Driving in Montevideo: Heavy vehicle ban

Montevideo, Uruguay · Heavy vehicle ban

Official name Régimen de limitaciones a la circulación de vehículos de carga en el Departamento de Montevideo (Digesto Departamental, Volumen V, Parte Reglamentaria, Título IV, Capítulo VI) y subzona céntrica de exclusión (artículo R.424.90)

Not in force in Montevideo right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 06:04 · America/Montevideo

  • Not in force Goods vehicles over 9 tonnes PBMA, inside the subzona céntrica — circulation, loading, unloading and delivery alike
  • Not in force C12 goods vehicles at 24 tonnes PBMA, and tractor units running without a trailer, anywhere in zone A

Starts Tuesday, 13 October 2026 at 11:00 local time.

Article R.424.86.4 exempts the zone A 24-tonne exclusion on "los fines de semana y los días feriados", and we hold no official, dated Uruguayan holiday list to name those days. The verdict above therefore treats every weekday as a working day, which over-warns on a holiday rather than under-warning on a working day. The 9-tonne central ban states no holiday exemption at all, so for that rule this is not a gap.

Both rules are about the vehicle, not the driver: below 9 tonnes PBMA in the centre, and below 24 tonnes in zone A, nothing here reaches you at any hour. A car or a van is never in this scheme.

Which zone you are in decides which rule applies, and we hold no map of the zones — the Intendencia publishes them as a shapefile we cannot yet read, so this warning is city-wide rather than zone-by-zone and will over-warn in zones B and C.

Zones B and C impose a weight limit and no hours at all, so a timetable cannot express them. Up to 24 tonnes they are open at every hour; above that, zone C is open only along the preferred freight routes.

Crossing the excluded central area during the ban is expressly allowed on the Río Branco–Julio Herrera y Obes and Magallanes–Minas corridors. That is a route exception, which no timetable can encode.

The División Tránsito y Transporte can authorise journeys outside all of this, and when it does it sets the hours itself. If you hold such a permit, the timetable above is not your answer.

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

What applies

Montevideo restricts goods vehicles by weight, and the weight that matters depends on where in the department you are. In the central area — a subzona céntrica bounded by named streets from Bulevar Artigas round to Goes — anything over 9 tonnes maximum authorised gross weight is barred from Monday to Friday between 11:00 and 20:00, and that ban covers loading, unloading and delivering as well as driving through.

Outside those hours, and everywhere else in zone A, the limit is 16.5 tonnes for a C11 vehicle with no time restriction; a 24-tonne C12 may use zone A too, but not between 11:00 and 20:00 on weekdays. Zones B and C take up to 24 tonnes at any hour, and zone C also takes heavier vehicles at any hour provided they stay on the listed freight routes.

Above 45 tonnes the chapter stops applying and you need written authorisation instead. None of this touches a car or a van.

Source: Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica — Digesto Departamental, Volumen V "Tránsito y Transporte", artículo R.424.90

Daily charge

Nothing is charged. This chapter of the Digesto prohibits and permits; it never prices. What exists instead of a payment is a permit: article R.424.86.7 lets the División Tránsito y Transporte authorise a journey outside the weight, hour or vehicle-type limits on formal application by the carrier, for one trip or several, and it is that division rather than a tariff that fixes the hours you may travel.

When it operates

In the subzona céntrica, Monday to Friday from 11:00 to 20:00: circulation, loading, unloading and delivery are all prohibited for any goods vehicle whose maximum authorised gross weight (PBMA) is over 9 tonnes, and tractor units for semi-trailers may not park there in those hours either. Outside that window the central subzone reverts to the rules of zone A.

In zone A generally, a C11 goods vehicle up to 16.5 tonnes PBMA may use the whole street network at any hour; a C12 at 24 tonnes may use it too, except Monday to Friday from 11:00 to 20:00, and weekends and public holidays are exempt from that exclusion.

A semi-trailer tractor unit driving without its trailer counts as a C12 in zone A, so it carries the same 11:00-to-20:00 exclusion, while in zones B and C it may circulate freely. Zone B admits up to 24 tonnes at any hour. Zone C admits up to 24 tonnes at any hour anywhere, and more than 24 tonnes at any hour on the preferred freight routes of article R.424.86.9 numeral 3.

Above 45 tonnes PBMA the chapter does not apply and the vehicle must ask the División Tránsito y Transporte for authorisation.

Source: Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica — Digesto Departamental, Volumen V, artículos R.424.86.2 and R.424.86.4 (Res.IM 2488/09 of 22 June 2009, Res.IM 1260/08 of 31 March 2008, Res.IM 1395/97 of 28 April 1997) together with article R.424.90 (Res.IM 5123/12 of 19 November 2012)

Area covered

The whole Departamento de Montevideo, divided by the Digesto into three zones, with a fourth and much smaller area inside zone A. The subzona céntrica — the one with the 9-tonne weekday ban — is bounded by Bulevar Gral. Artigas, José Enrique Rodó, Juan D.

