Which DGT label does my car have? The 2026 criteria

The Euro standard decides, dates are a guide

Annex II of the General Vehicle Regulation gives the C to motorbikes “classified in the Vehicle Register as Euro 4 and Euro 3” and the B to Euro 2 ones. Euro 5, compulsory since 2021, is not named in the text: the tool gives it the C, the logical result, but flags it as uncertain. From a date, the tool uses the dates when each standard became compulsory for all registrations and warns in the in-between months, when a model could already be approved to the next standard: April 2003 to June 2004 and 2006 to 2007 for motorbikes, all of 2017 for mopeds.

How byelaws treat them

Most zones put motorbikes under the same rules as cars: Barcelona, València, Málaga and Zaragoza name them expressly. Others are more lenient: Seville exempts them in the Cartuja, Getafe lets mopeds, motorbikes, tricycles and quadricycles with any label ride in, Bilbao exempts mopeds under 50 cc and 45 km/h, and in Madrid the seventh transitional provision of Byelaw 2/2026 lets unlabelled motorbikes and mopeds, registered anywhere, ride outside Centro and Plaza Elíptica while NO2 limits are met. In Palma, the 2027 to 2029 period admits Euro 3 or better bikes and, from 2030, only electric, hybrid or gas ones.

For parking, several cities reserve motorbike bays inside the zone that only compliant bikes may use. If your bike is old and you ride into town often, the full calculator tells you zone by zone whether you can enter given your registered address.

What to check before buying a used motorbike

On the second-hand market, a motorbike’s Euro standard is worth money. A 125 cc Euro 2 scooter and a Euro 3 one of the same year may cost almost the same, but the first has a B label and the second a C, and in Palma the B will no longer enter the centre from January 2027. Before buying, ask for the technical card and check the emissions entry, or look up the plate on the DGT website: it is free and needs no login. If the seller says the bike “has a sticker”, the lookup confirms whether it is really entitled to it.

Mopeds, up to 50 cc, do not follow the motorbike timetable. Directive 2002/51/EC says its 2007 stage is “limited to motorcycles”: mopeds went from Euro 2, compulsory from July 2004, to Euro 4, which Regulation (EU) 168/2013 made compulsory for all on 1 January 2018. A moped registered between 2005 and 2016 is usually Euro 2, with the B, and only from 2018 is it certain to have the C. Older ones mostly have no label, which in Barcelona keeps them out of the zone during working hours. If it is electric, its zero label does not depend on the year or the standard.

Out-of-town bikes and foreign plates

A motorbike with foreign plates has no DGT label, just like a foreign car. Cities that ask for foreign vehicles to be registered, such as Barcelona, Donostia or Palma, apply the same rule to bikes: Donostia treats motorbikes and mopeds registered after 1 July 2004 as B-level and those after 1 January 2007 as C-level, and requires prior authorisation. If you are touring Spain by motorbike, check your destination city before you arrive.

Road tax on motorbikes

Motorbikes pay road tax by engine size, not fiscal horsepower: six bands from mopeds to bikes over 1,000 cc. Section 95 sets the minimum amounts and each council applies its multiplier; in Madrid, for instance, the 2026 amount ranges from 7 to 121 euros, and in Málaga from 8.55 to 117. As with cars, it is pro-rated by quarter in the year of registration and on permanent deregistration.

For motorbikes, the sticker goes somewhere visible on the vehicle rather than on a windscreen. In cities that rely on cameras, such as Málaga or Bilbao, it is not needed; in Zaragoza and Pamplona, which require the label on show, put it where an officer can see it without moving the bike. Riders of very old classic motorbikes should also look at historic-vehicle status: several cities exempt registered historic vehicles from their zones, and many councils give them road-tax relief, but age alone is not enough, the bike has to be formally recognised as historic.

In practice, a motorbike is often the cheapest way into a zone: a second-hand Euro 4 scooter has the C label and rides freely in every zone we checked, while a car at the same price usually has a B or no label at all. Parking is the other advantage, since most city centres keep dedicated motorbike bays inside the zone, though some, as in Zaragoza, can only be used by compliant bikes. If you commute into Barcelona, Bilbao or Madrid from outside, a compliant bike avoids both the restriction and the cost of a car park.