The Madrid City Council has decided to delay until January 1, 2026 the fines for driving without an environmental sticker in the capital. This has been announced by Borja Carabante, delegate of Urbanism, Environment and Mobility, after the meeting of the Governing Board: “There will be no sanctions for those vehicles registered in Madrid that circulate in these twelve months”.
With this measure, residents registered in Madrid, whose vehicles do not have an environmental label (category A), will have one more year to adapt to the restrictions of the Low Emission Zone (ZBE), which will come into force in just twenty days.
What initially appeared to be an imminent blow to drivers’ pockets has turned into a generous extension: throughout 2025, those driving without the label will receive notifications instead of penalties.
Who benefits from this moratorium
The measure mainly affects owners of vehicles registered in Madrid or registered in the Tax on Vehicles of Mechanical Traction (IVTM). It also includes motorcycles and category A goods vehicles from anywhere in Spain, as long as they were registered in the municipal register before December 2021.
In addition, other groups may also benefit from this moratorium. Self-employed drivers over 59 years of age, whether registered or not in Madrid, will be able to circulate with transport vehicles of more than 3,500 kilos without worrying about penalties, as long as they meet the requirements. However, vans will remain outside, and will continue to be subject to the usual restrictions.
The fine that has not arrived (yet)
Although the optimum would have been to avoid these restrictions, the owners of the most polluting vehicles have gained time. The penalties of 200 euros – which can be reduced to 100 euros with prompt payment – will not start to be applied until January 1, 2026. This extension of the so-called “warning period” is the longest moratorium granted so far by the City Council, far exceeding the previous ones, which ranged from four to seven months.