Discount parking for electric cars from 2023

Dutch municipalities can charge lower parking rates for electric cars and cars that run on hydrogen from next year. The Cabinet is amending the Municipalities Act to boost emission-free driving in yet another way, State Secretary Vivianne Heijnen of Infrastructure said in a letter to parliament.

“This gives municipalities an extra tool to work on clean air and less traffic noise in their city or town. I think that’s important,” Heijnen said.

Because the parking situation differs from neighborhood to neighborhood, municipalities can decide for themselves whether and where to charge for parking and how much. Next year, they can also give a discount to cars that run without emissions.

“Depending on the situation in their municipality, they can choose for themselves whether they want to use this,” Heijnen said.

The discount only applies to cars that emit no exhaust gases at all while driving, like fully-electric and hydrogen-powered cars and delivery vans. Economical or hybrid vehicles are excluded.

Currently, almost 300,000 of the 9 million cars in the Netherlands are emission-free. The Cabinet expects that number to increase to about 2 million by 2030. This is another measure toward the Netherlands' ambition to only have emission-free cars on the roads by 2050.