Valencia to ban non-rated cars in 2028

Valencia closes the city to non-rated cars from 2028

The draft ordinance regulating Valencia’s Low Emission Zone (LEZ) is now public, with a clear timeline: 2026, 2027 and 2028 mark the three phases for removing vehicles without an environmental label. In 2026, cars registered outside the province are banned; in 2027, those not registered in the city; and in 2028, any vehicle. The proposed compensation for losing car access is a bonobus. This detail, more than any other, has sparked debate.

What Valencia’s LEZ prohibits and in which phases

The restriction does not apply only to the historic center. The declared perimeter covers almost the entire municipality, effectively equating Valencia with Madrid or Barcelona in terms of limitation area, not just the center. The city council publishes the boundary on its website, and from there comes a detail noted by a participant: Grao, Cabanyal, Malva-rosa and Natzaret are excluded.

This territorial asymmetry is the first source of grievance. Some live three hundred meters from the border and cannot use their old car to leave home; a few blocks away, others retain full freedom of movement. The burden distribution is not explained by air quality in each neighborhood, but by the chosen administrative boundary.

The draft’s exceptions: large families, pregnant women and children under 3

The text opens the door to special permits for large families, pregnant women, and households with children under three, who may continue driving polluting vehicles. The reading from the other side is quite less friendly: those who get the permit bypass the rule, and those who do not pay for the scooter or new car.

Criticism revolves around the arbitrariness of the criterion. It is argued that the income threshold does not count, that the vehicle’s age does not either, and that the result is a system of exceptions that does not respond to anyone’s economic capacity. Beneficiaries, according to this version, are not the heaviest polluters nor the lowest earners: they are those who fit the drafted casuistry.

The emissions contrast questioning the environmental label

The numbers discussed in the model contrast point to a difficult-to-defend paradox: a gasoline Opel Corsa with a C label is homologated from 102 g/km, and its hybrid counterpart, from 101. One gram separates the theoretically clean car from the theoretically dirty one that will be banned from driving.

This is compounded by real-world use. A plug-in hybrid can run on combustion when the battery is depleted, and a GLP vehicle may have an empty gas tank and run on gasoline. The label is assigned by declared technology, not by measured emissions in circulation, and some point to this gap as proof that the label does not measure real emissions.

Does the European Union mandate the implementation of low emission zones?

The official mantra maintains that Brussels requires it. The technical rebuttal, sustained in the debate, is that Directive 2016/2284 sets air quality limits, not the mandatory creation of LEZs, and that the decision to implement them is municipal. In this reading, the real incentive is not the European sanction but access to funds, which are paid by activating the measure.

The nuance matters because it changes who is responsible. If the rule comes imposed, the city council is an executor without margin; if it comes voluntarily, the margin existed and was not used.

The judicial front: admitted appeals and final rulings

Parallel to the processing, there is an offensive in the courts. Appeals have been admitted against LEZs in Guadalajara, Parla and Bilbao, and presented in Segovia and Fuenlabrada, with announcements of new cases. In Gijon, the measure has already been overturned, and in Barcelona there is a final ruling; the reading of those litigating is that a third final ruling would create reusable jurisprudence in other cities.

Compromís has asked the Ombudsman to investigate Valencia’s LEZ, adding an institutional channel to the judicial one. The legal outcome remains open.

The political cost for PP and VOX

The rule bears the mark of the two ruling parties. VOX had promised there would be no LEZ in their cities, and here there is an LEZ, with a timeline, exceptions and a bonobus. In the debate, it is repeated that this is the softest possible version; the argument of those who voted for them is that the red line has been crossed anyway.

On the horizon are the 2027 municipal elections, when much of the timeline has not yet been executed. The text applied after that year will depend on who governs, but in the debate it is taken for granted that no one will repeal the ban on non-rated vehicles.

Here the analysis stalls. One can discuss the method, the timeline and the compensation, but no one has explained what happens to someone who in three years has a twenty-year-old car in good condition, with no money to replace it and no reasonable transport alternative. The bonobus covers the alucinación, not the loss.