# Munich: the €1.50 space and the €45 one
Beer at nine in the morning is a breakfast, not a problem
Munich is a village of a million and a half people who dress well and queue properly. September air carries roast almonds and diesel off the Mittlerer Ring, and on the Isar gravel banks office workers lie in the sun at lunchtime with their shoes off. Nobody is in a hurry and nobody is late — the two facts are related, and it takes a few days to stop finding them contradictory.
€11.13 for a litre of water, €45 to store a car you aren't using
Everyone quotes the beer price at Oktoberfest — €14.80 to €15.90 a litre in the tents this year. The sting is the drink for whoever is driving: the official figures put bottled water at €11.13 a litre, lemonade at €12.35. The tent proprietors set those prices. If I am the designated driver I drink before I go in, and I am not being mean about it.
The other one is a car park. Tiefgarage Marienplatz and Tiefgarage Oberanger both run at €6.50 an hour, €45.00 a day. Park at nine, collect at six, and you have spent two Residenz tickets on storing a car you did not drive. A Park+Ride space is €1.50. The convenience is real; it is priced at thirty times the alternative.
Elisabethmarkt, at five on a Thursday
The Viktualienmarkt gets the coach parties. Elisabethmarkt in Schwabing gets Schwabing — same city department, rebuilt from scratch, 23 stalls of produce, fish, cheese, bread and a butcher, plus Turkish and Levantine food, spices and flowers.
Weekdays until 19:00, Saturday until 14:00, closed Sunday. Go at about five on a weekday, when people are buying dinner rather than photographing lunch. Buy cheese at one stall and a Brezn at another and eat at the communal tables. It sits inside a controlled parking zone, so bring coins or the app.
Keep ten euros in coins in the car
This is the one that strands people. Park+Ride machines take coins from 10 cents up and nothing else, and the official Oktoberfest guidance on the open lots says plainly that notes and cards are not accepted. The police pound takes cash or a German Girocard — so the one payment you will be most desperate to make is the one least likely to go through.
Street machines are a lottery. What works: ten euros of coins in the door pocket, and HandyParken München, the city's own app, which takes Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Parking in Munich: Saturday is a working day for the wardens
Low-emission zones in Europe: Umweltzone München
- Foreign plates
- Green sticker compulsory, foreign plates included; the diesel rule applies to them too
- When
- 24 hours, every day
- Fine
- €100; the city publishes €128.50 with fees
- EV
- An electric car still needs the green sticker; it is classed in pollution group 4
Diesel stage 1 (Euro 4/IV and worse) has applied since 1 February 2023 and runs until further notice. Stage 2, which would have banned Euro 5/V diesel, was suspended in July 2023 and formally not implemented in April 2024.
Almost all of inner Munich sits inside a Parklizenzgebiet, a controlled parking zone. Residents park free; everyone else buys a ticket. Outside the zones the kerb is generally free — check the address on the city's Geoportal map rather than judging by how residential the street looks.
Enforcement runs Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 23:00. Saturday is a full charging day, fourteen hours of it, and it catches more visitors than anything else on this page. Only Sunday and public holidays are free.
Ordinary zones are €2.00 an hour, with an €11.00 day maximum where no time limit is signed. The Altstadt is €2.50 from 08:00 to 23:00, and the Hauptbahnhof quarter sits on that rate all day.
The Altstadt also caps the stay: two hours maximum between 08:00 and 19:00, whatever you pay. From 17:00 you can buy a ticket running to 23:00. Elsewhere the limit is set street by street on the tariff plate, so read the plate.
The low-emission zone covers everything inside the Mittlerer Ring and wants a green sticker — see the card above.
