In this work, copper and cobalt oxides supported on a ceria-yttria-stabilized zirconia (Ce-YSZ) have been studied as alternative to noble metals for the soot removal in diesel engines. The Ce-YSZ support was activated in order to obtain a catalyst with a high redox performance. The resulting catalysts were characterized by N2 physisorption, ICP, XRD, TPR-H2, TPR-CO, HAADF-STEM and XEDS.Additionally, their catalytic performance was evaluated in the NO oxidation to NO2 and in the combustion of soot in presence/absence of NOx. The Co/Ce-YSZ catalyst shows a maximum NO2 production activity higher than 70%, very close to that obtained with a commercial Pt catalyst used as a reference, and largely better than that of Cu/Ce-YSZ. A similar trend is observed in the combustion of soot in the presence of NOx, thus indicating the prevalence of the NO2-assisted mechanism for the oxidation of soot when NO2 is present. Results obtained with unsupported Co3O4and CuO oxides suggest that Co-containing catalyst is not only a better NO2 generator but also exhibits a more efficient utilization of NOx. Co3O4 entities would act as a pseudo-platinum phase allowing fresh supply of NO2 along the catalytic bed, thus accelerating the soot combustion reaction.However, if NOx is absent, the order of soot combustion rate matches with the performance in reducibility ("active oxygen" mechanism), the Cu catalyst being the most active in comparison with Co or Pt. Under these conditions, Ce-YSZ supported catalysts benefit from the excellent oxygenexchange properties of surface Ce-Y-Zr oxide nanostructures.