Parking Citation Collection Benchmarks: How Many Tickets Actually Get Paid

Most published parking citation programs eventually collect somewhere between about 70% and 86% of the tickets they issue, and much less than that in the first 90 days. New York City reports that 66.6% of parking tickets issued in fiscal 2025 were paid within 90 days. Toronto saw 57.8% of its 2024 tickets paid by year end and projects about 83% eventually. Pennsylvania auditors put the Philadelphia Parking Authority at 86% over five years. The one private enforcement company we found that published a figure said it collected about 70% on its own.

This page collects those published numbers in one place, with a source for every row, then explains why the rates differ and how to measure your own program the same way.

Published payment and non-payment rates

Read the period column carefully. A rate measured 90 days after issue and a rate measured years later are different numbers, and some sources count cancelled tickets while others do not.

We looked for comparable figures from San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Denver, and several university parking annual reports. Those agencies publish issuance and adjudication counts, but we did not find a paid or unpaid share in a source we could verify, so they are not in the table. UK figures are keeper requests to the DVLA, which the RAC notes are not the same as tickets issued.

Why collection rates differ so much

The spread from 47% to 86% is not random. Five things explain most of it, and a private operator controls some of them.

Consequences that follow the vehicle

The highest final rates belong to programs that can tie an unpaid ticket to something the driver needs. Toronto says many 2024 tickets will be paid in later years when owners renew their plates with the Ministry of Transportation, which is how 57.8% at year end becomes a projected 83%. In Chicago, ProPublica found that two unpaid tickets can trigger a boot and the city can start license suspension after 10 unpaid parking tickets. Those consequences raise collection, and ProPublica's ward data shows they also fall hardest on the neighborhoods least able to pay, which is why payment rates ranged from 47% to 75% by ward.

Time since issue

Every program collects in a curve. New York's fiscal 2025 numbers show 41.3% of violations paid within 30 days, another 19.4% between 31 and 60 days, and 7.5% between 61 and 90 days. Philadelphia's most recent year stood at 74% when auditors checked, against 86% for the five-year period. Comparing your 30-day rate to someone else's final rate will make you look worse than you are.

How the ticket reaches the owner

A ticket under a wiper blade can blow away, get ignored by a borrowed car's driver, or never reach the person who pays the bills. New York's report splits the two: 70.0% of camera violations, which are issued to the registered owner rather than left on the car, were paid within 90 days in fiscal 2025, against 66.6% of parking tickets. Toronto likewise expects late payments to arrive at plate renewal, when the debt reaches the registered owner directly. Anything that gets the notice to the registered owner, or lets a driver find it again by plate, closes part of that gap.

Escalation and the cost of waiting

Late fees and published escalation steps give drivers a reason to pay early rather than wait out the program. The Philadelphia street-cleaning violation costs $31, and the Inquirer notes additional fines can build up if it goes unpaid. Where waiting costs nothing, the curve flattens.

Evidence and the contest rate

Weak tickets get contested and thrown out, and people who think a ticket was unfair are slow to pay it. Toronto received screening requests on about 17% of its 2024 tickets (15.11% online and 2.00% in person). In Chicago's 49th Ward, 10% of tickets were contested and 60% of those were thrown out. Photos, plate checks against permits and paid sessions, and a clear appeal path reduce both numbers.

Private versus municipal authority

A private operator usually cannot place a registration hold or suspend a license. Its notice is a private charge, and collecting an unpaid one means escalation it is allowed to use, a collection agency, or small claims court. The clearest illustration is from Ottawa: before the city let private lots issue city tickets in 2012, one enforcement company said it collected about 70% of its tickets directly and another 5% through a collection agency, and it switched to city tickets for the better collection method. Rules on private charges vary by state and province; see private parking enforcement laws by state.

What a private operator should expect

Private operators publish almost nothing, so any benchmark is thin. The honest planning range is below the municipal finals. Cities that reach 83% to 86% do it with plate renewals, boots, and license suspensions behind them. The Ottawa company's 70% direct and about 75% with a collection agency is the best published private anchor we found, and it dates from 2011.

Campus programs sit between the two. William & Mary reported 13% unpaid on non-warning citations in 2011 and 23% unpaid in 2014-15, and a campus can place holds on student accounts, which a typical private lot cannot. The Irish councils show how wide the range gets even among public bodies with the same powers: 47% in Louth and 85% in Kildare in the same year.

If you model revenue, run it at more than one collection rate rather than assuming the best case. The free parking citation revenue calculator lets you test a range. For the causes behind a low rate and the fix for each, see why parking tickets go unpaid.

A worked example

The gap between rates is bigger in dollars than it looks in percentages. Take a lot that writes 1,000 citations a year at $50 each. At a 70% collection rate it collects $35,000. At 85% it collects $42,500. The $7,500 difference comes almost entirely from the drivers who need a reminder, a late step, or an easier way to pay, which is why the levers in the previous section matter more than the fine amount. At a 13% unpaid rate, like William & Mary's 2011 non-warning citations, the same lot would collect $43,500.

How to measure your own collection rate

A collection rate is only useful if you measure it the same way every month. These are the definitions we suggest, built from the way the public reports above count.

1. Group citations by issue month (a cohort). Do not divide this month's payments by this month's tickets, because payments arrive on older tickets too.
2. Report the share of each cohort paid within 7, 30, and 90 days. The 7-day number tells you whether payment is easy. The 30-day number shows whether your escalation step works. The 90-day number is the closest match to New York's published figure.
3. Report two denominators: all citations issued, and citations excluding those voided or cancelled. Toronto's 83% overall versus 99% excluding cancelled tickets shows how much this choice changes the headline.
4. Track the contest rate (appeals filed divided by citations issued) and the share of appeals upheld. A rising contest rate usually points to an evidence or signage problem before it shows up as unpaid tickets.
5. Track the warning-to-citation ratio if you issue warnings. William & Mary issued warnings on 36% of its 2014-15 citations; leaving warnings in the denominator would make its paid rate look much lower than it was. Count warnings separately.
6. Track dollars as well as counts. Unpaid tickets skew toward the larger fines; at William & Mary in 2011 about 13% of tickets were unpaid but about 19% of dollars charged before Aug. 22 were.

Common measurement mistakes

The most common mistake is dividing payments received this month by citations written this month. Payments on older tickets inflate the number in slow months and deflate it in busy ones. The second is quietly dropping voided tickets from the denominator, which makes the rate look better without anything improving. The third is reading too much into a single small lot: at 40 citations a month, two or three late payers move the rate by several points. Look at three-month rolling cohorts for small lots, and compare a lot to its own history before comparing it to a city.

If you warn before citing, a warning-first policy changes both the contest rate and who ends up with a paid citation, so note when you changed it.

Lotably platform figures

Lotably processes citation payments for operators through their own Stripe accounts, which means paid-within-7, 30, and 90-day rates can be measured across many lots at once. We plan to add anonymized, aggregated platform figures to this page in future updates, with the method stated alongside them. We have not published any yet, and none of the numbers above come from Lotably. Operators on Lotably can already see their own collection rate by lot in the reporting dashboard.