Car parks worth knowing
| Car park | Price | EV |
|---|---|---|
| CONTIPARK Tiefgarage Neue HopfenpostHopfenstraße 6, 80335 München | €3.00 per started hour, €17.00 for 24 hours — the cheapest day rate of any central garage we verified. Entry only Mon–Sat 06:30–21:00; you can drive out at any time. | None published for this car park. |
| CONTIPARK Tiefgarage Hauptbahnhof Süd P4Senefelderstraße 7, 80336 München | €3.30 per started hour, €32.00 for 24 hours. Open 24/7, 242 spaces. Roughly half the hourly rate of the Altstadt garages, ten minutes' walk from Karlsplatz. | None published for this car park. |
| CONTIPARK Tiefgarage OberangerOberanger 27, 80331 München | €6.50 per started hour, €45.00 for 24 hours. A Premium bay is €7.50 an hour with a €50.00 cap. Open 24/7, 423 spaces including five XXL bays — useful if the hire car is bigger than you wanted. | 30 points, Type 2 at 11 kW, €0.55/kWh on top of the parking fee. The largest block of charging points in any central garage we checked. |
| CONTIPARK Tiefgarage MarienplatzRindermarkt 16, 80331 München | €6.50 per started hour, €45.00 for 24 hours, same rate day and night. Open 24/7, 265 spaces, nine of them under three metres long. | 20 points, Type 2 at 11 kW, €0.55/kWh plus parking. |
| APCOA Sonnenhof-GarageLandwehrstraße 10, 80336 München | From €4.50 an hour, €35.00 a day. Open 06:00–23:00 only — it does not run overnight, so do not leave the car here after a long evening. | None published for this car park. |
| OperngarageMax-Joseph-Platz 4, 80539 München | Not published online. The operator puts its tariff in a downloadable PDF we could not retrieve, and confirms only that a night tariff runs 18:00–09:00. Read the board at the barrier before you take the ticket. | Not published. |
The cheapest way to park, by how long you stay
| If you stay | Cheapest | Cost | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 hours in the centre | P+R Fürstenried West (U3) | €1.50 | €1.50 for 24 hours and the U3 runs into Marienplatz with no change. Garching is €1.00 but a long ride. Against €45 a day in an Altstadt garage this is the whole argument. |
| …and the cheapest central garage | CONTIPARK Tiefgarage Neue Hopfenpost | €6 | entry Mon–Sat 06:30–21:00 only; exit any time |
| …and the kerb, for comparison | Kerb, Altstadt | €5 | €2.50 an hour in the Altstadt, but two hours maximum between 08:00 and 19:00 whatever you pay. Ordinary zones are €2.00 with an €11.00 day maximum. Saturday is a full charging day, 09:00 to 23:00 — it catches more visitors than anything else. |
| A full day (10 h) | P+R Fürstenried West (U3) | €1.50 | €1.50 for 24 hours and the U3 runs into Marienplatz with no change. Garching is €1.00 but a long ride. Against €45 a day in an Altstadt garage this is the whole argument. |
| …and the cheapest central garage | CONTIPARK Tiefgarage Neue Hopfenpost | €17 | entry Mon–Sat 06:30–21:00 only; exit any time |
| 24 hours | P+R Fürstenried West (U3) | €1.50 | €1.50 for 24 hours and the U3 runs into Marienplatz with no change. Garching is €1.00 but a long ride. Against €45 a day in an Altstadt garage this is the whole argument. |
| …and the cheapest central garage | CONTIPARK Tiefgarage Neue Hopfenpost | €17 | entry Mon–Sat 06:30–21:00 only; exit any time |
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Towed in Munich: It has gone to Riem, and it is open at three in the morning
Either the city's parking enforcement or the police can order a tow, and either way the car ends up in the same place. Ring the police first and establish that it was towed rather than stolen — that is the city's own advice.
The pound is the Kfz-Verwahrstelle der Polizei at Thomas-Hauser-Straße 19, out in Riem on the far eastern edge. Budget a journey, not a walk.
The good news is unusually good: for illegal parking the pound releases cars around the clock, seven days a week. Held for any other reason and it is Monday to Thursday 07:15–15:45, Friday 07:15–14:45.
The tow is published as "from €200", rising with distance and with day or night. No daily storage charge is published, so I am not going to invent one — ask when you ring.
Bring passport, licence and the vehicle registration document. In a hire car that document is in the glovebox of the car you cannot open, which is why the call to the rental company comes before the taxi to Riem.
If your car has disappeared
- Who took it
- Two bodies can order a tow — the Kommunale Verkehrsüberwachung, which is the city's parking enforcement, and the police. Whoever ordered it, the car ends up in the same place: the police vehicle pound. The city's own advice is to ring the police first and confirm the car was towed rather than stolen, then deal with the pound.
- Phone
- Police citizens' line — ring this first: +49 89 2910 1910
Police vehicle pound, Thomas-Hauser-Straße: +49 89 429301
Emergency, only if you think the car was stolen: 110 - Collect it at
- One pound for the whole city: the Kfz-Verwahrstelle der Polizei at Thomas-Hauser-Straße 19, out in Riem on the far eastern edge. If you want to argue about the ticket rather than collect the car, that is a different address — Kommunale Verkehrsüberwachung at Implerstraße 11.
- Hours
- Towed for illegal parking: the pound releases cars round the clock, seven days a week. Held for any other reason: Monday–Thursday 07:15–15:45, Friday 07:15–14:45 only.
- What it costs
- The city publishes "from €200" and says the figure moves with how far the car was towed and whether it happened by day or night, so treat €200 as the floor. No separate daily storage charge is published, so we are not quoting one. Pay in cash or by German Girocard — credit cards are not listed as accepted.
- Bring
- Passport or ID card, driving licence, and the vehicle registration document. In a hire car the registration is in the glovebox of the car you cannot open, so ring the rental company before you set off. Someone collecting on your behalf needs written authorisation from the registered keeper plus their own ID.
EV charging in Munich: €0.55 a kWh in the middle, 300 kW on the way out
Two central garages publish a price, which in Germany is rarer than it should be: Tiefgarage Oberanger has 30 Type 2 points and Tiefgarage Marienplatz has 20, both 11 kW at €0.55/kWh, parking on top. Slow, central, predictable — and I will take a slow charger that states its price.
For a real charge, go south to the EnBW Schnellladepark Unterhaching: 20 high-power points, up to 300 kW. EnBW advertises "from 39 ct/kWh" and sends you to its app for the site price.
