Red Light Fines in Italy: The Article 146 Penalty, Points, and Camera Enforcement

Running a red light in Italy is not a judgment call the officer or the camera makes on the spot. It is a fixed, numbered penalty under article 146, comma 3 of the Codice della Strada (the Codice della Strada, Italy's road code, is D.Lgs. 285/1992), and the euro range, the points lost, and what changes on a second offense are all fixed in the statute rather than left to discretion.

This page sets out that penalty exactly as it stands today, how camera enforcement is allowed to work without stopping the driver, and what a driver's real options are once the notice arrives.

Information verified on 20 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice for an individual situation.

What article 146 actually sets

Article 146 of the Codice della Strada punishes failing to observe road signage generally in comma 2, with a smaller fine (€42 to €173, current text), and punishes continuing through a red traffic light or a stop signal from a traffic officer specifically in comma 3, with a materially higher fine of €167 to €665. The two are easy to conflate because they sit in the same article, but a red light is always the comma 3 figure, not the comma 2 figure.

This €167 to €665 range has been in force since 15 January 2021. Article 195, comma 3 of the same code provides that fine amounts are ordinarily revised every two years for the change in the ISTAT consumer price index, through a joint decree of the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. That biennial revision has, however, been suspended by statute: Legge 29 dicembre 2022, n. 197, article 1, comma 497, suspended it for 2023 and 2024; the suspension was then extended to 2025, and most recently to 2026, with the next scheduled decree due by 1 December 2026 for amounts that would take effect on 1 January 2027. In practical terms, the €167 to €665 figure verified against the consolidated statute today has not moved since 2021 and will not move before 2027 at the earliest.

Points, and the doubling for a new driver

A red light violation also triggers a deduction under the patente a punti (points licence) system set up by art. 126-bis C.d.S. Every licence starts with 20 points, and a violation carrying an accessory suspension sanction, or one of the behavioural rules listed in the table attached to article 126-bis, results in a deduction recorded against the driver's national licence record. Running a red light is one of the listed violations and costs 6 points.

For a neopatentato, meaning a driver within the first three years of getting the licence, article 126-bis doubles the point loss for the violations it governs. In practice that means a driver who has held a licence for eighteen months and runs a red light loses 12 points rather than 6, on top of the same euro fine that applies to every driver.

The recidiva rule: a second red light within two years

Article 146, comma 3-bis adds a consequence that a single violation does not carry. If the same driver commits the comma 3 violation, running a red light, twice or more within a two-year period, the last of those infractions also brings an accessory sanction: suspension of the driving licence for 1 to 3 months. The fine and the points are still assessed on each individual violation; the suspension is layered on top of the fine on the qualifying (second or later) infraction, not instead of it.

The night surcharge

Article 195, comma 2-bis lists a set of articles, including article 146, whose fines increase by one third when the violation is committed between 22:00 and 07:00. Applied to the red light range, that works out to roughly €223 to €887 for a violation in that window, though the exact figure the officer or camera system records will follow the administration's own rounding practice rather than a simple calculator. The surcharge is specific to the listed articles; it does not apply to every C.d.S. violation.

How camera enforcement is allowed to work

Most red light violations in Italy are recorded by a fixed device rather than contested by an officer standing at the intersection, and the statute anticipates that directly. Article 201, comma 1-bis, lettera b) C.d.S. lists «attraversamento di un incrocio con il semaforo indicante la luce rossa» (crossing an intersection when the light shows red) as a case where immediate contestation is not required. Instead, the verbale (the formal notice of violation) must reach the driver within 90 days of the violation being recorded, under article 201, comma 1.

The same article, at comma 1-bis, lettera g-bis, separately confirms that article 146, comma 3 violations may be recorded «per mezzo di dispositivi o apparecchiature di rilevamento approvate od omologate» (by detection devices that have been approved or type-approved), under regulations issued by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport together with the Ministry of the Interior, and that the resulting photographic record itself constitutes an atto di accertamento (a formal act of ascertainment) under article 13 of Legge 24 novembre 1981, n. 689, the general statute governing administrative sanctions.

That «approvate od omologate» wording is where most genuine disputes live. Approvazione (approval) and omologazione (type approval) are two distinct regulatory statuses in Italian administrative law, not interchangeable labels, and the distinction has been the subject of active Cassazione litigation over automated traffic enforcement generally in recent years. A driver who wants to contest a camera-issued fine on that basis is asking a narrow, technical question, whether the specific device that recorded the violation carried the correct certification, rather than disputing that a red light was run. That question is fact-specific to the device and the enforcing authority's records, and it is not something a driver can resolve from the notice alone.

Paying, appealing, or letting the deadline pass

Once the verbale is notified, article 202 C.d.S. gives the driver 60 days to pay the statutory minimum in misura ridotta (a reduced, fixed settlement). Paying within the first 5 days of that window cuts the amount by 30 percent, so a first-time violation settled quickly would be paid at roughly €116,90 (30 percent off the €167 minimum) rather than the full €167. That 5-day discount does not apply, however, to a violation for which a licence suspension is also imposed as an accessory sanction, which is exactly the situation on the recidiva-triggering (second) red light violation within two years.

If the driver disagrees with the violation, article 203 C.d.S. allows a free administrative appeal to the prefetto of the place the violation occurred, filed within 60 days. Article 204-bis C.d.S., read together with article 7 of D.Lgs. 1 settembre 2011, n. 150, offers an alternative: an opposition before the giudice di pace (a magistrate court) of the place of the violation, filed within 30 days, or 60 days for a driver resident abroad. The two routes are mutually exclusive: filing the giudice di pace opposition after already filing the prefetto appeal makes the court opposition inadmissible.

If none of these three things happens, no payment, no prefetto appeal, no court opposition, within the applicable windows, article 203, comma 3 provides that the verbale itself becomes titolo esecutivo (directly enforceable), and the amount then owed is fixed at half of the maximum fine for the violation, plus the costs of the proceeding. For the red light range, that is €332,50 (half of €665), a materially worse outcome than either the discounted early payment or the plain statutory minimum.

Three worked examples

A driver with a clean licence, driving in daytime, runs a red light for the first time and pays within 5 days of the notice: the amount due is roughly €116,90, six points are deducted, and no suspension attaches.

A neopatentato in the second year of holding a licence runs a red light in daytime, does not contest it, and pays within the window but after the 5-day discount period: the amount due is the plain statutory minimum, €167, and 12 points are deducted rather than 6, because the doubling for a new driver applies regardless of when the payment is made.

A driver who already has one red light violation on record from fourteen months earlier runs a red light again: this second violation triggers not only the €167 to €665 fine and 6 (or 12, if still a neopatentato) points, but also a licence suspension of 1 to 3 months under article 146, comma 3-bis, and the early-payment discount is unavailable because a suspension now attaches to the violation.

Running a red light is a fine, points, and (on a second occurrence) suspension matter under article 146. It is a separate question from whether the driver had also been drinking; if a stop for a traffic-light violation also raises an alcohol issue, the applicable bands and consequences are covered on our companion page, drink driving and the alcohol limits in Italy. For the full index of Italy coverage, see the Italy hub.