_FORCE for superseded consolidated texts of other codes, so IN_FORCE here is a value rather than a default
Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-21.