On the street you mostly meet SWM, with roughly 1,400 public points. Scan the QR code and pay by card, but SWM publishes no ad-hoc per-kWh price, so you learn the cost afterwards. German E plates park free for three hours in the controlled zones with a parking disc on display; a foreign hire car does not.
Where to charge
- Tiefgarage Oberanger — Oberanger 27, 80331 München. 30 Type 2 points at 11 kW, €0.55/kWh — a price the operator actually publishes, which is rarer than it should be. Parking is charged on top at the garage's normal rate.
- Tiefgarage Marienplatz — Rindermarkt 16, 80331 München. 20 Type 2 points at 11 kW, €0.55/kWh, open 24 hours. One of the few places you can charge in the dead centre at three in the morning.
- EnBW Schnellladepark Unterhaching — Grünwalder Weg 33, 82008 Unterhaching. The proper fast charger for this trip: ten Alpitronic units giving 20 high-power points up to 300 kW, just south of the city. EnBW advertises "from 39 ct/kWh" and sends you to its app for the price at a given site, so check before you plug in.
- EnBW Ladestation München-Freimann — Maria-Probst-Straße, 80939 München (at the BAUHAUS store). Eight points in the north of the city, with the bays laid out so you can charge while still hitched to a trailer. EnBW names the street but no house number, so navigate to the store rather than an address.
Free parking in Munich: €1.50, and the U3 goes straight to Marienplatz
P+R Fürstenried West is €1.50 for 24 hours at the southern end of the U3, and the U3 runs into Marienplatz without a change. That sentence is most of the argument, and it is where I leave the car.
P+R Neuperlach Süd is also €1.50, on the U5 and S7 — the one if you arrive from the south-east on the A8 or A99. P+R Feldmoching is €1.50 on the U2 and S1, and the S1 is the airport line, so it is the cheap way to collect someone from a flight. P+R Garching-Forschungszentrum is €1.00 at the top of the U6; the ride in is long, and that is the trade.
Free or nearly-free spots
P+R Fürstenried West — €1.50 a day, U3 straight to Marienplatz
A 24-hour ticket costs €1.50 at the southern terminus of the U3, and the U3 runs into Marienplatz with no change. Against €45 a day in an Altstadt garage, this is the whole argument of this page in one line.
P+R Neuperlach Süd — €1.50 a day, U5 and S7
Also €1.50 for 24 hours, with both the U5 and the S7. The obvious choice if you are coming in from the south-east on the A8 or A99 and would rather not take the car inside the Mittlerer Ring at all.
P+R Garching-Forschungszentrum — €1.00 a day, U6
The cheapest we verified, €1.00 for 24 hours, at the northern end of the U6. It is a long ride into the centre, so this one is for people arriving from the north on the A9 who are happy to trade twenty minutes for the rest of the fee.
P+R Feldmoching — €1.50 a day, U2 and S1
€1.50 for 24 hours on the U2 and the S1. The S1 is the airport line, which makes this the one to use if you are collecting someone from the airport and do not fancy airport parking prices.
Free kerbside outside the controlled zones
The Parklizenzgebiete cover inner Munich but stop well short of the city limits; beyond them street parking is generally free and unrestricted. Check the specific address on the city's Geoportal zone map rather than guessing from how residential a street looks.
Hotels with free parking
- Marias Platzl Hotel — Mariahilfplatz 4, Au Map. Not free, but cheap for Munich: the hotel's own site gives €16.00 a day in the underground garage, entered from Am Herrgottseck, with two EV connectors and cables available at reception
- Hotel Europäischer Hof — Bayerstraße 31, opposite the Hauptbahnhof Map. The hotel's own site quotes €24 a night, in the courtyard or the underground car park, subject to availability on arrival — it cannot be booked in advance
- Platzl Hotel — Sparkassenstraße 10, Altstadt Map. The hotel's own site quotes €30.00 a day in the public underground garage directly beneath it, subject to availability, with two Tesla connectors
⚠ The small print on 'free' parking
- Saturday is not a day off. Enforcement runs Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 23:00 — fourteen hours on a Saturday, right through the evening. Only Sunday is free.
- The Altstadt has a two-hour ceiling, not just a price. Between 08:00 and 19:00 you may not park on the street in the old town for longer than two hours, however much you feed the machine.
- During Oktoberfest a large residential ring around the Theresienwiese is closed to visitor parking, and the official guidance is blunt: cars left there are treated as obstructions.
- Getting a towed car back is a cash-and-paperwork problem as much as a money one. The pound is in Riem on the eastern edge, it takes credit cards nowhere in its published list, and it wants the registration document that is locked inside your car.
- Two of the city's signature viewpoints are shut. The Olympiaturm has been closed since 1 June 2024 with no reopening expected before October 2027, and tower ascents at the Neues Rathaus are suspended until further notice. Ticket sites still sell the view; the towers are still closed.
Take these places with you
Every place on this page as a file you can keep — car parks with their prices, the free and park-and-ride spots, the chargers and the pound.