Driving in Madrid: Madrid Zona de Bajas Emisiones (ZBE)

Madrid, Spain · Low emission zone

In force in Madrid right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:02 · Europe/Madrid

This encodes the permanent regime only. On declared nitrogen dioxide pollution episodes the city imposes further restrictions on top, and those are announced day by day — we do not track them.

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

What applies

The whole municipality of Madrid is a low emission zone — every urban public road, permanently. Since 1 January 2025 it bans every vehicle classified 'A' in Spain's national vehicle register, which is the class for vehicles that get no environmental label at all.

A transitional regime introduced in April 2026 lets some 'A' vehicles back on the roads outside the two stricter central zones, but it is built around vehicles registered in Madrid itself, so a visitor's unlabelled car does not benefit from it. Driving a banned vehicle is a serious traffic offence carrying a €200 fine, halved to €100 for prompt payment.

Source: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, read 2026-09-02
Daily charge

There is no charge and no day pass. A vehicle is either allowed on Madrid's roads or it is not.

When it operates

Permanent — the traffic regulation applies at all times across the municipality's urban public roads. On declared nitrogen dioxide pollution episodes, additional restrictions apply on top.

Source: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, read 2026-09-02
Area covered

All urban public roads of the municipality of Madrid. Two smaller, stricter zones sit inside it — the ZBEDEP Distrito Centro and Plaza Elíptica — which are separate schemes and are not covered by this record.

Source: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, read 2026-09-02
Why there is no map here
Madrid publishes this zone's boundary on its own geoportal, and the licence would let us reuse it, but no documented endpoint hands out the shape itself — only pictures of it. So we warn at city level and point you at the city's own map.

The authority's own map: Ayuntamiento de Madrid — Geoportal

Petrol standard

Madrid states the rule through Spain's DGT environmental classification, not through Euro standards: what is banned is class 'A', the class given to vehicles that qualify for no label. The mapping from Euro standard and registration year to a DGT label is set by the Dirección General de Tráfico and was not read from an official source on 2026-09-02, so it is not restated here.

Diesel standard

As for petrol: the ban is expressed as DGT class 'A' rather than a Euro number, and the DGT's own classification rules were not read on 2026-09-02.

Penalty if you do not comply
€200.00Source: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, read 2026-09-02
How to comply
  • Check your vehicle's DGT environmental classification before you drive into Madrid. Class 'A' — no label — is banned across the entire city.
  • The April 2026 transitional regime does not help a visitor: it covers 'A' vehicles that have been registered in Madrid and on the city's IVTM tax roll continuously since 1 January 2022, plus 'A' vehicles that are not cars (lorries, vans, motorcycles, mopeds) from any municipality.
  • That relief is conditional on nitrogen dioxide limits being met at every air quality monitoring station in the city. If any station breaches a limit, the Junta de Gobierno can end the regime, and enforcement resumes six months after that decision is published in the BOCM.
  • Even under the transitional regime, these vehicles may not drive on days when a pollution episode is declared.
  • Exempt regardless: vehicles carrying or driven by holders of a reduced-mobility parking card, provided they are registered in the ZBE access system and display the card, and vehicles recognised as historic.
Source: Ayuntamiento de Madrid, read 2026-09-02

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-01.

Before you set off

Other cities in Spain