E-scooters in Szombathely: Lime, the city’s 2022 agreement on Fő tér, parks and hotspots, and Hungary’s rules

Which e-scooter apps work in Szombathely?

Lime rents e-scooters (elektromos roller) in Szombathely through its app. At 04:49 Hungarian time (CET) on Tuesday 3 November 2026, the Szombathely map showed about 280 Lime scooters as last counted. Prices and Lime’s minimum age for riders are in the app.

The city set its terms for the scooters in 2022, in a cooperation agreement between the city government and Lime Technology Kft. on placing micromobility vehicles on public land for rent. Lime also rents scooters in Székesfehérvár and Szeged, where city decrees set rules for them. First time on a shared scooter? Read how to rent an e-scooter.

Where the 2022 agreement keeps Lime’s scooters out

The 2022 agreement names zones that the city and Lime fixed on a shared map: the operating zone, which is the city’s administrative area, a mobility zone, no-parking zones, hotspots, a slow or no-entry zone, and compulsory parking zones. The text itself spells out three kinds. As terms of a contract, they bind Lime, not riders directly.

Fő tér: no entry. The agreement sets the area of Fő tér, the main square, as a "behajtani tilos" (no entry) zone for Lime’s scooters.

Lime’s scooters may not be parked ("parkolni tilos") in these ten places, as the agreement lists them:

• the Újtemető and Szent Márton cemeteries, the Herény cemetery (Herényi temető) and the Jewish cemetery;
• the boating lake (Csónakázó-tó);
• Ezredévi park, Brenner park and Gayer park;
• the Kámon Arboretum (Kámoni Arborétum);
• the Potyond marsh (Potyondi mocsár).

Wherever it places a scooter, Lime undertook in 2022 not to block walkers on a pavement or cyclists on a shared foot and cycle path: 1.5 metres of pavement must stay usable, and no scooters may be stored on green space or grass.

Where can you end a ride in Szombathely?

In the compulsory parking zones ("kötelező parkoló zóna"), the 2022 agreement says users may leave a scooter only at a hotspot (gyűjtőpont) set up by Lime, and Lime must collect any left elsewhere in them once the city reports it. It names six such zones, each followed by a list of streets, written here as the agreement abbreviates them:

• Derkovits estate (Derkovits lakótelep): Váci M. u., Bem J. u., Perintparti sétány, Bartók B. krt., Rohonci u., Szűrcsapó u., Paragvári u.;
• Joskar-Ola estate: Hunyadi J. u., Károlyi A. u., Kenyérvíz u., Mikes K. u., Barátság u., Szent Márton u.;
• KISZ estate: Szent Flórián krt., the Perint stream (Perint patak), Szent Gellért u., Jászai M. u., Budai Nagy Antal u., Muraszombat u., Hajdú u., Rumi u.;
• Oladi estate: Dolgozók u., Kassák L. u., Kodály Z. u., Nagy L. u., Simon I. u., Bakó J. u., Faludi F. u.;
• Stromfeld estate: Verseny u., Repülők útja, the Szombathely to Kőszeg railway, Élmunkás u.;
• the mobility zone (mobilitási zóna): Petőfi S. u., Magyar L. u., Nagykar u., Sörház u., Hollán E. u., Kiskar u., Mátyás király u., Zrínyi I. u., Hunyadi J. u., Szent Márton u., Vörösmarty u., Szelestey L. u. and Március 15. tér.

Outside those zones, the agreement lets scooters be left anywhere in the operating area, as long as the KRESZ, Hungary’s highway code, and the agreement’s terms are kept, the 1.5 metres of pavement among them. It planned 72 hotspots, their sites to be settled after the first two months of service, and had Lime mark them visibly, with signs or paint agreed with the city. Under the agreement, Lime’s app shows where the hotspots are and which scooters are free.

