Regional parking agency parking.brussels cancelled no fewer than 177,000 of the fines it issued in 2025 following a complaint, according to figures provided by mobility minister Elke Van den Brandt (Groen). Parking.brussels carries out about 44 million parking checks each year, mostly using scan-cars with automatic number plate recognition technology. In 2025, it issued more than 2.2 million fines. In more than 15% of cases (or 346,000 cases), the recipient of the fine lodged an appeal. The new data shows that the person fined was
proved to be in the right in more than half of those appeals. “This is partly due to our tolerance policy and partly to mistakes,” said Van den Brandt. “But whatever the case, it’s too many. We are working hard with parking.brussels to make improvements.” The tolerance policy includes, for example, the 10 minutes a driver has after parking to ensure everything is in order, and the 25 days a resident has to renew a resident’s permit that has already expired. “We’re currently considering the
introduction of a proactive IT solution to inform users earlier about the approaching expiry date of their resident parking permit and to reduce the number of fines issued during this grace period,” said a parking.brussels spokesperson. The top category for the overturned fines, accounting for 28%, is human error by parking attendants, followed by exemption cards that have just expired (22%), errors made in good faith, such as an incorrectly entered number plate (8%), administrative errors (7%) and IT bugs (4%). Ixelles accounted for 27%
of fines, making it the municipality with the most parking fines in Brussels. Parking.brussels attributes this to the low-traffic zone on the Chaussée d’Ixelles, which leads to many offences. Schaerbeek follows in second place with 23% of the fines. Earlier this year, the Brussels Ombudsman’s Office levelled sharp criticism at parking.brussels. Among other things, it highlighted unintentional offences leading not to a single fine but to a whole series of fines, and confusion regarding municipal boundaries. The parking agency has responded with a new software
system, a new customer portal and improved maps to clarify municipal boundaries. “Few agencies take feedback as seriously as parking.brussels,” Van den Brandt said. The Brussels parliament’s mobility committee is considering whether to call on parking.brussels to provide further explanation.
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