English
If you travel by car in Denmark, The Danish Private Parking Industry Association (DPPB) wants to contribute to you having a pleasant stay here.
First and foremost, our members do that by making a huge number of private parking spaces available to you nationwide.
Like in many other countries, public parking spaces are in short supply in Denmark compared to the number of cars, particularly in urban centers. The parking company members of DPPB service some 80 to 90% of all private parking facilities in Denmark open to the general public or reserved for specific purpose parking.
As with public parking, regulations are necessary in private parking facilities - and they may vary considerably from one facility to the next. Some parking spaces are free, for others you have to pay a parking fee. Some spaces are solely for drivers with disabilities, for local residents or for customers to a shopping center. Parking stall lines and time restrictions must be respected, or other drivers may be prevented from parking.
Smooth parking is only possible if everybody adheres to the regulations.
Consequently, if you are in violation of the regulations, you are very likely to be charged a quite substantial control fee.
This page is meant to help you avoid control fees and other parking unpleasantries. Please note that this service to you is composed by examples and is by no means exhaustive.
DPPB, its members and the parking facility owners want you to have a friendly and hassle free parking experience when visiting our facilities. Pay close attention to the signs in each parking facility.
Welcome!
This sign at the parking facility entrance identifies the facility as a private parking ground or building.
On this site, "public parking facility" refers to facilities owned and supervised by public entities such as cities or regions. "Private parking facility" refers to facilities owned by public or private entities or individuals, but supervised by private parking companies.
Private parking facilities open to the public in general or to specific groups of users are normally identifiable by a black sign at the entrance with a white "P" and a subsign with the text "Regler og vilkår fremgår af skilte på pladsen".
"Control fee" ("parkeringsafgift" or "kontrolafgift") is a fee issued by a parking company, quite similar to a parking fine issued by the police or by public/municipal parking wardens. Control fees are issued for violation of the parking regulations published on the signs in each parking facility.
A "parking fee" is the price you pay for renting a parking space where parking is not free of charge.
"DPPB" is Danske Private Parkeringsselskabers Brancheforening (The Danish Private Parking Industry association). Members of DPPB are well-reputed parking companies who are obliged to follow the ethic rules of the association.
In Denmark, parking signs in public and private parking facilities alike will typically be in Danish language only. If you do not master the Danish language you may be challenged by the text on the signs which often has to be quite lengthy, partly due to legal requirements.
Unfortunately, for practical and economical reasons signposting in multiple languages is normally not possible.
Please be aware that the fact that you perhaps are unable to read Danish will not exempt you from obeying by the parking regulations or from paying a potential control fee.
The best advise we can offer perhaps is to ask passersbys to help you translate the text on the signs, if you do not want to take your chances with translation apps.
In private and public parking facilities with time restrictions you are normally required to have a parking disc under the car's windscreen indicating your time of arrival.
Time restrictions are imposed in many parking facilities where a steady flow of cars is desirable. For instance, you do not want train commuters to all day park on the supermarket's customer parking spaces or hospital staff on the emergency room's patient spaces.
You may buy a simple parking discs in most gas station shops and stick it to the inside of the car's windscreen. If you want to avoid having to set the time of arrival manually each time, digital parking displays are available; they will automatically set the time of arrival when you stop the car.
You may set the parking disc to the nearest full quarter of an hour after your arrival.
If you do not have a parking disc or if the disc is not set correctly, be prepared for a control fee. Not knowing or travelling in a "foreign" car without a parking disc will not excuse you.
Control fees exist to make sure that parking regulations are followed - to the benefit of the owners of the parking facilities and, not least, the motorists. Yes, control fees represent a revenue for parking companies who supervise the facilities and secure good order, but isn't there a good amount of fairness in the fact that those who violate the regulations pay themselves for the enforcement?
Parking regulations apply equally to all, and it takes a more than extraordinarily good excuse to have a control fee cancelled if you are in clear violation of parking regulations. Honoring the principle of equality before the law, a parking bay stripe limit is not 20 centimeter outside the stripe and 2 hours of free or paid parking time is not 15 minutes more than that for those who prefer to follow their own rules.
These some of the ever recurring situations where you risk being charged a control fee. We want you to avoid these situations!
- You did not park your car in one of the designated parking bays, or only partly.
- You did not have a parking disc or forgot to set it correctly.
- Yoo parked your car for a long time than signage and your parking disc allowed.
- You forgot to pay for the full length of your stay.
- You parked on a fire lane, on a rescue road, in front of an emergency exit or not respecting other "Not here!"-signage.
- You parked in a stall reserved for disabled persons without being disabled yourself. In this situation, you may face a double up control fee.
Parking companies have a severe obligation to make sure that signs, infrastructure and practices are in strict keeping with the law and court rulings. The members of DPPB do their utmost to comply.
We want you - and all other guests - to feel welcome and comfortable in the facilities which our members service. This requires that everyone obeys strictly by the parking regulations.
Please do not take any disagreement about control fees you may have up with the parking warden on site. Parking wardens are generally not allowed to discuss or withdraw control fees once issued.
Instead, contact the parking company in question in writing or by phone as stipulated on a parking sign where you will also find relevant contact information.
Private parking service in Denmark is quite closely regulated by legislation and case law. The law stipulates that control fees may not be issued unless the parking company is registered with an officially approved independent appeal board.
If you are unhappy with the decision by the parking company to maintain the fee, you may appeal the decision to the appeal board.
All DPPB member companies are registered with the Parkeringsklagenævnet appeal board. Parkeringsklagenævnet is composed by an equal number of consumer organization and industry representatives headed by a district court judge. Please see https://www.parkeringsklagenaevnet.dk/ for further information.
The parking company and the appeal board will have its primary focus on whether all legal requirements with respect to the parking facility and the practice of the parking warden and the company are complied with. Very rarely will individual circumstances with respect to the driver or the situation result in a parking fee being cancelled.
Ignoring a parking fee is a bad idea since parking companies will normally recover the fee through international debt collection which may add considerable cost to the fee itself.
Please also note that if you are driving a rental car, the rental car company will normally identify you to the parking company, thus allowing the company to recover the unpaid fee from you.