Is there no environmental protection label for vehicle inspection now?
3 Answers
Now there is no environmental protection label for vehicle inspection. The following is a detailed introduction about the environmental protection label: 1. The vehicle management office has clearly stated that the environmental protection label has been canceled. After the vehicle passes the annual inspection, the vehicle information will be transmitted to the database: not posting the environmental protection label does not mean that the annual inspection is not required. If the exhaust gas fails to meet the standards, the annual inspection label will not be able to be applied for. Starting from January 1, 2017, the environmental protection department will no longer issue the motor vehicle environmental protection inspection qualification label. 2. Labels posted on motor vehicles: Since the environmental protection label has been canceled, the labels posted on motor vehicles include the inspection qualification label and the compulsory insurance label.
Indeed, there are no paper-based environmental labels anymore. I also noticed this issue during my vehicle inspection last year. Initially, there were yellow and green labels, which later became a unified blue label. However, two or three years ago, the entire country switched to electronic versions. Now, the testing stations directly upload emission data to the traffic management system, and traffic police can check compliance simply by looking up the license plate. However, it's crucial to note that if you travel to certain provinces or cities with strict environmental requirements (such as some areas in Hebei), it's best to download and print the electronic certificate from the Traffic Management 12123 app in advance. Last time, my colleague went to another region without a paper document and was stopped at a checkpoint, causing a half-hour delay. Canceling the stickers is quite convenient—finally, the windshield doesn’t have to be cluttered with colorful labels, and the adhesive residue from old stickers is notoriously difficult to clean.
As a veteran driver with 15 years of experience, I've witnessed the entire transition from yellow environmental labels to blue labels and eventually to no labels at all. After 2017, the government gradually phased out paper-based labels, and during annual inspections, inspectors would clearly inform us that environmental data had been synchronized with the traffic management platform. However, implementation timelines varied across regions, with some northern cities delaying full cancellation until 2019. Nowadays, after passing the vehicle inspection, only the annual inspection label and insurance label are issued (in some areas, even the annual inspection label has been digitized). It's worth noting that commercial vehicles or diesel vehicles still need to meet higher emission standards, and the inspection fee includes the exhaust emission testing item. It's advisable to keep screenshots of the electronic certificates provided by the inspection station for quick presentation during random checks.
