First restrictions on petrol cars in low-emission zones

B label banned in several LEZs and C comes into the crosshairs

Petrol cars have an expiry date in Spanish cities, and you don't need to drive a twenty-year-old banger to notice. Low-Emission Zones are already banning access to vehicles with B label in several capitals, and some cities have started announcing restrictions for the C label, the one carried by petrol cars registered from January 2006 to today. Translation: there are modern cars, even new ones, that in a few years may find the door closed in their own city centre. The Climate Change Law works like a rope, and the knot tightens from the bottom.

What is the B label and how many cars does it affect

The DGT's B label covers petrol passenger cars registered between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2006, plus vehicles with more than eight seats and petrol goods vehicles registered from 2006 onwards, which in some cases are brand new. The volume is not anecdotal: the average age of the Spanish car fleet is around 15 years and 42% of cars on the road are older than that. Millions of owners, therefore, fall under the radar of the bans. And, as argued in the debate, the sticker does not distinguish between a 2006 petrol car and one registered in 2030: both would be C, never ECO. That detail, pointed out as the root of the problem, would explain the rest.

Which cities already ban the B label in their LEZs?

The list grows every quarter. Bilbao starts banning them on 15 June; Madrid already does so in its ZBEDEP in Distrito Centro, and Getafe and Estepona were pioneers. Málaga and Palma de Mallorca have announced restrictions on all vehicles with B label from January 2027; San Sebastián joins in early 2028 and Catalonia will do so from January 2028, when the Govern approves a new Air Quality Plan that will oblige all Catalan LEZs to restrict any B label. On days of anti-pollution protocol, that ban is brought forward to 2026. We are talking about more than 20 cities in Catalonia alone and more than 150 municipalities with LEZs planned for the end of 2025.

C label: the siege on the most modern petrol cars

Here is the novelty that breaks the reassuring narrative. Several cities have confirmed access bans for cars with the green C label, the one for petrol cars registered from January 2006 to today and diesel cars sold since September 2015. Getafe will apply it from January 2026 —except for parking in car parks— and generally from 2027; Madrid already does so in its ZBEDEP in Distrito Centro except for parking in a public car park; Huelva applies it this year unless prior authorisation; Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Estepona announce it for the coming months. Then come La Línea de la Concepción in 2028, Valladolid and Palma de Mallorca in 2030 and Cuenca in 2038. Each town hall at its own pace, all in the same direction.

Petrol keeps selling despite the siege

The market, meanwhile, shows no signs of panic. Petrol cars capture a share above 27% so far in 2025, only behind conventional hybrids, which already represent 35.7% of all sales. The conclusion drawn is uncomfortable: unless the car has some type of electrification, especially the 48V mild hybrids that grant the ECO label, its urban circulation is doomed to narrow. Buying pure petrol today is buying a deferred problem, and the day the letter from the town hall arrives there is nothing left to negotiate.

The counterattack: France repeals and courts strike down LEZs

Not everything is resignation. The French National Assembly has repealed LEZs in a vote that united the far right, conservatives and the radical left, leaving only the French government; the text must still be confirmed within the overall examination of the bill on simplifying economic life. In Spain, as VOX has celebrated, the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid has ruled in its favour and annulled the LEZs imposed by Almeida, a ruling the party presents as a victory of freedom over fines. Some read in these movements the beginning of the end of the decree as a tool. Against it weighs the obvious: here the framework is set by a state law, and town halls add bans with or without a ruling.

In the background beats a more uncomfortable discussion: whether the age of a vehicle equates to its real pollution. The argument circulating is that a well-maintained old car can emit less than a mistreated modern one, and that what is measurable should weigh more than the registration date. The problem is that the system that could certify it on the street has not been specified.

With the law in force, 150 municipalities on the starting ramp and a petrol share still above 27%, the foreseeable thing is that the siege advances city by city, label by label. What is not written is the estimulante ilegal. France has shown that policy can reverse; Spanish courts, that a poorly justified LEZ falls. Whether the calendar accelerates or slows will depend on something less epic: how many people are willing to swallow the fine.