Electric vehicle charging bays

The sign is what makes it a charging bay

The Traffic Signs Regulations provide a symbol for a “Parking place reserved for the recharging of electric vehicles”. It goes on the white parking plate with one of two legends: “Electric vehicle recharging point only”, or “Electric vehicle recharging point” together with “Permit holders only” — a bay that only a permit holder may use to charge.

The plate does not have to apply all day. For a parking place the Regulations say: “A time period may be included.” If the plate shows hours, the charging-only rule applies during those hours, and the bay is whatever the plate says outside them.

The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (S.I. 2016/362), Schedule 4, Part 5, item 7, and Part 4, item 2

The bay itself may be marked on the road. The Regulations allow the bay legend to read “ELECTRIC VEHICLES” or “ELECTRIC VEHS”, and the word “ONLY” may follow.

The Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016, Schedule 7, Part 5, paragraph 1(2) and (3) (variants of the bay legend used with diagram 1028.4, Schedule 7, Part 4, item 6): “ONLY” may be added after “DOCTOR” (or after a word or phrase used pursuant to sub-paragraph (2)).

We have not found a definition of “electric vehicle” in the Traffic Signs Regulations. Whether a plug-in hybrid counts is a question for the traffic order behind the bay, so read the plate and, if in doubt, ask the council.

Why a sign is only as good as the traffic order behind it →

Parking without charging: the code on the ticket

The contravention codes used across England and Wales, in London and outside it, have a code written for exactly this. It does not ask whether your car is electric. It asks whether it was charging.

The words “during restricted hours” matter: the code applies only while the plate's hours are running. A petrol or diesel car in a bay marked for electric vehicles can instead be ticketed under the general code for a parking place not designated for that class of vehicle, with a letter after the code — a suffix — that names the kind of bay.

The suffixes for electric vehicle bays read, word for word:

• “electric vehicles bay”
• “permit holder only electric vehicle charging bay”
• “electric vehicle car club bay”

London Councils: Penalty Charge Notices — Contravention Code List (v7.0, 31 May 2022); PATROL: Contravention codes (England and Wales)

These lists are for England and Wales. Scottish councils and Northern Ireland use their own codes, and we have not checked whether they include one for charging bays.

What it costs

Every one of those codes is a higher-level contravention, so the charge is the higher figure for the area — the same as for parking on a yellow line. Higher level charges apply to the contraventions treated as more serious — parking on yellow lines, or causing an obstruction. Lower level charges apply to the rest, such as overstaying in a bay.

Which band applies depends on the council, and the band is printed on the notice. London runs its own scale, and it is far higher. The cheapest London band at the lower level costs more than the most expensive band anywhere else in England.

Scotland has no single national figure either. Each council sets its own level under its decriminalised parking enforcement order, so the amount on your notice is a local one. The pavement, double parking and dropped footway prohibitions are the exception: those carry one penalty set nationally.

The discount, the deadlines and the appeal →

Charging etiquette that the Highway Code spells out

The Highway Code has guidance for using a charge point, not a law with a penalty attached: “When using an electric vehicle charge point, you should park close to the charge point” and “avoid creating a trip hazard for pedestrians from trailing cables”. Afterwards: “After using the charge point, you should return charging cables and connectors neatly” — “to minimise the danger to pedestrians and avoid creating an obstacle for other road users”.

The Highway Code, rule 239 (GOV.UK, page updated 22 October 2025)

Pavement parking rules in each part of the UK →

Free or cheaper parking for electric cars

We have found no national free-parking concession for electric cars in the UK. Where an electric car pays less, it is because a council has decided so, usually through the price of a resident permit or a local badge. The cities we cover show how different those decisions are.

York

Is the Minster Badge worth it? If you park on-street regularly, quickly. It costs £45 for two years and cuts an hour on a weekday from £5.00 to £3.50 — £1.50 saved each time, so it pays for itself after 30 one-hour stays. It also lets electric cars park free overnight while charging at fast chargepoints. You must pay council tax directly to City of York Council.

City of York Council — Minster Badge permit · Parking in York →

York

Which cars get York's low-emission permit discount? Light passenger vehicles in vehicle tax bands A to C (up to 120g/km CO2), and electric or LPG vehicles. The discount is applied automatically and the permit is vehicle-specific.

City of York Council — Low emission vehicle parking discounts · Parking in York →

Newcastle upon Tyne

Is a resident permit really free for an electric car? Yes. The first permit for a property is £25 a year and the second £75, but low-emission vehicles get a discount and a fully electric one pays nothing. That is the opposite logic from the Clean Air Zone, which asks only whether you clear a threshold — here the cleaner the car, the less the permit costs.

Newcastle City Council: Resident permits · Parking in Newcastle upon Tyne →

Oxford

Does an electric car pay nothing in Oxford? In the Zero Emission Zone, yes — a zero-emission vehicle is the only thing that pays £0 there. But electric cars are not exempt from the traffic filters: like any car, an electric car needs a permit to pass one of the six filters, and without one it is a £70 penalty. Two schemes, two different questions: the zone asks how clean you are, the filters ask whether you are a car with a permit.

Oxfordshire County Council: Charges for Oxford's zero emission zone · Parking in Oxford →

A cheaper permit or a free zone does not turn a charging bay into a parking space. The code on the ticket asks whether you were charging, not what you paid for your permit.

When parking is free for everyone, and when it still costs you →

Charging bays in supermarkets and private car parks

In a council car park the same rule applies as on the street, under its own off-street code (71), and the ticket is a council penalty charge notice. In a supermarket, a retail park, a hotel or a private multi-storey, the council has no role: the landowner or its parking operator enforces the bay, under the terms on its signs.

A private parking charge is a contractual claim, not a fine. Nobody at a supermarket has the power to fine you. By driving in and parking you accept the terms on the signs. Those terms are the whole basis of the charge, which is why the signs matter more than anything else.

If the operator cannot identify the driver, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 lets it pursue the registered keeper in England and Wales, but only on “relevant land”. Schedule 4 applies only where the vehicle was parked on “relevant land” (paragraph 1(1)(a)). If the land is not relevant land, keeper liability is not available at all — however well the operator followed the notice deadlines.

Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, paragraph 3

As things stand, no statutory code is in force. Private operators are bound only by the voluntary codes of the two trade associations and by ordinary contract law. A great deal of advice online states that a statutory code caps private parking charges. It does not, because it never came into force.

We have not found a national rule on how long you may stay in a charging bay once charging has finished, an official list of what private car parks charge for blocking a charger, or any city in our coverage that has withdrawn a free-parking concession for electric cars. Where the rule is local, it is on the sign.

How private parking charges work →

Appealing a private parking charge →

Where people go wrong

• Parking an electric car in the bay without plugging in. The code is about charging, not about the car. An electric car that is not charging is in the same position as any other car.
• Staying put after the plate's hours start. A bay that is open to everyone in the evening can become charging-only in the morning, and the code applies “during restricted hours”.
• Using a permit-holder charging bay without the permit. The sign can reserve the bay for permit holders as well as for charging, and both conditions apply.
• Assuming a hybrid counts. The Regulations give the sign, not a list of qualifying cars. Read the plate and the council's terms.
• Treating a cheap permit as a right to the charger. A free or discounted permit for an electric car is a local concession about price. It does not change the rules for a charging bay.
• Leaving the cable across the pavement. The Highway Code asks you to avoid a trip hazard and to put cables back neatly afterwards.
• Reading a supermarket charge as a council fine. A charge in a private car park is a contractual claim with a different appeal route, and no statutory code caps it.