Electric Bikes and Scooters in Guatemala: The 1,000-Watt Line, Licence and Plate Rules (2026)

Quick answer

Guatemala does publish a threshold for electric two-wheelers, and almost nobody quotes it: 1,000 watts. It sits in the definitions article of the Reglamento de Tránsito (Acuerdo Gubernativo 273-98), and it decides everything else — licence, plate, helmet, and where you may legally ride.

Read that table as what the instrument says, not as a list of things we think are allowed. Where a row says “not addressed”, that is a documented absence — we read the articles and the machine is not named in them. Where it says “not resolved”, the opposite is true: two published articles pull in opposite directions and nothing published settles which one governs. Either way, the Reglamento names who fills the gap: Art. 195 — “Los casos no previstos en el presente Reglamento, serán resueltos por el Ministerio de Gobernación, en su calidad de autoridad superior de tránsito.”

The 1,000-watt line

Three definitions in Reglamento de Tránsito Art. 7 do all the work. None of them carries a reform footnote in the Departamento de Tránsito’s compilation, which consolidates reforms through Decreto 33-2024:

16) Bicicleta: Vehículo de dos o tres ruedas, puesta en movimiento por esfuerzo humano a través de los pedales.

66) Motobicicleta: Vehículo de dos ruedas y pedales con motor de combustión interna de cilindrada no mayor a 50 centímetros cúbicos o motor eléctrico de potencia no superior a 1,000 vatios.

67) Motocicleta: Vehículo automotor de dos o tres ruedas operada por manubrio.

Put them side by side and the structure is clean. Numeral 16 describes a machine moved by human effort through the pedals. Numeral 66 describes a machine with pedals and a motor, and caps the electric version at 1,000 watts. The two do not overlap: a pedal-assist e-bike is described by numeral 66, not numeral 16. That is not our interpretation stacked on top of the text — it is what the two quoted definitions say when read together.

Two things worth noticing in the wording:

• Numeral 66 says Vehículo, while numeral 67 says Vehículo automotor. The same article defines both terms, and the difference is deliberate: numeral 102 reads “Vehículo automotor: Vehículo provisto de motor eléctrico o de combustión interna para su propulsión. Se excluyen las moto bicicletas y los tranvías”, while numeral 108 reads “Vehículo: Cualquier medio de transporte que circula sobre la vía pública.” The Reglamento then uses the distinction: Art. 14’s equipment list is addressed to vehículos automotores, and Art. 181 numeral 4 fines vehículos automotores “con excepción de las motobicicletas” for missing basic equipment — a motobicicleta gets its own, shorter list in Art. 13.
• The definition requires pedals. A machine with a throttle and no pedals is not described by numeral 66 regardless of its wattage, and the Reglamento publishes nothing else that fits it.

At statute level the net is much wider. Ley de Tránsito (Decreto 132-96) Art. 18 says: “Por vehículo se entiende cualquier medio de transporte terrestre o acuático que circule permanente u ocasionalmente por la vía pública”, and requires such a vehicle to “Contar con tarjeta y placa de circulación vigentes; o permiso vigente extendido por autoridad competente”. Art. 18 bis — added by Art. 1 of Decreto 33-2024 — repeats the document list in its current, electronic-or-printed form: tarjeta de circulación, placa or placas, and calcomanía de circulación.

A note on how we cite that decree. Decreto 33-2024 has ten articles of its own: Art. 1 adds Ley Art. 18 bis, Art. 2 adds Ley Art. 20 bis, Art. 3 adds six final paragraphs to Ley Art. 31, Art. 4 reforms Ley Art. 33, Art. 5 reforms Ley Art. 34, Art. 6 reforms Ley Art. 35, and Art. 10 is the vigencia clause. It has no Art. 18, no Art. 31 and no Art. 33. The Departamento’s consolidated compilation footnotes each reform with the Ley article number rather than the decree’s, so a reader following those footnotes is sent to an article that does not exist. We cite the decree’s own numbering, read from the decree text printed in the same compendium.

