Crit'Air sticker checker

Your Crit'Air category is fixed by three things: fuel type, emission standard, and date of first registration. This checker reads all three from the DVLA record for your number plate and returns the band France would issue, so you know before you travel whether your vehicle can enter a low-emission zone.

How your Crit'Air category is worked out

France sorts every vehicle into one of six bands, from Crit'Air E for zero-emission vehicles down to Crit'Air 5 for the oldest diesels. Vehicles too old to qualify for any band are unclassified and banned from every zone outright.

The rule that catches most UK drivers out is the diesel ceiling: a diesel can never do better than Crit'Air 2, however new it is. A 2023 diesel and a 2012 diesel land in exactly the same band. Petrol, by contrast, reaches Crit'Air 1 from January 2011 onwards.

• Crit'Air E - fully electric and hydrogen, any age
• Crit'Air 1 - petrol and hybrid from January 2011; LPG and CNG, any age
• Crit'Air 2 - petrol from January 2006; diesel from January 2011
• Crit'Air 3 - petrol from January 1997; diesel from January 2006
• Crit'Air 4 - diesel registered January 2001 to December 2005
• Crit'Air 5 - diesel registered July 1997 to December 2000
• Unclassified - anything registered before July 1997, no sticker issued

The full breakdown, including Euro standards and what each band means city by city, is in the Crit'Air categories guide.

What the checker reads from your registration

Entering your plate queries the DVLA vehicle record for three fields: make, fuel type, and date of first registration. That is everything needed to derive the band, which is why the check is instant and why you do not need your V5C to run it. You only need the V5C, both sides, when you come to apply for the sticker itself.

Two cars of the same age can land in different bands purely on fuel. A 2018 petrol Focus is Crit'Air 1; the 2018 diesel version is Crit'Air 2. Go back to a 2004 diesel and it is Crit'Air 4, which is permanently banned from Paris and Lyon rather than merely restricted.

If the result looks wrong

The usual cause is the fuel type recorded against the vehicle. Hybrids in particular are recorded inconsistently on DVLA records, sometimes as petrol and sometimes as hybrid electric, and the two can produce different bands. Imported vehicles are the other common case, because the UK registration date can be later than the date the vehicle was first registered abroad.

Check the fuel type and date of first registration on your V5C against what the tool returned. If they do not match, email [email protected] with your registration and we will check it by hand before anything is submitted. The category on your application has to match the vehicle record, so it is worth resolving first.

Once you know your band, applying costs £7 all-in and the sticker is posted to the address on your V5C in 10-14 working days.