Dubai removes all vehicles over 20 years old from the road.

Old Car Ban Hits One In Ten

The Emirate of Dubai is to become the first country in the world to enact a law effectively banning older vehicles from its highways.

On 1st January 2009 a law comes into effect that will mean that the licencing authorities will no longer allow the registration of vehicles that are 20 or more years old.

Since Dubai has a yearly registration policy this effectively bans older vehicles.

The law gets tougher in 2010 when the cut-off date is reduced to 10 years.

The law breaks down like this :-

The following types of vehicles are banned from these dates.
From January 1, 2026 …
cars older than 20 years
Import of cars older than 5 years
Import of heavy vehicles older than 7 years
Taxis older than 5 years
Ownership transfer of light vehicles older than 10 years
From January 1, 2026 …
cars older than 15 years

According to a report in the Khaleej Times newspaper the law also states that imports of heavy vehicles (Trucks etc) older than seven years from the date of manufacture and light vehicles (Cars, Pickups) older than five years from the date of manufacture will also be banned.

From 2010 the transfer of ownership of a vehicle over 10 years old will also be illegal, in other words you cannot sell the vehicle on. This leaves two options scrap the vehicle or export it to another, more lenient, country.

Sultan Abdullah Al Marzouqi of the Roads and Transport Authority said:
“I believe that the ruling will not affect the majority of motorists for years to come as only about 10 percent of cars are over 10 years old and 82 percent of vehicles are between one and five years old.”
The average age of vehicle in Dubai is 5.6 years and the law will affect 67,000 of the Emirate’s 1.9 million vehicles.

Colonel Ghaith Al Zaabi, Director General of the Federal Traffic and Patrol Department at the Ministry of the Interior (MoI) stated that the core objective of the ban was to reduce Dubai’s chronic traffic congestion and to protect the environment from the emissions of older cars.

The law does provide a provision to protect owners of ‘genuinely classic or historic vehicles’ a commission is to be set up where an owner can explain why their car should not be scrapped even though it is 10 years old.

A definition of a classic has yet to be confirmed by the Emirate’s ministry

While anyone who has visited the Emirate will recognise that there is a congestion problem around some areas of Dubai it is not as serious as many other cities around the world and it is certainly strange to see the environmental argument being used when talking about 10 year old vehicles.