If your machine is a motobicicleta

Once numeral 66 describes your e-bike, it is a named vehicle in the Reglamento and a whole set of articles switches on. Art. 9 (classification by weight) lists it explicitly among light vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes: "• Bicicletas. • Motobicicletas. • Motocicletas. • Automóviles. • Páneles. • Pick-ups. • Microbuses; y, • Automóviles, páneles y pick-ups con remolque." — bicicleta and motobicicleta are separate bullets, which is exactly why the Art. 10 bicycle exemption does not carry across.

Documents — Art. 10. The full text of the article:

ARTICULO 10. DOCUMENTOS DE LOS VEHICULOS. Todo vehículo para circular en las vías públicas del territorio nacional, debe poseer los siguientes documentos: a) Tarjeta de circulación o fotocopia autenticada de la misma; b) Placa, placas y calcomanías de circulación vigentes. […] No necesitan portar ningún documento todo conductor de bicicleta, utilizada por niños de hasta 12 años de edad, la utilizada para hacer deporte o alguna otra actividad recreativa. El Departamento de Tránsito regulará lo relativo a la documentación de otros conductores de bicicletas.

Licence — Art. 23. The licence-class article states, in one line: “Tipo M: Para conducir toda clase de motobicicletas y motocicletas.” Tipo M is the same class used for motorcycles, and the process for getting one is a separate procedure — see our Type M motorcycle licence guide and the licence-types overview. Art. 22 adds the carrying duty that sits behind all of this: “Al conducir un vehículo por la vía pública, es obligatorio portar una licencia de conducir vigente, cuyo tipo corresponda o incluya al vehículo en que se circula.”

If you hold a foreign licence, Art. 24 is the relevant text — and it has two parts, of which only the first usually gets quoted:

Los titulares de licencia de conducir extranjeras tienen permitido conducir en el territorio nacional, vehículos para los cuales están habilitados por la misma y sólo hasta que esté vigente su autorización migratoria.

En caso de residencia en el país, es obligatorio el traspaso de su licencia extranjera a una nacional, del mismo tipo o inferior, pero nunca superior. El Departamento dictaminará, si es necesario, tomar alguna prueba teórica o práctica.

So a visitor rides on the vehicles their own licence covers, for as long as their immigration authorisation is valid — but residency in the country triggers a mandatory transfer to a Guatemalan licence of the same type or lower, never higher, and the Departamento may rule that a theory or practical test is required. If your machine is a motobicicleta, the class in play for that transfer is Tipo M.

Lighting — Art. 13. A motobicicleta and a motocicleta must carry: “a) Luz alta y baja adelante. b) Luz de posición atrás. c) Luces direccionales adelante y atrás. d) Luz de freno con su reflejante; y, e) Silenciador.” That is a materially heavier specification than most consumer e-bikes ship with — front high and low beam, rear position light, indicators front and rear, and a brake light with reflector.

Helmet and vest — Art. 91, Art. 94 and Art. 48 TER.

• Art. 94: “El conductor o el pasajero de moto y motobicicleta está obligado a usar el casco protector, siempre que circule en la vía pública.”
• Art. 91: “Los conductores de vehículos automotores y motobicicletas están obligados a utilizar los elementos de seguridad establecidos en éste capítulo, y serán responsables de que el resto de pasajeros los usen adecuadamente.”
• Art. 48 TER requires riders and passengers of motocicletas and motobicicletas to wear an orange vest with two vertical and two horizontal retroreflective silver-grey stripes five centimetres wide, carrying the vehicle’s circulation-plate identification number in arial eight centimetres high and four wide, placed ten centimetres below the collar and legible from a minimum of five metres — and a helmet to which the same plate number must be affixed in white retroreflective material on a black background, in arial two point five centimetres wide and four high, also legible from five metres. The article adds that rider and passenger “están obligados a no llevar ningún objeto que obstaculice la visibilidad del número de identificación.” (Art. 48 QUARTER carves out only the vest, and only for riders taking part in the annual Caravana del Zorro pilgrimage.)

