Someone who has stood next to your windscreen. This site is written first-hand by a working Edinburgh parking attendant — the person on the other side of the ticket.
Edinburgh’s parking rules are not actually complicated — but the way they are communicated is. The official information is scattered across council pages, legal orders and PDFs, written for compliance rather than for a person circling Marchmont at 5:25pm wondering if the single yellow line is about to switch off. Meanwhile, most of what you read on forums is guesswork, and most tickets I have issued in my career went to people who were not chancers — they simply misread a sign.
So this site does one thing: it explains Edinburgh parking the way I would explain it to a friend. Which streets, which hours, which codes, what the sign actually means, and what happens if you get it wrong — from someone who knows, because issuing and explaining these rules is my day job.
A street-by-street checker covering more than 2,600 Edinburgh streets, an interactive zone map, plain-English guides to every neighbourhood and landmark, a contravention code decoder, and an honest guide to paying or challenging a PCN — including when I would tell you to just pay it.
Everything here is checked against the council’s enforcement documentation and, more importantly, against what actually happens on the street. When something changes — hours, prices, zones — I update the page. If you spot anything wrong or out of date, tell me and I will check it and fix it. Accuracy is the whole point of this site; being corrected is a favour, not an insult.
No — and that is deliberate. This is an independent guide with no affiliation to the City of Edinburgh Council. Official processes (paying a PCN, formal challenges, permits) always happen on edinburgh.gov.uk, and I link you there whenever it matters. What I add is the part the official pages cannot: first-hand experience and plain English.
The guides and tools are free and always will be. The site earns its keep through a coffee tip jar, and a personal PCN Appeal Review service where I look over your ticket myself and give you an honest verdict. No paywalls on information that keeps people from being fined.
Edinburgh Parking Guide · Written first-hand by an experienced enforcement officer in Edinburgh
Zones, hours and permits can change — always check the sign on the street. Back to the full guide