Palermo ZTL map, hours and where to park

Where the zone begins

The zone is what the Comune calls ZTL 1: the old city bounded by Piazza Giulio Cesare in front of the central station, Via Cavour to the north, Porta Nuova on the inland side and Porta Felice where the Cassaro meets the sea. The streets that form that perimeter are open to everyone. The restriction starts at the gates leading in from them.

Inside, two long straight streets cross at the Quattro Canti — the Cassaro, now Corso Vittorio Emanuele, running from Porta Nuova down to the sea, and Via Maqueda running north from the station end — and divide the centre into its four historic quarters. They are the obvious lines through the city on a map, which is exactly why a sat-nav likes them. Via Roma, parallel to Via Maqueda, is inside the daytime zone in both directions; the Comune suspended that stretch during roadworks in autumn 2025 and switched it back on from 20 October. Parts of this zone go on and off by ordinance, and the sign at the gate is the last word.

Two clocks, and the second one moves

The daytime zone runs Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00, all year. On top of it sits a night zone on Friday and Saturday nights, until 06:00 the following morning. From 1 November to 30 April the night zone starts at 23:00. From 1 May to 31 October it starts at 20:00 — so on a summer Friday the centre does not open to unpermitted cars at any point between 08:00 and six the next morning.

Sundays and public holidays have no daytime restriction; the only Sunday hours are the tail of Saturday night, which ends at 06:00. The summer timetable is set by ordinance each year — for 2026 the Polizia Municipale confirmed it on 24 May, running to 31 October — so check the dates if you are travelling at either end of the season.

The Comune also suspends the whole zone for the city’s big occasions: Holy Week, Christmas and the July feast of Santa Rosalia were all suspended by ordinance in the past year, one of them with immediate effect on the day. A suspension is not an invitation. On those days the centre is full of people on foot.

Buying your way in

Anyone can drive into the zone with a daily pass, provided the car is clean enough: petrol from Euro 3, diesel from Euro 4, or a hybrid. Electric cars get their pass free. A hire car will almost certainly qualify; an older car of your own may not, so check the Euro class on its papers before you rely on this. The pass is inexpensive, and cheaper again for a hybrid.

Passes are sold online through the Comune’s mobility portal, ztl.comune.palermo.it, at AMAT offices — including one at the central station and one at the Piazzale Ungheria car park — and at authorised resellers. The paper version is a scratch card: you activate it by text message or through the ZTL Palermo app, with the plate and the code under the grey strip, and the instructions on the back are printed in English as well as Italian.

The rule that makes Palermo unusual is the deadline. Since 2022 the Comune has allowed a day pass to be activated after the car has passed a gate: by midnight the same day from Monday to Thursday, and by 06:00 at the end of the night from Friday to Sunday. AMAT’s own instructions still say to activate before you enter, and that is the better habit. But if you realise you have just driven past a live gate, this is the moment to act — not the day the fine arrives. Crossing gates several times within fifteen minutes counts as one entry.

Two details catch people. A pass for Saturday night into Sunday only counts if it is activated after 06:00 on the Saturday, so one activation on Friday does not cover the weekend. And if the car is registered outside Italy, check that the portal accepts the plate before counting on an after-the-fact activation.

Where to leave the car

For a stay in the city itself, the car is more trouble than help, pass or no pass. Traffic is dense, scooters fill every gap, and parking in the old quarters is genuinely scarce. The practical plan is to park once and walk: AMAT runs the car park at Piazzale Ungheria, just north of the zone near the Politeama, and metered blue-line parking across the city outside the centre.

If your accommodation is inside the zone, the property can register your plate for a temporary pass — the rules let hotels and other businesses inside the ZTL do this for their customers. Send the plate ahead and ask where the car is meant to go once you have unloaded; the answer is rarely the street outside. Our guide to reaching a hotel inside a ZTL covers the process.

The airport is on the coast west of the city, with a train into the central station. For a trip that starts with a few days in Palermo, it is often simpler to collect the car on the way out of the city than to drive it in on arrival.

Mondello, and the saint’s night

Mondello, the city’s beach suburb to the north, runs a summer scheme of its own. In 2026 the Comune pedestrianised long stretches of viale Regina Elena along the seafront and added an evening ZTL around piazza Mondello, 20:00 to 24:00 and until 01:00 before public holidays, from 8 May to 30 September. It was introduced as an experiment, so the dates and the perimeter may change — but treat a summer-evening drive to the beach as a drive into a restricted area.

The other date to know is the Festino di Santa Rosalia in mid-July, the feast of the city’s patron saint, when her procession crosses the old centre towards the sea and the quarters fill from end to end. The ZTL is suspended for it — in 2026 until 08:00 on 16 July — and it is still the least sensible time of the year to be driving there.