Driving in Newcastle upon Tyne: Low emission zone

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom · Low emission zone

Official name Tyneside Clean Air Zone (Newcastle and Gateshead, Class C)

In force in Newcastle upon Tyne right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 10:05 · Europe/London

The zone runs continuously; whether you pay depends on what you drive, which this does not check. A car is outside the charge at every hour.

A charge can be waived for a journey forced into the zone by an approved diversion. That is a decision made after the fact by the enforcement team, so the timetable here cannot show it.

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

What applies

Newcastle and Gateshead run one Clean Air Zone between them, and it has charged non-compliant taxis, buses, coaches and HGVs since 30 January 2023, with vans and light goods vehicles added on 17 July 2023 after a delay for vehicle supply shortages. Private cars are not charged.

A non-compliant taxi, private hire vehicle, van or light goods vehicle pays £12.50 a day — the highest van rate of any English zone — and a non-compliant bus, coach or HGV pays £50. A taxi or private hire vehicle licensed by Newcastle, Gateshead or North Tyneside can instead buy a £50 permit covering seven consecutive days, which is the only discount of its kind in the corpus.

Source: Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council, read 2026-09-11
Full citation

Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council (Breathe Clean Air)

Daily charge

There is no charge for a car in Newcastle or Gateshead. The councils say so directly — "If you drive a car you will not be charged to enter the Clean Air Zone in Newcastle" — and they say something else worth reading with it: charging cars is possible in future, would depend on how pollution responds, and "would be subject to further public consultation".

So this is a settled no for today and a stated maybe for later, not a figure we failed to find. What is charged: £12.50 a day for a non-compliant taxi, private hire vehicle, van or light goods vehicle, and £50 a day for a non-compliant bus, coach or heavy goods vehicle.

When it operates

Charges apply 24 hours a day. A day means midnight to midnight, not twenty-four hours from your first entry: you can enter and leave as often as you like within that window for one charge, but entering before midnight and leaving after it counts as two days and costs two charges.

Source: Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council, read 2026-09-11
Full citation

Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council (Breathe Clean Air)

Area covered

The zone covers most of Newcastle city centre together with the routes over the Tyne, Swing, High Level and Redheugh bridges — so a river crossing can put you in it even if the city centre was never your destination. It is signed heavily: 43 signs at entry points around the boundary, 96 advance signs outside it, and 51 reminder signs inside.

Source: Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council, read 2026-09-11
Full citation

Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council (Breathe Clean Air)

Why there is no map here
The two councils publish the zone as an interactive map and as map images, and describe it in words — most of Newcastle city centre plus four named bridges — but they do not publish geometry. The national catalogue does not have it either: a search of data.gov.uk on 2026-09-11 returned Clean Air Zone boundaries for Sheffield, Birmingham and Bradford and none for Tyneside, and Newcastle's own open-data hostname no longer resolves. So the warning for this zone is city-level, and the bridges matter: a route that only crosses the Tyne is inside the scheme without ever reaching the centre.

The authority's own map: Newcastle City Council and Gateshead Council

Petrol standard

Euro 4 petrol or newer is compliant, which is the national minimum standard for vans, minibuses, taxis and private hire vehicles. Newcastle and Gateshead set no local standard of their own: the councils direct every check to the government's national vehicle checker.

Source: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, read 2026-09-11
Diesel standard

Euro 6 diesel or newer is compliant, and Euro VI for buses, coaches and heavy goods vehicles. An older diesel car is still not charged: in a Class C zone the standard only decides the bill for vehicles the scheme reaches in the first place.

Source: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, read 2026-09-11
Penalty if you do not comply
£120.00Source: Newcastle City Council, read 2026-09-11
Full citation

Newcastle City Council (Breathe Clean Air)

How to comply
  • If you drive a car, there is nothing to pay. The councils add that this could change one day, but only after a further public consultation.
  • If you drive a chargeable vehicle, pay from six days before the journey until 11:59pm on the sixth day after it. Nothing will remind you, and the payment goes to the national service rather than to the councils.
  • The fine is £120, reduced to £60 if you pay within fourteen days of the date of service — which is the second working day after posting, excluding weekends, New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Good Friday and bank holidays in England and Wales.
  • If an approved diversion forced you into the zone, the charge is waived — for planned works on a designated diversion route the cameras are set to waive it automatically, and for an unplanned diversion the enforcement team has to have been notified and it has to be clear you had no choice.
  • Newcastle City Council publishes the excuses it will not normally accept, and they are worth reading before appealing: that a sat-nav directed you in, that you were only in the zone for a few seconds, that you were delivering to an address inside it, that you were lost, or that you did not see the signs.
  • A taxi or private hire vehicle licensed by Newcastle, Gateshead or North Tyneside can buy a £50 permit covering seven consecutive days instead of paying £12.50 a day — useful precisely because a licensed taxi is charged even on a private, non-working journey.
Source: Newcastle City Council, read 2026-09-11
Full citation

Newcastle City Council (Breathe Clean Air)

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-10.

Before you set off

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