Euro emissions standards

The timetable, and the two dates for each stage

What to know before reading the tables

• The dates on this page are the dates a new car had to meet the standard to be registered. Type approval dates run about a year earlier, which is why so many summaries give a different year for the same stage.
• Euro 1 set one set of limits for both fuels, so the petrol and diesel figures are identical rather than duplicated by mistake.
• Euro 1 and Euro 2 measured hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides together and set no separate nitrogen oxide limit. There is nothing to put in that column for those stages.
• No petrol particulate limit existed before Euro 5, and the Euro 5 and Euro 6 petrol limits apply only to direct injection engines. Euro 7 removes that restriction.
• A stage is not the same as a real world figure. The limits are measured on a laboratory cycle, and the gap between the cycle and the road is exactly why the Real Driving Emissions test and the RDE2 standard were added on top.
• A UK clean air zone asks for Euro 4 from a petrol car and Euro 6 from a diesel. The stage a car holds is on the V5C, and where it is not, the first registration date is the fallback.

Common questions

What Euro standard is my car?

Section D.2 of the V5C carries the Euro status DVLA holds. Where it is blank, the first registration date is the fallback: each stage has a date from which a new car could not be registered below it, and those dates are in the table on this page.

Which Euro standard do clean air zones require?

Euro 4 from a petrol car and Euro 6 from a diesel, in every UK zone that charges cars. In practice that means a petrol car registered new after 2005 and a diesel registered new after September 2015.

Why do different sites give different years for the same standard?

Because there are two dates for each stage. The type approval date applies to new models and runs about a year earlier than the registration date, which applies to every new car sold. The registration date is the one that matches a DVLA record, and it is the one used here.

Does Euro 7 change much for a petrol or diesel car?

The tailpipe limits barely move. What changes is what is measured: particles counted down to 10 nanometres rather than 23, a particulate limit that reaches every petrol engine rather than direct injection only, and the first ever limits on brake particles and tyre abrasion.