Where you ride. Three articles decide where a motobicicleta belongs on the roadway itself — Arts. 105, 100 and 79, quoted below in four passages because Art. 100 contributes two — and two of those passages give opposite instructions about the shoulder. That conflict is in the published text, not in our reading of it. Two further articles, set out after those four, close specific surfaces to you rather than assign you a position on the road:

• Art. 105 (Utilización de arcenes) sends you to the shoulder: where no way or part of a way is specially set aside for them, drivers of “bicicletas, motobicicletas y carretillas y similares” “circulará por el arcén de su derecha, si fuera transitable y suficiente, si no lo fuera, utilizará adicionalmente la parte imprescindible de la calzada.”
• Art. 100 (Circulación por la derecha), third paragraph — reformed by Art. 2 of Acuerdo Gubernativo 395-2013 — sends you off it: “Los vehículos de tracción animal, los vehículos especiales con peso bruto autorizado inferior a 3.5 toneladas métricas, bicicletas, motocicletas, motobicicletas, carretillas y similares, y el vehículo que rebase a otro vehículo, deberán circular por la calzada y no por el arcén salvo por razones de emergencia.”
• Art. 100, fourth paragraph — the lane-discipline rule, from the same reformed article: “Las motocicletas y motobicicletas deberán transitar al igual que los demás vehículos en las vías públicas ocupando un carril, sea éste derecho, izquierdo o en el carril del centro. Queda prohibido circular entre carriles, hacer paradas entre carriles y zigzaguear. Estos vehículos en ningún caso podrán sujetarse o engancharse a otro vehículo.” Public security forces on duty and emergency vehicles are excepted by the article’s closing paragraph. Lane-splitting, stopping between lanes and zigzagging carry Q500 under Art. 184 numeral 12.
• Art. 79 allows carrying cargo on “bicicletas, motobicicletas y motocicletas” when they are specially fitted for it and comply with the circulation rules for their type.

The two that close surfaces:

• Art. 103 (Utilización de los carriles especiales) reserves signed lanes to the vehicles they are signed for: “La utilización de carriles o vías especiales, como las vías exclusivas para buses, ciclovías, carriles para tránsito lento y otros, siempre deben ser utilizadas, si existieren, por los vehículos para los que están definidos en la señalización vertical y horizontal. Se prohibe a otros vehículos su utilización.” Bus lanes and ciclovías are named in the article itself; the Reglamento publishes no sign class that names a motobicicleta.
• Art. 184 numeral 11 puts a Q500 fine behind part of the same ground, for riders of motocicletas y motobicicletas who travel on “las aceras o banquetas, pasos peatonales, ciclo vías, vías exclusivas para transporte colectivo”.

Both Art. 100 and Art. 105 sit in force in the same 2024-consolidated compilation published by the Departamento de Tránsito, and neither one references the other. We are not going to tell you which prevails: what we can tell you is that Art. 100 ¶3 is the later text (reformed 2013) and that the pavement is closed to you either way, on pain of Q500 under Art. 184 numeral 11.

Passengers — Art. 46 and Art. 48. Art. 46 is the general rule: “El número de personas transportadas en un vehículo no podrá ser superior al de las plazas autorizadas en la tarjeta de circulación” (its second paragraph, on delegated municipalities, was reformed by Art. 1 of Acuerdo Gubernativo 395-2013). Carrying more people than a vehicle’s plazas is a Q500 fine under Art. 184 numeral 7. On top of that, the Reglamento has an article addressed to two-wheelers by name — Art. 48, “NORMAS RELATIVAS A VEHICULOS DE DOS RUEDAS”, reformed by Art. 2 of Acuerdo Gubernativo 105-2009:

Las bicicletas no podrán ser ocupadas por más de una persona cuando hayan sido diseñadas para una sola persona. En ningún caso podrá situarse a otro viajero en el lugar intermedio entre la persona que conduce y el manubrio.

Read it exactly as written: the first sentence caps a bicycle designed for one person at one person; the second is an absolute ban — “en ningún caso” — on placing a passenger between the rider and the handlebar. What the article does not publish is a numeric passenger maximum for a motobicicleta or a motocicleta; for those, capacity is whatever the tarjeta de circulación authorises.

