Driving in Szczecin: Strefa Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie

Szczecin, Poland · Low emission zone

In force in Szczecin right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:05 · 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. A vehicle that does not meet the standard cannot buy its way in — but it may still enter on up to thirty days in a calendar year, and this timetable does not count those days for you.

The resolution sets no future tightening date, so unlike Warsaw and Katowice there is no scheduled step to plan around. That also means a change here would arrive as a new resolution rather than on a date already published.

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 twenty-six Old Town streets inside a city of 300 square kilometres.

Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.

What applies

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 We do not publish a start date we would have had to calculate.

Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26 z dnia 24 marca 2026 r. w sprawie ustanowienia Strefy Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie, as promulgated by the Wojewoda Zachodniopomorski in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Daily charge

There is no entry charge and no day pass to buy. The enabling act offers one — art. 39 ust.

5 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 Szczecin did not take it. Its resolution prices only the windscreen sticker, at 1 zł under § 5 ust. 3, and that is a way of proving an exemption rather than a way of buying entry.

What a non-qualifying vehicle gets instead of a charge is an allowance of thirty days a calendar year, the most generous in the Polish corpus. The only money in this scheme is the 1 zł sticker and the fine, recorded under penalty.

When it operates

Always. The resolution was searched on 14 September 2026 for godzina, the word Polish law uses for a clock time, and across 11,893 normalised characters it does not appear once — while Strefy appears sixteen times and opłata twice, so the search was working. The resolution names no date on which anything changes either: unlike Warsaw and Katowice it sets a single emission test with no ladder of tiers.

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.

Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26, § 1–§ 7 and annexes 1–3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Area covered

Twenty-six streets of the Old Town, listed individually rather than as a ring: plac Żołnierza Polskiego between ul. Tkacka and ul. Farna, then ul.

Farna, Grodzka, Koński Kierat, Korsarzy, Księcia Mściwoja II, Kuśnierska, Łaziebna, Mariacka, Panieńska, Rycerska, Sołtysia, Staromiejska between ul. Grodzka and ul. ks. kard.

Stefana Wyszyńskiego, Staromłyńska, Tkacka, Kłodna, Środowa, Sienna, Rynek Sienny, Rynek Nowy, Wielka Odrzańska, Mała Odrzańska, Opłotki, Osiek, Kurza Stopka and Targ Rybny, together with one named land parcel. Because it is a list of streets and not an enclosed area, a driver can be beside the zone without being in it; the boundary is signed with D-54 and D-55 under the national road-sign regulation.

Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26, załącznik nr 2 (Wykaz dróg (ulic) położonych w Strefie Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie) and § 3 ust. 2, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Why there is no map here
The council publishes the edge twice and neither edition is geometry. Załącznik nr 2 lists the twenty-six streets in prose; załącznik nr 1, headed Granice Strefy Czystego Transportu w Szczecinie, is a map, but it is a raster image printed inside the official journal — the HTML edition renders that heading with nothing under it, which is what an image annex looks like from our side. There is no vector edition, no coordinates and no licence statement. Turning a street list into a polygon ourselves would be our drawing rather than the council's boundary, so the warning stays city-wide, and here that gap is wide: twenty-six Old Town streets warned about across the whole of Szczecin. What was not done this cycle is a search of the city's own GIS channels — geoportal.szczecin.pl answers and redirects to geoportal.szczecin.eu — so that side is unmeasured rather than exhausted.

The authority's own map: Rada Miasta Szczecin, through the Wojewoda Zachodniopomorski's official journal

Petrol standard

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.

Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26, § 4 pkt 6–7, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Diesel standard

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.

Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26, § 4 pkt 6–7, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Penalty if you do not comply
500.00 PLNSource: Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

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

How to comply
  • If the vehicle is electric, hydrogen or natural-gas powered, there is nothing to do: the national act exempts those three by name, whatever their age.
  • If it is a motorcycle, a vehicle classed as "other", a special vehicle or a veteran one, it is outside the ban as well.
  • Otherwise the test is Euro 3 or a 2000 build year for petrol and Euro 4 or 2005 for diesel, up to 3.5 tonnes; Euro III (2000) and Euro IV (2005) above it. There is no later tier to plan for.
  • If the vehicle qualifies, you may not need to do anything else. Checks run against the central vehicle register, and the sticker is required only where that register does not hold enough to establish the right of entry — the common case for a foreign-registered vehicle, whose Euro class is not in the Polish register.
  • The sticker costs 1 zł and is applied for online or at a point named by the Mayor; it goes in the bottom left corner of the windscreen. The application asks for the registration number, the year of production and the fuel type, and where the Euro class is not in the register, documents proving it have to be produced.
  • If the vehicle does not qualify at all, you still have thirty days in a calendar year — far more than Warsaw's four, and Katowice gives none. Nothing in the resolution says how those days are claimed or counted, so treat the allowance as real but unadministered.
  • A driver holding a disabled parking card may name one vehicle for exemption for as long as the card is valid, and that counts against the resident exemptions rather than on top of them.
  • The resolution ties several exemptions to the city-centre paid-parking scheme: a vehicle that already holds a resident's permit, a flat-rate parking entitlement or a zero-rate parking right in the Śródmiejska Strefa Płatnego Parkowania is exempt. A visitor cannot normally use those.
  • Enforcement is by the Szczecin municipal police (Straż Miejska) or the police, on the ordinary road-traffic footing rather than through a camera-and-invoice system.
Source: Rada Miasta Szczecin, read 2026-09-14
Full citation

Rada Miasta Szczecin — Uchwała Nr XX/520/26, § 4–§ 5 and załącznik nr 3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Zachodniopomorskiego 2026 poz. 1472

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-21.

Before you set off

Other cities in Poland