How to Drive in Tehran’s Traffic Zones?

Driving in the centre of Tehran can always be a confusing task for locals, let alone foreigners living in the city.

For a traffic-hit metropolitan Tehran, managing traffic and pollution has for years been a challenge to the city’s municipality. The city has placed a traffic scheme for many decades under which the entrance of car’s to the city centre are restricted. But since the beginning of this Iranian year, the new traffic scheme has been implemented with some new changes and new coloured zones, being green and blue, added to previous zones.

We thought to write a simple guide on how to obtain these special permits to avoid paying fines upon entering the traffic zone.

Step-by-Step Guide

According to published information on the municipality’s website, the steps needed to be taken to register for the traffic permit are:

• Go to my.tehran.ir and create an account for yourself (Get help from Iranian friend since the website is in Farsi only)
• If you are a foreigner, make sure to register as one by ticking the checkmark box, you’ll need to provide a copy of your passport along with other personal information.
• Create a username and password for your account
• Provide your automobile ID numbers and information (VIN number and etc)
• Upload a copy of your automobile ID cards

Once the registration is completed, you’ll receive a confirmation SMS. After your account is created you can charge (add balance), with the cost of entering the green zone will be deducted from your account depending on the time (table below) you drive through the zone.

Note: If you happen to have more than one car under your name or in your family, you can register all of them with one account and there is no need for separate accounts.

Living in Green Zone

If you happen to be living inside the “green zone” (central Tehran) you can leave and enter the zone free of charge only once a day. According to published information, after creating your accounts at my.tehran.ir, you can take your documents proving that you live in the green zone to one of the City Electronic Services offices and complete your application.

Once approved, you can leave the green zone area once before 8:30 AM and enter the zone once after 5:00 PM free of charge. However, if you wanted to drive in the green zone between those times, you’ll have to pay for it just like others.

Checklist

To make a short list of what you need to know about Tehran’s traffic scheme, we’ve made a short list:

• Cars will be allowed on alternate days based on the previous odd-even license plate system only in the ‘blue’ zone
• Outside of these metred zones, the city’s other areas will be referred to as ‘white zones’
• Daily permits are replaced with an automatic tax system by cameras, much like Dubai
• Car owners will be given user accounts and the charge will be deducted from their account
• Cameras will record entry and exit from the two zones and system depending on the time of day
• Ongoing restrictions are enforced from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, except Thursdays, Fridays and bank holidays.