For the tax and import side of an electric two-wheeler, the incentive framework is Decreto 40-2022, Ley de Incentivos para Movilidad Eléctrica, emitted 9 August 2022 per the Congress’s index of decretos — covered on our electric and hybrid vehicle import page. We deliberately quote none of that decree’s terms here; see the note in “what is not published”.

Standing e-scooters

The build brief for this page assumed Guatemala says nothing about scooters. It does. The rule is just in an unexpected place — the pedestrians chapter, not the vehicle chapters.

Reglamento de Tránsito Art. 58 (Circulación por espacios destinados al peatón), literal h) — no reform footnote, so this is the original 1998 text:

h) Quienes utilicen monopatines, patines o aparatos similares, no podrán circular por la calzada, salvo que se trate de zonas, vías o parte de las mismas que les estén especialmente destinadas; y sólo podrán circular en los espacios peatonales si lo hacen a velocidad de paso.

The same article then adds: “Los incisos a), b), f), y h) no son aplicables en las vías residenciales de circulación controlada.” — literal h) is switched off inside controlled-circulation residential streets.

But literal h) is not the only article in that chapter, and another article in the same chapter points the other way. Four articles later, Art. 62 (Uso del espacio peatonal) says:

Las aceras, refugios, paseos, vías peatonales, zonas peatonales, y pasarelas son espacios de uso exclusivo para peatones y no serán utilizados por vehículo alguno, incluyendo bicicletas, cuyos conductores quedan obligados a desmontar para utilizarlos.

Whether that reaches a monopatín turns on whether a monopatín is a vehículo, and the Reglamento does not settle it. Art. 7 publishes no definition of a monopatín at all — the word appears exactly once in the whole compilation, in Art. 58 literal h). What Art. 7 does publish is a very wide definition of the noun Art. 62 uses, at numeral 108: “Vehículo: Cualquier medio de transporte que circula sobre la vía pública.” Art. 62 also names bicycles expressly and requires their riders to dismount on those surfaces, so the pavement is not simply “open” to a wheeled device in this Reglamento.

What that text gives you, precisely:

• The carriageway is closed to them, unless the zone or lane is specially set aside for them (Art. 58 h).
• Pedestrian space is where the two articles collide. Art. 58 h) permits circulation there at walking pace; Art. 62 reserves those same surfaces for the exclusive use of pedestrians, excludes “vehículo alguno, incluyendo bicicletas”, and makes riders dismount. Both are in force in the same chapter of the same 2024-consolidated compilation, and nothing published resolves which governs a monopatín. Art. 195 is the route for that — the Ministerio de Gobernación, as superior traffic authority.
• In controlled-circulation residential streets, literal h) does not apply.

What that text does not give you — and none of it should be filled in from the silence:

• No distinction between electric and non-electric. The words are “monopatines, patines o aparatos similares”.
• No wattage and no speed number. The only speed standard published is “velocidad de paso”.
• No helmet and no minimum age. Art. 94 names only moto y motobicicleta and Art. 91 only vehículos automotores y motobicicletas; the word monopatín appears exactly once in the whole compilation, in Art. 58 h).
• Licence, plate and tarjeta de circulación are not resolved, in either direction. Art. 58 h) attaches none of them. But Art. 10 requires todo vehículo to hold a tarjeta de circulación and “Placa, placas y calcomanías de circulación vigentes”, and Art. 22 and Ley de Tránsito Art. 15 require a licence to drive un vehículo — all three keyed to the noun Art. 7 numeral 108 defines as “Cualquier medio de transporte que circula sobre la vía pública”, and the Reglamento never says whether a monopatín is one. No article expressly exempts a monopatín rider either. Under Art. 195 that unprovided-for case goes to the Ministerio de Gobernación.
• No fine numeral in Arts. 180–185 that names monopatines.

