Alexandria Parking Tickets: Pay, Contest, or Ignore

An Alexandria parking ticket gives you two deadlines that matter: 10 calendar days to request an administrative review if you want to contest it, and 30 days to pay before a $25 late fee is added to the balance.¹ Miss both, let citations accumulate, and the city can boot or tow your vehicle and place a hold on your Virginia DMV registration.

Look Up Your Ticket First

If you no longer have the paper citation, or you want to confirm your balance before deciding what to do, use Alexandria’s online citation portal. You can search by ticket number or by license plate, and the portal lists every open ticket tied to your vehicle.²

Check the issue date on the citation itself. That date starts both deadlines, and people routinely lose the chance to contest because they assume they have a month.

How to Pay

Alexandria accepts payment through several channels:

Online by credit card through the city’s parking citation payment page.³
By mail, with a check or money order sent via U.S. Postal Service to the address listed on the city’s payments page.⁴
In person at the West End Finance Office, 4850 Mark Center Drive, Suite 2011, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.⁴
After hours, through the 24-hour drop box at 100 N. Pitt Street, Bankers Square.⁴

Paying within 30 days of the issue date keeps the $25 late fee off your balance and keeps the ticket from counting toward the city’s boot threshold.

How to Contest the Ticket

You have 10 calendar days from the issue date to request an administrative review through the city’s Online Citation Adjudication system. The Parking Adjudication Office handles the review. You submit a short written explanation along with any supporting documents through the online portal.⁵

Filing a dispute costs $10. If the citation is dismissed, that fee is waived. If the violation is upheld, the $10 is added to your fine.¹

Useful supporting evidence includes timestamped photos of your vehicle’s position relative to signs or curb markings, ParkMobile session reports, pay station receipts, vehicle registration documents, police reports, and doctor’s notes.¹

If the Administrative Review Doesn’t Go Your Way

You can take the matter to the Alexandria General District Court, Traffic Division. You need to appear in person, and a judge decides the case. If the court upholds the citation, you owe the original fine plus court costs, which typically run about $63.¹ Weigh your evidence before requesting a hearing, because a losing court challenge is meaningfully more expensive than paying the original ticket.

What Happens If You Ignore the Ticket

Thirty days after the issue date, a $25 late fee is added automatically.¹ The fee is flat and applies per citation, so if you have several unpaid tickets, the late fees compound.

Alexandria participates in the Virginia DMV’s sanctions program, which lets the city block your vehicle registration renewal until you clear your parking debts.⁵ Long-term delinquency can also be sent to a third-party collection agency, which may affect your credit. Any balance sent to collections has to be paid in full before the city will restore your account.

Boot, Tow, and Impoundment

Three or more delinquent citations on a single vehicle can trigger immobilization with a wheel boot or a tow to the city’s impound lot at 5249 Eisenhower Avenue.¹ At that point the costs climb quickly: a $215 impound fee, plus $50 per day in storage charges that begin the day after impoundment. Storage fees accrue on weekends but not on city-observed holidays.⁶

To get your vehicle back, you need to pay everything owed to the city in full at pickup: towing charges, all outstanding parking tickets, and any boot fees. Bring current, valid registration or a title. If someone else is retrieving the vehicle for you, that person needs a notarized authorization from the registered owner. Any ticket balance already sent to collections must also be paid off before release.⁶

The impound lot is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed on weekends and city holidays. It takes cash (exact amount only) and Visa, MasterCard, or Discover.⁶ Because the lot is closed on weekends while storage fees keep running, a vehicle towed on Friday afternoon can accumulate more than $300 in charges before you can pick it up Monday morning.

1
City of Alexandria, VA. Common Parking Violations
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Alexandria Police Department. Patron Portal – Tickets
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City of Alexandria, VA. Payment Type – Parking Citations
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City of Alexandria, VA. Payments
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City of Alexandria, VA. Parking Tickets
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City of Alexandria, VA. Vehicle Impound