Rodízio: São Paulo's Plate-Based Peak-Hour Driving Restriction
A 1996 state anti-smog measure became a permanent municipal congestion rule in 1997: cars are barred from São Paulo's centro expandido one weekday a week, by the last digit of the plate, from 07:00 to 10:00 and from 17:00 to 20:00. CET traffic agents and plate-reading radars both issue the R$130.16 fine. Electric, hydrogen and hybrid cars have been exempt since 2015. Lorries fall under a separate, wider restriction.
Live
📅 since 1997
✔ Editor-reviewed
📊 Impact
An independent four-city evaluation covering São Paulo, Bogotá, Beijing and Tianjin found no evidence that plate-based restrictions improved overall air quality. It also found that restrictions limited to certain weekday hours mainly shift driving to other times, and that such schemes can still cut the extreme concentrations of pollutants. No study measuring a second-car rebound in São Paulo was found.
🎓 Lesson
The rodízio has outlived its own justification twice over: sold as anti-smog in 1996, redefended as anti-congestion in 1997, and now quietly thinned by an exemption for electrified cars that grows with every sale. A restriction is only ever as strong as its exemption list.
Evidence📊 Independent
Scale🏙️ City-wide
Sources
↗ CET São Paulo — Rodízio Municipal (official rules)The operator's own rules page. Hours: 'das 7h às 10h' and 'das 17h às 20h' ('from 7am to 10am' and 'from 5pm to 8pm'). Plate table: Monday 1 and 2, Tuesday 3 and 4, Wednesday 5 and 6, Thursday 7 and 8, Friday 9 and 0. Zone described as the mini-anel viário. Also the source for keeping lorries apart: inside the red area 'Nas vias da área vermelha não circulam automóveis nem caminhões' ('on roads in the red area neither cars nor lorries circulate'), while on the boundary ring roads 'Caminhões estão liberados do Rodízio' ('lorries are exempt from the Rodízio') and only cars are restricted. Legal basis listed as Lei 12.490/97, Lei 14.751/08, Lei 16.813/18, Decreto 58.584/18, Decreto 58.604/19.
↗ CET São Paulo — Perguntas Frequentes (rodízio section)Carries three load-bearing facts. Enforcement: CET enforces through traffic agents on the street and through electronic enforcement equipment regulated by CONTRAN. Exemption, quoting Decreto 58.584/18 Art. 3: 'Os movidos por energia de propulsão elétrica, a hidrogênio ou híbridos' ('those powered by electric propulsion, hydrogen or hybrid'); CNG vehicles are explicitly not exempt. Penalty: R$130.16 and four licence points, classified as an infração média, not grave as several Brazilian aggregator sites state. Legal basis given as Lei 12.490 of 3 October 1997.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — CET aumenta a fiscalização em semáforos e instala radares com LAPThe decisive sentence for this atlas, verbatim: 'radares com LAP (leitura automática de placas), que captam a imagem dos veículos e registram infrações ao rodízio e excesso de velocidade' ('radars with LAP, automatic plate reading, which capture the image of vehicles and record rodízio infractions and speeding'). Establishes that a machine reading, not only an officer's eye, puts drivers into the penalty loop. The city page records the first ten devices going live on 23 August and a build-out to 25 devices rotating across 60 points; the year did not render cleanly in this desk's fetch and is therefore not asserted in the entry.
↗ Prefeitura de São Paulo — Prefeitura suspende Rodízio Municipal de Veículos de 22 de dezembro de 2025 a 9 de janeiro de 2026Currency check. The city suspended the rodízio for the 2025/26 holiday period and restored it on 12 January 2026, which is what fixes the status of this entry at live rather than suspended.
↗ Lin, Zhang and Umanskaya, 'The Effects of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality: São Paulo, Bogotá, Beijing, and Tianjin', AAEA 2011 Annual Meeting, PittsburghThe sentences carrying the impact field, verbatim from the abstract: 'We investigate whether driving restrictions introduced in São Paulo, Bogotá, Beijing and Tianjin have improved air quality. Across different versions of the driving restrictions there is no evidence that the overall air quality at different places has been improved.' And the two findings that distinguish it from the Mexico City literature: 'Temporal shifting of driving is likely to appear when the restrictions are only effective during certain hours of weekdays. Driving restrictions could potentially reduce the extreme concentrations of air pollutants.' The successor article, Zhang, Lin Lawell and Umanskaya, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 82, 2017, pp. 181-220, develops the theory but draws its empirics from Bogotá, so the São Paulo result is graded independent rather than peer-reviewed.
↗ Câmara Municipal de São Paulo — Prefeito veta projeto de lei que acabaria com rodízio em SPThe political record from the council's own portal: councillors approved PL 15/2006 by vereador Adilson Amadeu to abolish the rodízio in 2014, and Mayor Fernando Haddad vetoed it, arguing the measure directly affects a large share of the city's population and would need wide public debate first. Cited for the political history only, never for an effect figure. No 2026 abolition bill was found.
↗ Agência Brasil — SP tem novo rodízio de veículos a partir de hoje (11 May 2020)The pandemic interruption. The ordinary rodízio was suspended in March 2020; on 11 May 2020 it was replaced by an emergency citywide 24-hour odd-even rule, plates ending 0-2-4-6-8 on even dates and 1-3-5-7-9 on odd dates. Trade reporting (Diário do Transporte, 10 and 17 May 2020) records Mayor Bruno Covas ending that emergency rule on 17 May 2020, with the ordinary peak-hour rodízio returning on 18 May 2020; that restoration date rests on trade press and was not confirmed against a primary act.
↗ 'Heavy truck restrictions and air quality implications in São Paulo, Brazil', Journal of Environmental Management, 2017Cited only to keep two programmes apart. This paper evaluates São Paulo's heavy-vehicle restriction, a separate and wider regime, not the plate-based rodízio. Its reported result, for one major corridor between 2008 and 2012, is a fall in PM10 and NOx of 28 and 43 per cent attributed to the lorry restriction, partly offset by a rebound of light-vehicle traffic. Publisher page paywalled and blocked from this desk; abstract read at search level. No figure in this entry rests on it.
📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Rodízio: São Paulo's Plate-Based Peak-Hour Driving Restriction” — São Paulo, Brazil. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/sao-paulo-rodizio/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
🔗 Related projects
🇲🇽 Hoy No Circula: Mexico City's Plate-Based Driving Restriction · Mexico City
The other long-running plate ban: three studies find no cleaner air in Mexico City, and a four-city null covers São Paulo too.
🇮🇩 Ganjil-Genap: Jakarta's Odd-Even Plate Rationing · Jakarta
Both let cameras do the catching: Jakarta's ETLE reads plates, and São Paulo's LAP radars book rodízio breaches at R$130.16.
🇵🇭 Number Coding: Metro Manila's Plate-Based Driving Ban · Manila
Manila has rationed plates since 1995 with no evaluation at all; São Paulo's 1997 rule at least sits inside a four-city study.
🇨🇳 Beijing License Plate Lottery & Vehicle Quota System · Beijing
Beijing rations the right to buy a car; São Paulo rations one weekday a week, and exempts every electric, hybrid and hydrogen car.
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