One asymmetry worth carrying with you, stated as narrowly as the text allows: Art. 184 numeral 11 imposes a Q500 fine on riders of motocicletas and motobicicletas who travel on “las aceras o banquetas, pasos peatonales, ciclo vías, vías exclusivas para transporte colectivo”. For a motobicicleta there is therefore a named surface, a named prohibition and a published amount. For a monopatín there is Art. 58 h) permitting walking-pace use of pedestrian space, Art. 62 reserving that space for pedestrians alone, no fine numeral anywhere in Arts. 180–185 that names monopatines, and no definition to decide which article wins. That is a difference in how clearly the texts speak, not a permission — and which category your machine falls into remains the whole question.

Plain bicycles

If there is no motor, you are in a genuinely well-covered part of the Reglamento — worth knowing because it is the baseline the e-bike rules depart from. Route and rental detail lives in our cycling in Guatemala guide; the rules are these:

• Equipment — Art. 12: bicycles on public roads must be equipped, when their use so requires, “a) Con una luz blanca delantera de una sola intensidad; y, b) Con reflejantes de color rojo en la parte posterior.” Not having bicycle or motobicicleta basic equipment in optimal working order is a Q100 fine under Art. 180 numeral 1.
• Where you ride — Art. 67 sets out four cases: (a) roads with no cycling strip or lane — ride in mixed traffic at the right edge of the carriageway, or on the shoulder where one exists and is passable, ordering yourself into the correct lane at intersections and using hand signals; (b) roads with a franja multiuso — ride on the horizontally marked part, in the indicated direction; (c) roads with painted bicycle lanes — use them in the indicated direction, and “Pueden circular contra el sentido que tiene una vía vehicular sólo si existe un carril de bicicletas especialmente demarcado y señalizado para el efecto”; (d) roads with segregated ciclovías divided from the main carriageway by kerbs or medians — cyclists must use them.
• Priority — Art. 126: cyclists have priority over vehicles in general, “y estos deberán detenerse si fuera necesario”, when a vehicle turns into another road while cyclists are crossing it even if the bicycle crossing is unmarked; when the vehicle turns across or crosses the shoulder, bicycle lane or ciclovía the cyclists are using; and when signage so indicates.
• Documents — Art. 10: no documents are needed for a bicycle used by children up to 12 years of age, or used for sport or another recreational activity. For other bicycle uses, Art. 10’s last sentence delegates the question: “El Departamento de Tránsito regulará lo relativo a la documentación de otros conductores de bicicletas.” We found no instrument issued under that delegation — see below.
• Pedestrian space — Art. 62: “Las aceras, refugios, paseos, vías peatonales, zonas peatonales, y pasarelas son espacios de uso exclusivo para peatones y no serán utilizados por vehículo alguno, incluyendo bicicletas, cuyos conductores quedan obligados a desmontar para utilizarlos.” Bicycles are named, and the published instruction is to get off and push.
• Pedestrian status — Art. 7 num. 77: someone pushing a bicycle or a motorcycle is a pedestrian for the Reglamento’s purposes. Getting off and walking changes which chapter applies to you — which is exactly what Art. 62 requires on those surfaces.
• Licence — the one genuinely unresolved point. It is tempting to write that no licence is needed for a bicycle in Guatemala. The published text will not support that flatly, in either direction. Reglamento Art. 22 says: “Al conducir un vehículo por la vía pública, es obligatorio portar una licencia de conducir vigente, cuyo tipo corresponda o incluya al vehículo en que se circula.” Ley de Tránsito Art. 15 says: “Para conducir un vehículo por la vía pública, es necesario que el conductor reúna los requisitos siguientes: a) Estar habilitado mediante licencia de conducir, extendida por la autoridad correspondiente…” Both are keyed to un vehículo — and a bicicleta is a vehículo on this Reglamento’s own terms: Art. 7 numeral 16 defines it as one, Art. 7 numeral 108 defines vehículo as “cualquier medio de transporte que circula sobre la vía pública”, and Art. 9 literal a) lists “Bicicletas” by name among light vehicles. So those articles do reach a cyclist textually. What is missing is the other half: Art. 23’s list of licence types — A, B, C, M and E — contains no class that corresponds to a bicicleta, and no article we found expressly exempts a bicycle rider from carrying one. Art. 10 exempts certain bicycle uses from carrying vehicle documents; it says nothing about licences. We report that gap as a gap. Under Art. 195, cases not provided for go to the Ministerio de Gobernación.

