City of Santa Monica Parking Permits: Costs, Eligibility, and How to Apply

Santa Monica parking permits come in several forms — residential, visitor, employee, senior beach, temporary, and overnight oversized-vehicle — and the one you need depends on where you live or work and what you drive. The most common is the preferential parking permit for residents, which starts at $40 for your first vehicle and lets you park year-round in your assigned zone.¹ Each program has its own eligibility rules, fees, and renewal schedule, so matching the permit to your situation is where most of the work lives.

Which Permit You Need

The city’s permit system covers a handful of distinct situations.

Residential permits are tied to a specific vehicle registered at your Santa Monica address. There is no cap on how many a household can buy, but the price climbs with each additional car.¹
Visitor permits are permanent passes (not daily or weekly) that work in any vehicle. Each household is limited to two.¹
Employee preferential parking is available to businesses and commercial property owners inside a preferential zone, subject to available street space, an approved trip-reduction plan, and a willingness to share off-street parking with neighboring businesses. The business must sit within 1,500 feet of a block covered by the zone.²
Day Lot permits go to employees of businesses on the Santa Monica Pier or Santa Monica State Beach, provided the business holds a valid city license.³
Senior Beach permits give discounted beach-lot parking to California residents age 62 and older.⁴
Temporary permits are issued first-come, first-served when an activity at an adjacent property needs exclusive use of on-street spaces.⁵
Overnight oversized-vehicle permits are required for any trailer, or any vehicle exceeding eight feet wide, eight feet tall, or twenty feet long, parked on a city street between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.⁵

One useful quirk: visitor permits carry the same parking rights as residential permits. If your registration isn’t in your name at your Santa Monica address — company car, shared vehicle, recent move with DMV paperwork still pending — you can buy up to two visitor permits instead.¹

What Permits Cost

Residential preferential permit fees scale up with each additional vehicle at the same address:¹

First residential permit: $40
Second residential permit: $50
Third residential permit: $92
Fourth and beyond: $144 each
Visitor permit: $70

Permits bought in the first half of a zone’s cycle cost the full amount; permits bought in the second half are discounted.¹ The city does not issue refunds, credits, or exchanges, so timing matters if you’re buying late in a cycle.

The Senior Beach permit is $30 per year.⁴ Online payments carry a flat $2.50 processing fee; in-person card payments carry a 2.95% surcharge; cash or check avoids both.

Eligibility and Documents

For a residential preferential permit, bring three things:¹

A valid government-issued ID, such as a driver’s license or state ID.
A California vehicle registration showing your name and current Santa Monica address.
Proof of residency dated within the last 30 days — a utility, cable, or internet bill, or a bank, credit card, or mortgage statement — in your name at your Santa Monica address.

All documents must be in your name; the city does not accept applications submitted by proxies. If your registration doesn’t yet show your Santa Monica address, the two-visitor-permit route is the workaround.¹

For a Senior Beach permit, you need a California driver’s license or state ID showing you are 62 or older, plus a California registration in your name. Commercial vehicles, company-owned vehicles, RVs, and any vehicle larger than eight feet wide, eight feet tall, or twenty feet long are not eligible.⁴

How to Apply

Online

The city’s Customer Web Portal is the fastest route. Upload your documents and submit; processing takes three to five business days. Once you’re approved and have paid, you can print a 30-day temporary permit while the permanent one is mailed to you, which usually arrives within two weeks.¹

Watch the clock on lost mail. If your permanent permit never shows up, you have 30 days from the purchase date to contact the city at parking@santamonica.gov. Miss that window and you’ll have to buy a new permit from scratch.¹

In Person

The Parking Operations Office is at 1444 4th Street in the GoSaMo Center. Counter hours are 8:00 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday and every other Friday.¹ Bring the same documents, in paper or on your phone. Walk out with your permits in hand instead of waiting for the mail. Check the city’s parking page for which Fridays are open before you drive over.

Senior Beach permits can also be mailed in starting February 15 each year, with a $30 check payable to “City of Santa Monica.”⁴

Zones and Renewal

Santa Monica’s preferential parking network is divided into five zones, each on its own annual cycle:¹

Zones 1 and 3: October 1 through September 30
Zone 2: July 1 through June 30
Zone 4: April 1 through March 31
Zone 5: January 1 through December 31

Your permit only works in the zone tied to your address, and it must be displayed at all times. The city does not auto-renew, so when your cycle ends it’s on you to renew through the portal. If you’ve moved within the same zone and still hold active permits, you can’t renew online — email parking@santamonica.gov so staff can update your record first.¹

Disabled Placard Exemption

A valid California disabled-person placard or disabled-person license plate lets you park on streets that otherwise require a residential or preferential permit, with no Santa Monica permit needed.⁶ Santa Monica’s own enforcement guidance confirms the exemption.⁷ It’s statewide law, so it applies in every zone. Other posted restrictions, like time limits or no-parking signs, still apply, so read the signage.

Oversized Vehicles Overnight

Between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., any trailer (hitched or not) and any vehicle wider than eight feet, taller than eight feet, or longer than twenty feet needs an overnight oversized-vehicle permit to park on a Santa Monica street or alley.⁵ These permits are issued in residential areas on application to the city. If you drive a large work truck or tow a trailer home, this is the rule people miss until a ticket shows up on the windshield.

1
City of Santa Monica. How to Obtain a Preferential Parking Permit
2
City of Santa Monica. Santa Monica Municipal Code 3.10 – Preferential Parking for Employees of Businesses and Commercial Property Owners
3
City of Santa Monica. How to Obtain a Day Lot Parking Permit
4
City of Santa Monica. How to Obtain a Senior Beach Parking Permit
5
City of Santa Monica. Santa Monica Municipal Code 3.12 – Traffic Regulations
6
California DMV. Disabled Person Parking Placards and Plates
7
City of Santa Monica. Holiday Parking Enforcement