Warsaw, Poland · Low emission zone
In force in Warsaw 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, and so is a petrol or diesel that meets the standard for the current tier.
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 four days in a calendar year, and this timetable does not count those days for you.
The tiers change on a calendar date, not on a weekday: the standards below hold to 31 December 2027 and tighten on 1 January 2028.
The zone edge decides whether any of this applies, and we hold no polygon for it, so this warning is city-wide.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Warsaw's clean transport zone covers the inner city inside a ring of named streets and railway lines, and it has been running since 1 July 2024. The national act that creates these zones bans everything except electric, hydrogen and natural-gas vehicles outright, and then lets the city council write its own exemptions back in — which is where the emission standards live.
For a visiting driver the ones that matter run to the end of 2027: a petrol car or van up to 3.5 tonnes needs Euro 3 or a build year of 2000 or later, a diesel needs Euro 5 or 2009 or later, and a heavy vehicle over 3.5 tonnes needs Euro III (petrol, 2000) or Euro V (diesel, 2008). They tighten on 1 January 2028.
There is no entry charge — a vehicle either qualifies or may not drive in — but anything that does not qualify still gets four days a calendar year. Motorcycles, special and historic vehicles are outside the ban altogether. Checks are made against the national vehicle register and by the city police; the fine comes from the misdemeanours code and is up to 500 zloty.
Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023 z dnia 7 grudnia 2023 r. w sprawie ustanowienia na terenie miasta stołecznego Warszawy strefy czystego transportu, as promulgated by the Wojewoda Mazowiecki in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
There is no entry charge and no day pass to buy. The enabling act does offer one — art. 39 ust.
5 lets a council admit otherwise-banned vehicles between 09:00 and 17:00 on payment, for at most three years from the zone's establishment, capped at 2.50 zł an hour or 500 zł a month — and Warsaw did not take it. Its resolution prices only one thing, the 5 zł windscreen sticker under § 6, which is a way of proving an exemption rather than a way of buying entry.
So the only money in this scheme is that sticker and the fine, which is recorded under penalty. What a non-qualifying vehicle gets instead of a charge is an allowance of four days a calendar year.
Always. This is a statement about the resolution rather than a timetable the city published: the text was searched on 14 September 2026 for the word Polish law uses for a clock time, godzina, and across 17,289 normalised characters it does not appear once — while opłata, the word for a charge, appears once, so the search was working.
Every date in the resolution is a calendar date bounding an exemption tier, not an hour of the day. The zone is therefore in effect at every hour of every day, and whether it reaches a particular driver is decided by the engine and its emission class rather than by the clock.
Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023, § 1–§ 8 and annexes 1–3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
The inner city, inside a ring the resolution lists street by street: aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia from Aleje Jerozolimskie to railway line 20 near ul. Czorsztyńska, then railway lines 20, 501, 9 and 7, then ul. Wiatraczna, aleja Stanów Zjednoczonych, Most Łazienkowski, aleja Armii Ludowej, ul.
Wawelska, ul. Kopińska as far as ul. ppłk.
M. Sokołowskiego "Grzymały", that street, and Aleje Jerozolimskie back to aleja Prymasa Tysiąclecia. Only roads inside that ring are in the zone, and only those the city manages.
The boundary roads and the railway land themselves are explicitly outside it, so driving along the ring is not driving in the zone. The resolution also requires that traffic management keep transit routes continuous where they meet the boundary, so that a vehicle that may not enter can go round.
Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023, załącznik nr 1 (Granice obszaru Strefy) and § 3 ust. 2, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
The authority's own map: Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy, through the Wojewoda Mazowiecki's official…
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 over 3.5 tonnes. That is the tier running from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027.
The resolution sets the whole ladder out in advance, so the later steps are the council's own figures rather than a forecast: Euro 4 and Euro IV, both with a 2005 build year, from 1 January 2028 to 31 December 2029; Euro 5 (2009) and Euro V (2008) from 1 January 2030 to 31 December 2031; Euro 6 (2014) and Euro VI (2012) from 1 January 2032 with no end date.
Before the current tier, from the zone's start on 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025, the requirement was Euro 2 or 1997 at both weights. None of this is a licence to ignore the ban itself: the national act bars every petrol vehicle from the zone, and these are the exemptions the council wrote back in, which is why a vehicle that misses them has no fee to pay and no other way in beyond the four-day allowance.
Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023, załącznik nr 2 ust. 1–5 (Pojazdy dodatkowo wyłączone od zakazu wjazdu do Strefy), as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
Euro 5, or first built in 2009 or later, for a compression-ignition vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes — and Euro V, or 2008 or later, for a bus, lorry or tractor unit over 3.5 tonnes.
That is the tier running from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027, and the step after it is the sharp one: from 1 January 2028 a diesel car or van needs Euro 6 or a 2014 build year, which rules out a great many vehicles that pass today, and a heavy diesel needs Euro VI or 2010. From 1 January 2030 it is Euro 6dT (2017) and Euro VI (2012).
Before the current tier, from the zone's start on 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025, the requirement had been Euro 4 (2005) and Euro IV (2005). The diesel standard sits one or two steps ahead of the petrol one at every tier.
Rada Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023, załącznik nr 2 ust. 1–5 (Pojazdy dodatkowo wyłączone od zakazu wjazdu do Strefy), as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
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 Stołecznego Warszawy — Uchwała nr XCI/2974/2023, § 5–§ 6 and załączniki nr 2–3, as promulgated in Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego 2023 poz. 14557
Wojewoda Mazowiecki — Dziennik Urzędowy Województwa Mazowieckiego, the journal's own ELI record for 2023 poz. 14557, carrying its status field. The field is alive and it is the evidence that this resolution has not been struck down: across the whole 2023 volume of this journal, 15,117 acts, it takes four values — obowiązujący 14,577, akt uchylony 456, stwierdzono nieważność aktu 37, stwierdzono częściową nieważność aktu 47. A court annulment therefore shows in it, and this act reads obowiązujący. Two neighbouring fields in the same payload deliberately are NOT used: InForce is 0 and every date is the sentinel 0001-01-01, both unpopulated rather than negative
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.