Fines

All amounts from the Reglamento de Tránsito, Título VI:

Art. 184 was reformed by Art. 4 of Acuerdo Gubernativo 395-2013. For context, the ladder is Art. 180 = Q100, Art. 181 = Q200, Art. 182 = Q300, Art. 183 = Q400, Art. 184 = Q500, Art. 185 = “multas de mayor cuantía” from Q1,000.

If you are ever fined, two different objection windows are published in the same body of traffic law, and you should know both rather than one:

• Reglamento Art. 186 (Procedimiento de la infracción) — the administrative route. The right it gives the infractor is “de manifestar por escrito su desacuerdo, ofreciendo prueba en un plazo no mayor de cinco días, contados a partir de la fecha en que se cometió la infracción”, filed “ante el Departamento de Tránsito o ante el Juzgado de Asuntos Municipales de Tránsito, en su caso”, and that body “resolverá en un plazo no mayor de treinta días.” Five days, counted from the date of the infraction, and a 30-day decision deadline. The same article makes what the officer wrote on the boleta a presumption that admits evidence to the contrary.
• Ley de Tránsito Art. 31, as reformed by Art. 3 of Decreto 33-2024 — the statute. A challenge “en un plazo no mayor de quince (15) días contados a partir de la notificación”; 60 days to pay once an unfavourable ruling is final; and fines not notified prescribe at 120 days, after which payment can no longer be required.

The two are different lengths counted from different events — five days from the infraction in the Reglamento, fifteen days from the notification in the statute (the later text, reformed in 2024). Both are in force in the compilation the Departamento de Tránsito publishes, and nothing in either one says it displaces the other. The safe reading is the shortest clock: treat five days from the day you were stopped as the deadline that binds you, and put the objection in writing.

What is NOT published

As of 13 August 2026 we did not find:

• Any Departamento de Tránsito instrument issued under the Art. 10 delegation on documentation for bicycle riders other than children up to 12 / sport / recreation. The Department’s own published legislation index lists eleven instruments — the Ley and Reglamento compilation, its internal organisation document, Decretos 15-2014, 45-2016 and 11-2017, Acuerdo Gubernativo 242-99, Acuerdos Ministeriales 903-2003 and 932-2003, Directrices 001-2018 and 001-2020, and Orden General 11-2023 — and none of them is a bicycle-documentation regulation.
• Any published criterion for classifying an electric two-wheeler above 1,000 W. Numeral 66 stops at 1,000 W; numeral 67 defines a motocicleta without a power ceiling. Nothing published resolves which applies, and Art. 195 sends unprovided-for cases to the Ministerio de Gobernación.
• Any wattage, speed or age figure for monopatines. Art. 58 h) publishes only “velocidad de paso”.
• Any municipal instrument. We wanted Muni de Guatemala / EMETRA for city-street and bike-lane rules in the capital. emetra.muniguate.com and muniguate.com returned 403 to a bare request, to a browser user-agent with a referer (Cloudflare interstitial), to an r.jina.ai fetch and to a Chrome-impersonating client; the Wayback availability API answered 429. The retrieval ladder was exhausted, so no municipal rule is quoted here, in either direction.
• Quotable text from Decreto 40-2022. The Congress index confirms the decree’s title and emission date (Ley de Incentivos para Movilidad Eléctrica, 9 August 2022), but the only copy we could download is a Diario de Centro América scan whose text layer is badly garbled. Nothing is quoted from it and no figure from it appears on this page. The incentive framework as previously sourced is on our EV and hybrid import page.
• Any explicit numeric passenger cap for a motobicicleta or a motocicleta. The two-wheeler passenger rules that are published are quoted above: Art. 48 caps a bicycle designed for one person at one person and bans, in any case, a passenger in the intermediate position between rider and handlebar; Art. 46 ties capacity to the plazas authorised on the tarjeta de circulación; Art. 184 numeral 7 fines carrying more people than those plazas at Q500. What no article states is a hard number of riders for a powered two-wheeler.

