Updated October 2026

Drive into a UK city centre in 2026 and there’s a good chance you’ll pass a clean air zone sign on the way in. These zones charge the most polluting vehicles a daily fee, and in a few cities, that includes ordinary private cars. Drive in, forget to pay, and a penalty notice follows you home.

This guide lists every charging clean air zone in the UK as of 2026, the daily charge in each one, which vehicles actually have to pay, and how to check your own car before you travel. All charges below are correct at the time of writing, councils can change them, so always confirm on the official site before a trip.

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What a clean air zone actually is

A clean air zone (CAZ) is an area of a city where vehicles that don’t meet minimum emissions standards are charged to enter. The idea is to discourage the dirtiest vehicles from driving through populated areas. Zones are marked with road signs and enforced by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, there’s no barrier or toll booth, the camera simply logs your number plate.

There are four classes of clean air zone, A to D. The class decides which vehicles can be charged:

Class A: buses, coaches, taxis and private hire vehicles
Class B: as above, plus heavy goods vehicles (HGVs)
Class C: as above, plus vans, minibuses and lorries
Class D: all of the above plus private cars, this is the strictest type

The minimum emissions standard is the same almost everywhere: Euro 4 for petrol vehicles and Euro 6 for diesel vehicles. As a rough guide, that means petrol cars registered from around 2006 and diesel cars registered from September 2015 onwards. Rough is the key word, the only certain way to know is to check your registration number, which we’ll come to.

Every charging clean air zone in 2026

Here’s the quick list, city by city. Charges are per day, and cover the whole day no matter how many times you enter.

Cities that charge non-compliant private cars

Birmingham, £8 per day for cars. A Class D zone covering everything inside the A4540 Middleway ring road (but not the Middleway itself). HGVs, coaches and buses pay £50 per day. Running since June 2021.
Bristol, £9 per day for cars. Also Class D, covering the city centre. Heavier vehicles such as buses and lorries face up to £100 per day. Running since November 2022.
Oxford, £4 to £20 per day (Zero Emission Zone). Oxford’s scheme is different from a normal CAZ: it’s a Zero Emission Zone where only zero-emission vehicles enter free. Charges apply from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week, and from August 2025 they rose to £4 per day for ultra-low-emission vehicles, £8 for low-emission vehicles and £20 for everything else. It started as a small pilot in the city centre in 2022.

Cities where private cars currently pay nothing

Several zones only charge commercial vehicles, taxis and buses, if you drive an ordinary private car, you can enter free even if your car is an older model:

Bath (Class C), cars and motorcycles pay nothing; non-compliant vans and light goods vehicles pay £9 per day, HGVs £100. Live since March 2021.
Bradford (Class C+), private cars drive free; taxis and motorhomes that don’t meet the standards pay £7 per day, HGVs up to £50. The zone covers the area inside the outer ring road plus the Aire Valley corridor to Shipley and Saltare. Live since September 2022.
Portsmouth (Class B), only buses, coaches, taxis and private hire vehicles are charged. Non-compliant private hire vehicles pay £10 per day, HGVs and buses £50. Private cars pay nothing. Live since November 2021.
Sheffield (Class C), private cars pay nothing; non-compliant taxis, vans and light goods vehicles pay £10 per day, HGVs and buses £50. Covers the inner ring road and city centre. Live since February 2023.
Newcastle and Gateshead / Tyneside (Class C), private cars and motorcycles are not charged. Non-compliant taxis, private hire vehicles, vans and minibuses pay £12.50 per day; HGVs, buses and coaches pay £50. Live since January 2023.

Scotland: four low emission zones, but no daily charge

Scotland does things differently. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee all have low emission zones (LEZs), but there is no option to pay a daily charge. If your vehicle doesn’t meet the standard (Euro 4 petrol / Euro 6 diesel for cars and vans), you’re simply not allowed in, drive in anyway and you get a penalty charge notice.

The penalty starts at £60 (reduced to £30 if paid within 14 days) and doubles with each further breach by the same vehicle in the same zone within 90 days, capped at £480 for cars and vans and £960 for buses and HGVs. Glasgow’s zone has been enforcing since June 2023, Dundee since May 2024, and Aberdeen and Edinburgh since June 2024. Zones run 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

London’s ULEZ is separate, and much bigger

London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone is not a clean air zone in the technical sense, it’s TfL’s own scheme, but it works on the same principle and dwarfs everything else. It covers all of Greater London, operates 24 hours a day, 364 days a year (the only day off is Christmas Day), and the charge is £12.50 per day for non-compliant cars, vans and motorcycles, correct at the time of writing.

The standard is the familiar one: Euro 6 diesel, Euro 4 petrol. Uniquely among UK zones, London also runs a separate, larger Low Emission Zone for heavier vehicles with much higher charges. If you only remember one number from this article, make it £12.50, that’s the one most likely to catch you out on a trip to the capital.

How to check whether your car has to pay

Don’t guess from the age of your car. The year-based rules of thumb are useful, but individual cars can differ, the definitive answer comes from your registration number. There are two free ways to check:

Check any reg plate with CheckMyMOT’s free ULEZ and clean air zone checker, enter the registration and get a clear compliant-or-not verdict for London’s ULEZ and the English clean air zones.
The government’s own vehicle checker at gov.uk/clean-air-zones, which also handles payments for most English zones.

Do the check before you travel, not after, especially if you’re driving someone else’s car or a hire car. And if you’re buying a used car, run its reg through the checker as part of your homework: a cheap older diesel that’s non-compliant could cost you £12.50 every time you visit London. Reading the car’s MOT history first is the other free check that too many buyers skip.

How to pay, and what happens if you don’t

For most English clean air zones you pay online through the government’s clean air zone service, and you have until 11:59pm on the sixth day after your journey to pay. Miss that and you face a penalty charge, in Birmingham, for example, it’s £120, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days.

London’s ULEZ gives you less time: pay by midnight on the third day after your journey (or up to 90 days in advance), or set up TfL Auto Pay so it happens automatically. The penalty for not paying the ULEZ charge is £180, reduced to £90 if paid within 14 days, correct at the time of writing.

A few parting notes: zones operate 24/7 including bank holidays, one daily charge covers unlimited entries on that day, and exemptions exist for disabled passenger tax class vehicles, historic vehicles (30+ years old), military vehicles and ultra-low-emission vehicles. Our full MOT guide for UK drivers covers the other side of keeping an older car legally on the road.

Check before you travel

In 2026, only a handful of English cities charge private cars to enter their clean air zones: Birmingham (£8/day), Bristol (£9/day) and Oxford’s zero emission zone (£4–£20/day), while Bath, Bradford, Portsmouth, Sheffield and Newcastle & Gateshead only charge commercial vehicles. Scotland’s four LEZs skip charges entirely and fine non-compliant vehicles instead, and London’s ULEZ (£12.50/day) sits above it all. Check your reg before every city trip, pay within the window if you owe, and you’ll never get a nasty surprise in the post.