France’s ZFEs: what are the rules and have they made a difference?
A new Insee study looks at the effects of ZFEs since their introduction
Published
France’s low-emission zones (zones à faibles émissions, or ZFEs) remain in place, but what drivers can and cannot do depends on where they are.
The system restricts access to certain vehicles depending on their Crit’Air emissions rating aiming to reduce air pollution in urban areas.
However, cities have room to decide which vehicles are restricted, when restrictions apply and what exemptions are available.
This lack of a single nationwide list of vehicles banned from ZFEs means that drivers need to check rules depending on the area they are driving to or through.
How do ZFEs work?
A ZFE is an area where the circulation of the most polluting vehicles is restricted. The system uses the Crit'Air sticker, which classifies vehicles according to factors including their fuel type, European emissions standard and vehicle category.
The higher the Crit'Air number, the more polluting the vehicle is considered to be. Electric and hydrogen vehicles are classified Crit'Air 0, while the oldest and most polluting vehicles are Crit'Air 5 or unclassified.
The ZFE system was introduced through laws passed in 2019 and 2021. The strictest rules apply in areas where air pollution has regularly exceeded legal limits, while other cities have more flexibility over which vehicles they restrict.
Paris and Lyon are currently the two areas covered by the strictest national requirements.
Other cities have more flexibility. In Dijon, for example, all vehicles, including Crit’Air 5 cars, can currently circulate in the ZFE. Meanwhile, Reims has restrictions on Crit’Air 5 and 4 vehicles, but has delayed restrictions on Crit’Air 3 vehicles until January 2029 under a five-year moratorium.
The rules can also vary according to vehicle type. Restrictions may apply to passenger cars, light commercial vehicles and heavy vehicles at different times.
How can you check whether your vehicle is affected?
The easiest way for motorists to check the rules is using the official ZFE map provided through Bison Futé.
The map shows the ZFEs currently in force across France. Drivers can locate their area, zoom in on the relevant zone and then select it to check the restrictions applying there.
This is very important for drivers travelling between different cities as a vehicle that can enter one ZFE may be restricted in another.
The Crit'Air sticker is required for driving in a ZFE. Drivers can check their vehicle's classification and order the official sticker through the government's Crit'Air service.
Restrictions can also be tightened temporarily during pollution episodes, when separate traffic restrictions may come into force.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition's current ZFE information lists 25 active zones in metropolitan France:
Angers, Annecy, Annemasse, Bordeaux, Caen, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Grenoble, Le Havre, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Nice, Nîmes, Paris, Pau, Reims, Rennes, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Strasbourg and Toulouse.
Have ZFEs actually reduced pollution?
A new study by France’s national statistics institute, Insee, published on August 27, 2026, provided an assessment of the impact of low-emission zones.
The study looked at nine regional ZFEs introduced for passenger cars by 2023. Researchers compared these areas with 26 similar intercommunal areas that did not have a ZFE.
Paris was excluded from the main comparison because it was considered too different from the other areas studied.
The findings revealed that ZFEs have had a relatively modest effect.
Across the nine ZFE areas studied, the number of Crit’Air 1 and electric cars increased by 88.4% over the five-year period examined, from three years before a ZFE was introduced to two years afterwards.
Insee estimates that ZFEs were responsible for 5.8 percentage points of that increase.
The study therefore suggests most of the change would have happened anyway, as older cars reached the end of their lives and were replaced by newer models subject to increasingly strict European emissions standards.
The ZFEs also contributed relatively modestly to the decline of some of the more polluting vehicles.
Crit’Air 3 cars fell by 34.5% over the period, with the ZFE restrictions estimated to account for 4.5 percentage points of that decline.
Crit’Air 4 cars fell by 53.6%, with 5.5 percentage points of the decline attributed to the ZFE.
For Crit’Air 5 and unclassified vehicles, Insee did not find a statistically significant ZFE effect. By the time many of the zones were introduced, these vehicles already represented less than 5% of the fleet in the areas studied.
The effect on pollution was smaller
The cleaner car fleet also meant lower pollution emissions, but ZFEs accounted for only a small part of the overall decline.
NOx emissions from passenger cars fell by 38.9% in the areas studied, with ZFEs accounting for 4.6 percentage points of that fall. PM2.5 emissions fell by 31.1%, with the ZFEs responsible for 1.4 percentage points.
Meanwhile, ZFEs did not significantly reduce car use. Two years after their introduction, the number of cars in circulation had fallen by just 1.3%, while the distances travelled by car and the number of car journeys to work had not fallen significantly.
