How Much Can a Private Parking Company Legally Charge You?
One of the most common questions after finding a Parking Charge Notice under the wiper is simply: is this amount even allowed? In the UK private parking sector, the answer is now governed by an industry-wide cap.
Where the cap comes from
The two main UK trade associations that oversee private parking operators — the British Parking Association (BPA) and the International Parking Community (IPC) — jointly published a Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice, with rollout beginning on 1 October 2024 and existing sites required to be fully compliant by December 2026. Any operator that wants continued access to DVLA keeper data (which nearly all of them need, to pursue registered keepers under POFA 2012) has to be a member of one of these associations and follow its Code.
Separately, the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 gave the Government the power to create its own statutory Code for the sector; the relevant provisions were formally commenced via statutory instrument in May 2024. As of 2026, industry reporting indicates the Government's own statutory Code is still being phased in, so the BPA/IPC industry Code above is, in practice, the cap currently being applied on the ground.
The cap itself
Under the Single Code of Practice:
- The standard maximum charge is £100.
- This is reduced to £60 if you pay within 14 days of the notice.
This matches the £60–£100 range you'll see referenced across Claimo.uk. If you've been asked to pay significantly more than £100 for a single private parking charge (excluding any legitimate County Court costs added much later in a formal claim), that's worth scrutinising closely — and worth mentioning explicitly in any appeal.
The cap doesn't decide whether the charge is valid
It's worth being clear about what the cap does and doesn't do. It limits how much a compliant operator can charge — it doesn't automatically mean the charge is valid in the first place. A charge that respects the £100/£60 cap can still be successfully appealed for other reasons: inadequate signage, an unfairly short grace period, or a defective Notice to Keeper under POFA 2012. See our guide on grace periods and signage rules for more on that.
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