Paying for Parking in San Francisco? Make Sure You’re Using the Right Apps

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officials said the agency wants the two new apps to ultimately make driving and parking in the city a lot more convenient. “I’m not trying to give you a ticket — that’s not what I’m about,” said Viktoriya Wise, director of streets for SFMTA.

“We’re trying to make sure that you basically know when you have to pay, that you pay, that you keep your time limits and that it’s easy for you to do so,” she said.

• Jump straight to: Do I have to use these apps to pay for my parking in San Francisco?

How to pay for parking in San Francisco on your phone

ParkMobile’s interface comes in green. HotSpot comes in red. And besides a few other small differences, each app does the exact same thing: process your payment for parking time in San Francisco.

You do not need to download both apps, Wise said. But having two apps available gives drivers more options, she said. “It’s really up to the customer which app they prefer and which interface they prefer.”

One way you can decide which app to download: Which other cities in California do you regularly drive and park in, or are you planning to visit soon? ParkMobile is already used by dozens of cities in California, including Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Hotspot Parking is not used as extensively within the state, but it is much more popular among Canadian cities like Vancouver.

Once you’ve downloaded one of the two apps, you’ll enter your license plate along with your credit or debit card information. Payments made through these apps are subject to industry data security standards, Wise said.

“Credit card information is protected in the app, which is not something that SFMTA sees,” she said.

If you’re trying to buy parking time but you see that the app isn’t processing your payment, “please call the app and work it out with the app,” Wise said. You can contact the following phone numbers:

• ParkMobile’s customer service line: 877-727-5457
• Hotspot Parking’s customer service line: 1-855-712-5888

I paid for my SF parking on the app. Now what?

Once you’ve made the payment for your parking, from there, “you do not have to worry,” Wise said. “Everything is sent over to our parking control officers so they know that you have paid for your meter.”

SFMTA officers will be checking the license plates of cars they see parked in paid spots and cross-referencing them to the list they have of vehicles that have purchased parking time on HotSpot or ParkMobile.

That’s why it’s important to make sure that the license plate you have listed on your app belongs to the car you’re paying for (so if you’re using your friend’s car, make sure that you actually aren’t paying for your own car with a different license plate).

When there’s less than 15 minutes left on your car’s parking meter, you will receive a notification on your phone letting you know. If you need to extend your parking time, you can add more time directly on the app without having to physically return to your car — but be mindful that some spots have certain time limits, even if you’re paying.

And if you’re visiting San Francisco for a concert or a special event, remember that many parking spots operate with “demand-responsive pricing,” which means that how much you pay for an hour of parking can change based on how busy the streets are that day. This includes most blocks in the city’s Financial District, but also popular commercial corridors like Valencia Street in the Mission District and Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District.

Do I have to now use these apps for all paid parking in San Francisco?

No. SFMTA is still keeping physical meter machines available throughout the city, where you can use debit or credit cards.

On some streets, you can also pay using a digital kiosk that manages multiple spots at the same time.

I paid with the app, but I still got a ticket. What can I do?

According to SFTMA’s Wise, it is very unlikely that you would get a ticket if you paid for enough time on your phone using one of these apps. But if that were to happen, she said, “Do not pay it.”

“You can absolutely contest it and just provide the receipt that you’ve paid for that vehicle and for that space,” she said.

The back of your ticket will have instructions on how to contest the citation. You can fill out a form online and also check the status of your protest claim as SFMTA processes it. When you fill out the form, you can include screenshots from the app that show your payment.

“The app has all the receipts for your payment and when you paid, how you paid — so you can pull that up,” Wise said.