Danish municipalities collected almost 1.4 billion kroner from parking in 2025, a new record, according to a review by motoring organisation FDM. At the same time, the data shows sharp differences between municipalities in how often drivers choose to appeal their fines, with complaint rates in some areas running above one in ten.
Parking revenue approaching 1.5 billion kroner
Paid parking, resident permits and parking fines continue to be a significant source of income for Danish municipalities. Drivers paid a total of 1,394,797,255 kroner for parking last year, according to FDM’s review of gross municipal parking revenue for 2025.
Of that total, just over one billion kroner came from paid parking and resident licences, while 328 million kroner came from parking fines. Municipal parking wardens issued fines 613,000 times last year, slightly fewer than the year before.
Wide gap between municipalities on complaint rates
There are large differences in how the 56 municipalities that carry out parking enforcement approach the task. In some municipalities, close to 15 percent of parking fines lead to a complaint, while Holbæk Municipality recorded the lowest complaint rate in the survey, at just 0.3 percent.
FDM points to Holbæk as an example of how parking enforcement does not need to be a conflict between wardens and drivers. The municipality has for several years worked to treat parking control as a service that helps improve traffic flow, rather than a way to maximise the number of fines issued. FDM argues that reducing illegal parking should be the goal, since a fine does not make an illegally parked car any less of an obstruction. Helping drivers avoid parking illegally in the first place, FDM suggests, allows municipalities to issue fewer fines while still achieving the same outcome, an approach other municipalities could learn from.
FDM calls for a service check on parking control
FDM acknowledges that some municipalities may need paid parking and enforcement to manage traffic, but stresses that this should be aimed at regulating traffic rather than generating municipal income.
A car that is parked dangerously, causes an obstruction or has not paid should receive a fine, FDM says, but when more than one in ten fines results in a complaint, the municipality in question should give its parking enforcement a service check. According to FDM, this points to room for helping drivers park correctly in the first place and avoid an unwanted fine, which should be the ambition. Doing so would also reduce municipal costs linked to handling the large volume of complaints, an approach FDM says Holbæk has demonstrated works.
Background on paid parking and enforcement
A total of 27 Danish municipalities operate paid parking schemes, while 56 carry out parking enforcement. Figures for individual municipalities are available in FDM’s accompanying data, with further detail on municipal parking revenue published on fdm.dk.