Jackson, Maldonado, Ciudadela, Reconquista, Pérez Castellano, Piedras, Cerro Largo, Inca, Dr. Salvador Ferrer Serra, Democracia and Goes, back to Bulevar Artigas, and most of those boundary streets are themselves preferred freight routes for zone A. Zone A is two separate pieces: the Centro and the coastal strip east of it, and the Cerro across the bay.

Zone B is the middle ring, bounded north by the Colector Perimetral, west by Rutas 1 and 5, south by zone A and east by the Arroyo Carrasco. Zone C is the rest of the department. While the central ban is running, a heavy vehicle may still cross the excluded area on two named corridors and only to cross it: Río Branco (Wilson Ferreira Aldunate) with Julio Herrera y Obes, and Magallanes with Minas.

Source: Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica — Digesto Departamental, Volumen V, artículo R.424.86.3 (zone limits) with articles R.424.90 and R.424.91.1 (central subzone and crossing corridors)

Why there is no map here
This is the first boundary in the corpus we are missing because of a file format rather than a licence. The Intendencia does publish the zone polygons, under the Licencia de Datos Abiertos de Uruguay and citing the same resolutions the Digesto cites — but the only download it offers is a zipped shapefile, and asking the same exporter for GeoJSON returns "ERROR - Error generando y comprimiendo shapefile", while the GeoNetwork WFS drops the connection. Our boundary pipeline reads GeoJSON. That is our gap, not the publisher's, and it is worth fixing rather than explaining away.

The authority's own map: Intendencia de Montevideo — Catálogo de Datos Abiertos, "Régimen de circulación…

Petrol standard

There is no emission standard here. The chapter classifies vehicles by maximum authorised gross weight and by configuration type — C11, C12 — and never by exhaust class, fuel or age. A new lorry and an old one of the same weight are treated identically.

Diesel standard

Not applicable, for the same reason as the petrol standard. Nothing in the régimen de cargas turns on what the engine burns.

Penalty if you do not comply

We hold no figure, and the reason is worth stating precisely rather than calling it unsourced. Article R.424.86.13 does not set an amount: it says breaches of the chapter are punished "según lo dispuesto en el Art. D.710 y siguientes del Volumen V del Digesto Departamental y de acuerdo a lo establecido en el Decreto Nº 21.626", with an editorial note directing the reader on to Decreto JDM Nº 32.618 of 26 August 2008.

The articles that once carried the tables — R.424.86.15 through R.424.86.20, which fined excess weight in Unidades Reajustables — are all marked DEJADO SIN EFECTO in the consolidated text, tacitly repealed by Res.IMM 1260/08.

So the register that tells us the rule deliberately sends the amount somewhere we have not read, and Uruguayan fines are denominated in Unidades Reajustables, an index-linked unit rather than a peso figure. We do not estimate one.

How to comply
  • Find your PBMA — the maximum authorised gross weight — not what you happen to be carrying. Every threshold in this chapter is a PBMA, and it applies whether the vehicle is loaded or empty.
  • If it is over 9 tonnes, stay out of the central subzone between 11:00 and 20:00 on weekdays. That covers driving through, and it covers loading, unloading and delivering.
  • If you only need to get across the middle of the city during those hours, use one of the two corridors the rule names for exactly that: Río Branco (Wilson Ferreira Aldunate) with Julio Herrera y Obes, or Magallanes with Minas. They are for crossing, not for stopping.
  • In zone A outside the central subzone, 16.5 tonnes (a C11) travels at any hour; 24 tonnes (a C12) is excluded 11:00 to 20:00 on weekdays but free at weekends and on public holidays. A tractor unit running without its trailer counts as a C12 here.
  • In zones B and C, 24 tonnes travels at any hour. Heavier than that, zone C still works, but only along the preferred freight routes listed in article R.424.86.9 numeral 3.
  • Over 45 tonnes PBMA this chapter stops applying and you must ask the División Tránsito y Transporte for authorisation before travelling.
  • If you need any other exception, article R.424.86.7 is the route: apply formally, and the division decides the hours. Carry the permit — article R.424.86.8 requires the driver to have it for inspection, and the permit has to state origin, destination and every intermediate stop, with the most direct itinerary along the freight routes.
  • Signed prohibitions still count. Article R.424.86.6 says this regime applies without prejudice to any freight-vehicle ban the Servicio de Ingeniería de Tránsito posts on the street, including ones already signed when the regime came in.
Source: Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica, read 2026-09-10
Full citation

Intendencia de Montevideo, División Asesoría Jurídica — Digesto Departamental, Volumen V, artículos R.424.86.2, R.424.86.4 to R.424.86.8 and R.424.90 to R.424.91.2

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2027-03-10.