The General Council of Bucharest decides today whether electric and hybrid cars will continue to be free of charge in the parking lots of the Capital City Hall

The General Mayor, Ciprian Ciucu, proposed a draft decision for the cancellation, from May 1, of free parking in the City Hall of the Capital for electric and hybrid cars. The project is on the agenda of the General Council meeting on Thursday, April 2.

• The general councilors can vote on the project in the form proposed by the general mayor or make amendments. The project can be adopted or rejected.

“Decision of the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest no. 706 of 22.12.2022 regarding the free use of public general utility parking lots on the territory of Bucharest by the owners of electric and hybrid cars registered in the municipality of Bucharest, as well as repealing the Decision of the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest no. 140/26.05.2016 regarding the free use of public utility parking lots, is repealed general on the territory of the municipality of Bucharest by hybrid and electric cars”, it is stated in the project initiated by the mayor Ciprian Ciucu.

The General Mayor motivates the initiative by the fact that the number of hybrid and electric cars has exceeded the number of parking spaces that the Capital City Hall has.

“The data provided by the operator of the parking service reveals that the number of electric and hybrid vehicles registered in the computer system to benefit from free of charge has exceeded the total number of paid parking spaces managed by the public service operator. This situation generates a critical operational blockage, the request under the free regime practically canceling the offer of places for the rest of the paying users and for residents,” the specialist report states.

Unlimited free parking has led to the use of parking spaces as long-term parking spaces, drastically reducing the turnover rate of vehicles, the document also states.

“The introduction of a tariff regime differentiated by zone is the only method by which fair access to the public domain can be ensured and the release of seats after the completion of the real need for travel”, the specialist report also states.

The general mayor also claims that the objective of encouraging the purchase of non-polluting vehicles has been achieved through the exponential growth of the car fleet of this type.

In the public debate phase, the project collected more than 300 comments from citizens, over 90% asking the Capital City Hall NOT to remove the gratuitatae, in order to encourage the reduction of pollution.

What do the political groups in the General Council say?

USR will propose maintaining the free charge only for electric cars.

“We will propose to the General Council that we keep the free charge only for electricity. We will see if it will be supported by the other political groups. However, with this project we cover 20% of the parking lots in Bucharest. The parking company manages somewhere around 20% of the parking lots in Bucharest. The broader discussion is about the division between Sectors and PMB of parking management. There is a serious discussion and, unfortunately, the cart has been put before the ox!, he told HotNews.ro Cristian Didiță, USR general adviser.

PSD is for giving a discount for electric or hybrid cars.

“For electric cars, I do not agree to cut free of charge at all. If it is such a large number and we see that they take up too many parking spaces, we can find a solution in the sense of a discount, a reduction, but not to cut everything. In hybrids, it depends on the hybrid, there are some that have 10% autonomy and the rest run on gasoline and others that run much longer, 2-3 specialists must come and say how it is better. But let's not cut it off everywhere”, he declared for HotNews.ro Hazem Kansou, the group leader of PSD councilors.

REPER supports the general mayor's version.

“We will vote on the project in the form proposed by the mayor general, to cut the gratuities for electric and hybrid cars, because the financial situation of the Capital City Hall is a very difficult one. But after the budget is balanced, Mr. Ciucu promised that we will have another discussion on the subject,” Cătălin Teniță, general adviser from REPER, told HotNews.ro.

How many electric and hybrid cars are registered in Bucharest

According to the data provided by the General Directorate of Permits and Registrations, at the request of HotNews.ro, at the end of 2025, 1,691,056 cars were registered in Bucharest. Of these, 25,425 are electric and 170,785 hybrid.

In terms of age, of the nearly 1.7 million cars, 203,100 are less than 2 years old, 235,455 between 3 and 5 years old, 872,187 over 12 years old, 314,590 between 16 and 20 years old, and the rest over 20 years old.

Also on the agenda of Thursday's General Council meeting is the project aimed at canceling free parking and certain cultural activities for journalists.

“Decision of the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest No. 305 of 31.10.2016 regarding the provision of free access for journalists to the programs/projects of public cultural institutions/services of local interest subordinated to the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest, as well as the free use by them of public parking lots of general utility on the territory of the Municipality of Bucharest, as well as the parking lots related to the institutions/services, is repealed public culture of local interest subordinated to the General Council”, it is stated in the draft decision initiated by mayor Ciprian Ciucu.

“The number of vehicles registered to benefit from free parking has increased constantly, putting a major pressure on parking spaces belonging to the public and private domain of the Municipality of Bucharest. It can no longer be justified to maintain unlimited free parking without affecting the general public's access to the city's infrastructure,” the document states.