FAQ

What is the wattage limit for an electric bike in Guatemala? 1,000 watts — but as a category boundary, not a ban. Reglamento de Tránsito Art. 7 numeral 66 defines a motobicicleta as a pedal two-wheeler with an internal-combustion engine up to 50 cc or an electric motor not exceeding 1,000 vatios. Below or at that figure with pedals, you are in the motobicicleta category and its licence, plate and helmet rules apply.

Is an e-bike treated as a bicycle in Guatemala? Not by the definitions. Art. 7 numeral 16 defines a bicicleta as moved by human effort through the pedals; numeral 66 defines the pedals-plus-motor machine separately; and Art. 9 lists bicicletas and motobicicletas as separate bullets in the light-vehicle class.

Can I ride an e-scooter on the sidewalk? Two published articles answer that differently and we are not going to pick one for you. Art. 58 literal h) permits monopatines, patines and similar devices in pedestrian spaces only at walking pace, and closes the carriageway to them except where a zone or lane is specially set aside. Art. 62, in the same chapter, states that sidewalks, refuges, promenades, pedestrian ways, pedestrian zones and footbridges are “espacios de uso exclusivo para peatones y no serán utilizados por vehículo alguno, incluyendo bicicletas, cuyos conductores quedan obligados a desmontar para utilizarlos.” Art. 7 defines vehículo at numeral 108 as “cualquier medio de transporte que circula sobre la vía pública” and defines no monopatín at all, so the Reglamento never says which article governs. Neither text distinguishes electric from non-electric, neither publishes a speed figure beyond “velocidad de paso”, and no fine numeral in Arts. 180–185 names monopatines.

Do I need insurance for a motobicicleta? Not something this page sources. The Ley de Tránsito has a dedicated Título on insurance and we did not research it for this batch, so no insurance requirement or figure is published here.

Is there a minimum age to ride an e-bike in Guatemala? No age provision addresses motobicicletas or monopatines directly. The only age figure quoted on this page is the Art. 10 document exemption for bicycles used by children up to 12 years of age. Licence age requirements belong to the Tipo M procedure, not to this page.

Who decides if the rule does not exist? Reglamento de Tránsito Art. 195: “Los casos no previstos en el presente Reglamento, serán resueltos por el Ministerio de Gobernación, en su calidad de autoridad superior de tránsito.”

Sources

• Departamento de Tránsito, Dirección General de la PNC (MINGOB) — official consolidated compilation of the Ley de Tránsito, Decreto No. 132-96 and the Reglamento de Tránsito, Acuerdo Gubernativo No. 273-98, with reforms through Decreto No. 33-2024, linked from transito.gob.gt — Legislación en materia de tránsito (retrieved 12 August 2026). Reglamento Arts. 7 (num. 16, 43, 66, 67, 77, 102, 108), 9, 10, 12, 13, 22, 23, 24, 40, 46, 48, 48 TER, 48 QUARTER, 58, 62, 67, 79, 91, 94, 100, 103, 105, 126, 180, 181, 184, 185, 186, 195; Ley Arts. 15, 18, 18 bis, 31.
• Congreso de la República de Guatemala — index of decretos (retrieved 12 August 2026): Decreto 33-2024, “Reformas a la Ley de Tránsito, Decreto Número 132-96”, emitted 22 November 2024; Decreto 40-2022, “Ley de Incentivos para Movilidad Eléctrica”, emitted 9 August 2022.
• Decreto 45-2016, Ley para el Fortalecimiento de la Seguridad Vial — full text on transito.gob.gt (retrieved 12 August 2026); read in full and confirmed to contain nothing on bicycles or electric propulsion.

This page reports published Guatemalan traffic rules and attributes each one to the body that published it. It is not legal advice. Where the Reglamento de Tránsito addresses something, this page quotes it; where it does not, this page says so and names what was searched, because Art. 195 leaves unprovided-for cases to the Ministerio de Gobernación rather than to inference.