What the 2022 agreement asks of Lime

As a contract between the city and the company, the agreement puts most of its duties on Lime, not on riders:

• Collecting strays. When the city reports by email a scooter left off a hotspot in a compulsory parking zone, or one left elsewhere against the placement rules, Lime must pick it up within two hours and take it back to a hotspot; in other cases it has 24 hours.
• Quiet nights. Lime has to switch off the scooters’ sound signals, whatever sets them off, from 10 pm to 7 am every day.
• Safety and upkeep. Lime maintains and cleans the scooters and repairs or replaces damaged ones soon; if a scooter becomes dangerous, Lime must physically stop it being used and remove the danger as soon as it can. The city takes no liability for damage to the scooters or for accidents that happen while people ride them.

How long does the agreement run?

By decision 244/2022. (VI.27.) Kgy., noting that rental micromobility fitted the city’s sustainable urban mobility plan (SUMP), the city assembly (Közgyűlés) let three of its committees approve an agreement with Lime. The Economic and Legal Committee did so on 19 July 2022 (decision 181/2022. (VII.19.) GJB), and the first term ran from 1 August to 31 December 2022. According to the city’s papers of June 2026, the agreement had since been extended to 30 June 2026, and its fourth amendment provided for paving ten hotspots with a hard surface.

Lime then asked to carry on to 30 June 2028, the June 2026 proposal says, because the net HUF 1.8 million it had been quoted for the paving was out of proportion to the scale of its service in Szombathely. The proposal had Lime pave the ten hotspots by 30 June 2027 or pay the city their cost. On 15 June 2026 the Economic and Legal Committee recommended that the assembly adopt the extension (decision 176/2026. (VI.15.) GJB).

Riding in Hungary: what the police and the courts say

Reporting a fall by a rider suspected of being drunk, the Somogy County police spelled out some of the rules in a release of 1 July 2026:

• Drinking. The alcohol ban reaches e-scooter riders as well, and, depending on the amount, a drunk ride can become a criminal case.
• Licence, insurance, helmet. All three are compulsory on a scooter whose design speed tops 25 km/h, as it ranks as a moped (segédmotoros kerékpár).
• Eyes, ears and gear. Music or a phone takes the attention needed to react to sudden danger, and with no car body to shield them, riders should always wear protective gear; a bright helmet gets them noticed and cuts the risk of serious injury.

The KRESZ was silent on e-scooters when Telex looked into a drink-riding case on 16 June 2026, and court practice had settled how drink-riding is judged. Prosecutors had taken two cases to the Kúria, the supreme court, which agreed with them, and practice is now uniform, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office (Legfőbb Ügyészség) told Telex: an e-scooter counts as a motor-driven vehicle (gépi meghajtású jármű), and a drunk rider is as a rule banned from driving, with or without a licence. Under the KRESZ a cyclist may drink while still fit to ride safely, Telex noted; for an e-scooter, as for a car, there is zero tolerance.

What Hungary may change

Under the drafts Telex outlined on 16 June 2026, e-scooters would fall into two classes. The slower, a low-power motor scooter (kis teljesítményű motoros roller), is one whose motor alone can’t push it beyond 25 km/h on level ground; its riders would follow the cycling rules but, among other differences, stay alcohol-free, be over 12 and wear a helmet. Anything with more than 1,000 W of rated power, or able to beat 25 km/h, would be a high-power motor scooter (nagy teljesítményű motoros roller), treated as a moped: kept off pavements, ridden only by over-14s, and with a motorcycle helmet required.

A road-safety questionnaire that Dávid Vitézy, the minister for transport and investment, presented on 16 July 2026, open until early September, asked about e-scooter rules ahead of the overhaul of the whole KRESZ, the two classes, compulsory head protection and a minimum age of 12, 14, 16 or 18, Telex reported. He promised the replies would shape the final rules.

Neither the drafts nor the questionnaire had changed the law when Telex wrote.

Did you know?

• A residents’ discount was pledged in 2022. In the agreement, Lime undertook to work out how people living in Szombathely could get a discount, should the arrangement become a lasting one.
• Riding after a drink is not rare. In an Allianz Hungária survey cited by Telex in June 2026, 13% of people using alternative vehicles said they ride after drinking, and the share was higher still among e-scooter riders.