UK Clean Air Zones explained — London ULEZ, Birmingham, and every other CAZ. Check compliance before you buy.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.
A growing share of UK cities now restrict older vehicles — London's ULEZ covers every borough, Clean Air Zones operate in cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, Bradford, Sheffield and Tyneside, and Scotland's Low Emission Zones run in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. Not every zone charges private cars, but where one does, a non-compliant car pays every day it drives in — £8 a day in Birmingham, £9 in Bristol, £12.50 under the ULEZ. Over a year of commuting, that dwarfs any saving on the purchase price.
Compliance comes down to emissions standard, not age or fuel type alone. As a rule of thumb, petrol cars registered from roughly 2006 (Euro 4) and diesels from September 2015 (Euro 6) are compliant — but the cut-offs are about the standard the car was type-approved to, so individual cars either side of those dates can surprise you. Never take a seller's word for it.
Our free car check includes ULEZ and Clean Air Zone compliance for any UK registration, so you can rule a car in or out before you view it. If you live in or near a charging city — or ever drive into one — make it part of every shortlist. The guides below cover the zones and their rules in more detail.
Check any UK car before you buy — free.