Driving in Szczecin

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

The short answer for Szczecin

Szczecin has one driving restriction on our books: the Strefa Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie (low emission zone). What is a low emission zone?

What it means for your car

Petrol or LPG. Euro 3, or first built in 2000 or later, for a spark-ignition vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes — and Euro III, or 2000 or later, for a bus, lorry or tractor unit above that weight. The resolution attaches no end date to either figure and sets out no later, tighter tier, which makes Szczecin the one Polish clean transport zone with a flat standard rather than a ladder. It is also the same figure Warsaw and Katowice require today, so a petrol vehicle cleared for one Polish zone is cleared for all three at present.
Diesel. Euro 4, or first built in 2005 or later, for a compression-ignition vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes — and Euro IV, or 2005 or later, for a bus, lorry or tractor unit above that weight. As with petrol, the resolution attaches no end date and schedules no later tightening. This is a step milder than Warsaw and Katowice, which both require Euro 5 or a 2009 build year from a diesel today, so a diesel cleared for Szczecin is not necessarily cleared for the other two.

Sources last read on 2026-09-14, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2027-03-21.

The schemes, one by one

• Strefa Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie Low emission zone

  Szczecin's clean transport zone is the smallest of the three Polish ones: twenty-six named streets of the Old Town, listed one by one in the resolution. The national act bans everything but electric, hydrogen and natural-gas vehicles, and the council's exemptions decide the rest.

  The emission test is the mildest in Poland and does not tighten on any date the resolution names — Euro 3 or a build year of 2000 for petrol up to 3.5 tonnes, Euro 4 or 2005 for diesel, and Euro III (2000) or Euro IV (2005) above that weight. Even a vehicle that fails it may still drive in on up to thirty days a calendar year, which makes this zone unusually forgiving for a visitor.

  Motorcycles, special, veteran and historic vehicles are outside the ban, as are cars already holding a resident's or paid-parking entitlement in the city-centre parking zone. The sticker that proves an exemption costs 1 zł. Checks are by the municipal police or the police, and the fine, which is national, is up to 500 zloty.

  One thing the resolution does not say is the day the zone opened: unlike Warsaw and Katowice it names no start date, only that it takes effect fourteen days after promulgation, which happened on 2 April 2026. We do not publish a start date we would have had to calculate.

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Before you set off

Other cities in Poland

• Warsawabout 454 km away, 1 verified scheme
• Katowiceabout 467 km away, 1 verified scheme
• Krakówabout 527 km away, 1 verified scheme