Here’s what you won’t be able to do with an A-labeled car from 2023.
They call them A-labeled cars, but in reality, the A-label doesn’t exist. Under this name are included all those vehicles that, due to their age and high emissions, do not fall within the environmental classification of the DGT.
For years, Traffic has recognized vehicles in circulation with an environmental label (known as the DGT sticker) that establishes four large groups:
- Electric and plug-in hybrid cars with more than 40 km of electric autonomy have the Zero Emissions label
- Conventional hybrids and plug-in hybrids with less autonomy, as well as vehicles powered by LPG, CNG… receive the ECO sticker
- Label C is for gasoline passenger cars and light vans registered from January 2006 or diesel from 2014
- The environmental label B is worn by gasoline passenger cars and vans registered since January 2001 or diesel since 2006
This DGT infographic summarizes in detail:
Vehicles left without tag
There is, therefore, in the classification an environmental sticker with the letter A. But this is how all vehicles without a badge are popularly known.
This group includes passenger cars and vans powered by gasoline and registered before the year 2000; also those that use diesel mechanics and were put into circulation registered before 2006.
What you won’t be able to do with an A-labeled car in 2023
The DGT created environmental stickers with the aim of creating positive discrimination towards less polluting vehicles; that is, to make it easier to apply some benefits such as free parking in the SER zones.
But it also has an opposite reading and that is that environmental labels are the method chosen by the municipalities to decide which vehicles will be able to circulate in the Low Emission Zones (ZBE); There are even some, still few, who fine for not wearing the label in the car.
The non-circulation of the ZBE will be the main obstacle that vehicles without a label will encounter from next year.
The Climate Change Law establishes that all municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants will have to set up restricted traffic zones based on polluting emissions as of January 1, 2023 (similar to those that were once Central Madrid).
outside the city center
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) there will be 149 municipalities (in this link you have the complete list); but there are reports that at least 30 other towns have voluntarily asked to join the initiative.
Madrid, Barcelona, Vigo… are some of the provinces that, with the aim of reducing pollution, have set in their calendar the date from which cars without a label will not be able to enter restricted areas. There are exceptions and extensions, but it is undeniable that cars without a label in the city center have their days (or months) numbered.
