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Parking Enforcement

Due to limited parking on campus, parking regulations are strictly enforced 24 hours a day, including weekends, holidays, finals weeks, quarter breaks and summer. For more information, view the campus traffic and parking regulations.

Permits are required. While the majority of our parking lots require permits Monday-Friday, 7:00 AM-8:30 PM, some lots also require permits for extended hours. It is important to read the signs at the entrance to the lot to know which permit is necessary.

For the purpose of enforcing parking permit requirements at UC Santa Cruz, virtual parking permits will be accepted, where applicable, in lieu of displaying a physical parking permit. A Virtual Parking Permit means that the license plate of the vehicle being parked serves as the valid permit authorizing parking in specified locations, for a specific time. On the UCSC campus, this is done at specified locations through a Pay By Phone parking application (i.e. ParkMobile), or an electronic pay machine servicing a specific location. For more information on Pay By Phone, or electronic payment systems and their associated parking options at UC Santa Cruz, please contact the Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) department at (831) 459-4543.

Parking maps and a list of parking regulations are available in the TAPS Sales Office in H-Barn.

Parking Citations: Citation payments must be received on or before the due date to avoid an additional $35.00 penalty fee. Citations can be paid or contested in the following manner:
In person with either cash or check at the Police Department.
By mail to UCSC Parking Citations, c/o Parking Citations Service Center, P.O. Box 11923, Santa Ana, CA 92711-1923. When making a payment by mail, please make your check out to UCSC Parking Citations and include the citation and vehicle license plate number on the check.
Credit card payments can be made online at: http://www.paymycite.com/ucsc. Payments are also accepted by phone between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, by calling (888) 300-9966. There is a $3.95 per citation processing fee for credit card payments, both by phone and online.
If you receive a citation and wish to contest it, you must do so within 21 days from the date the citation was issued.
You may contest your citation online at www.paymycite.com/ucsc. Administrative Review forms are also available at the Police Department or you can submit a written explanation by mail to: UCSC Parking Citations, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064. For questions regarding citations, you may call (831) 459-4373, Monday through Friday between 9:00am - 4:00pm, excluding holidays. Effective November 1, 2019.

**Vehicles with five or more parking citations over 21 days old are subject to being immobilized with a "boot." Once booted, all outstanding parking fines must be paid prior to the boot being removed, plus an additional $25.00 boot fee. Outstanding parking fines may be paid by cash, money order or credit card, and the boot fee must be paid in cash. If your vehicle has been booted, please contact our office for further information before paying by credit card.

Please click here for our payment policy.

Office Hours

Our front office hours are open Monday through Friday, 9:00am-4:00pm, and closed on weekends and holidays. Police Officer and Dispatch services are not affected by these adjusted office hours, with Public Safety staff on duty 24/7.

Loading/Time Zones

There are no "in-and-out privileges" in loading/time zones. If you require additional time for loading or unloading, you should call the Police Department for approval at (831) 459-2231 with your vehicle's location, description and license number. No more than 30 minutes will be approved in any time zone or other parking space. If you are loading or unloading, you must call for approval before you leave your vehicle. If you need to temporarily park in a non-marked parking area to load or unload, you will need to call the Police Department immediately to avoid receiving a citation.

"Move-In/Out" permits are available from your college housing office. Fire lanes and other restricted or reserved spaces WILL NOT be approved for parking for short periods of time.

Fine Reduction Program

Under our "fine reduction" program, once per fiscal year (July 1 through June 30), if you have a valid parking permit applicable to the space where you received the violation, and either forget to display it or display it improperly, your citation fine amount may be reduced. In order to take advantage of this program, bring your valid permit meeting the requirement for the violation, along with the citation to our office during business hours. After verifying that you have not already used your one annual void and that the permit is valid for the violation on your citation, we will reduce the bail amount for the citation. As stated above, you must do this within 21 days from the date the citation was issued. Once a citation has gone late, it is no longer possible to have it reduced, reviewed or dismissed for any reason.

As of July 1, 2016, the bail amount on a fine reduction will be $20.00.

Please know that for each citation issued, we have a fixed cost of $16.18. The breakdown of assessed costs per citation are the following:

Criminal Justice Facilities Fund: (GC 76000(b)) (GC76101), $1.50

Courthouse Construction Fund: (GC76000(b)) (GC 76100), $1.50

County General Fund: (GC 76000(c)(d)): $2.00

Immediate and Critical Needs Account: (GC 70372(b)), $3.00

State Court Facilities Fund: (GC70372(b)), $1.50

Trial Court Trust Fund: (GC 76000.3), $3.00

TAPS surcharge: $3.00

Processing fee through our 3rd party vendor $0.68

These costs are prior to being assessed the Equipment or Registration Assessment:

Equipment Assessment: (CVC 40225) 50% max of fine

Registration Assessment: (CVC 40225) 50% max of fine