Parking Permits

No, parking permits are not required on the UW Tacoma campus. They are completely optional. For more information on alternatives, see our information on hourly parking and U-PASS.

Permit sales open one week before the start of every academic quarter and close after 3 weeks. We suggest that you purchase early, as many popular options sell out quickly!

Students can purchase permits for Court 17 parking garage, Whitney lot, and Pinkerton Turnaround (evenings only) here on campus. We also have three options for Community Partner lots that are a quick walk to campus. See all student options here.  

Court 17 residents need to purchase their parking permits through Housing & Residence Life. These permits are a little bit different than regular Court 17 parking permits.

• Overnight parking is allowed
• Permits are purchased through your student account
• Quarterly fee is $342 for the 2023-2024 academic year

If you did not get your parking permit through the housing application process, you will need to request it from Housing & Residence Life. Email your request to court17@uw.edu and be sure to include your vehicle make, model, color and license plate information.

While residents can't purchase their own permit through the Parking Portal, they CAN manage the vehicles in their account and change which vehicles are linked to their permit. See this page for instructions on using the Parking Portal.

All permits are purchased in the Parking Portal.

Learn how to navigate the Parking Portal here.

Learn all about Employee Parking Permits here.

No. Chapter 31 benefits allow qualified students to purchase their parking permit at a discounted rate. These benefits do NOT guarantee a student will receive a permit.

All permits are purchased in the online Parking Portal. You are strongly encouraged to purchase your permit ASAP, as supplies are limited and they do sell out! Sales open one week before the quarter begins.

To take advantage of these benefits:

• Get approved by the VA office for Chapter 31 benefits
• Wait at least 24 hours after approval
• Purchase your permit through the Parking Portal, following the directions

When viewing the parking portal, permit options should show a price of $0. If you do not see this during your purchase, please call us at 253.692.5926 or email us at transit@uw.edu so that we can troubleshoot this with you.

It depends on the parking lot where you will be parking!

Physical permits are currently required in our Off-Campus Community Partner lots, which are managed by Republic Parking System. They can be very strict about having your physical parking permit visible at all times, so make sure you print out your confirmation email and place it on your dashboard when you park until you receive your physical permit in the mail. This can be done for free at the UW Y or in the IT Center.

If you have not received your physical permit within 1 week of placing your order, please email us at transit@uw.edu and we will get back to you with an update on your order status.

On-Campus Permit holders do not need a physical pass because we use License Plate Recognition - make sure to keep your vehicle information updated in the Parking Portal!
 

• Check the Parking Portal periodically. Another student may change their mind and cancel their permit. In that case, the permit will just go back into the pool of available permits that show up in the Portal.
• If it has been over a week and your desired permit has not come back in stock, sign up for the wait list. We only use the wait list if our early-quarter occupancy numbers are lower than expected (in other words - if there are fewer cars parked in our lots than we anticipated over the first 2 weeks of classes). If we think we can issue some additional permits without causing overcrowding in the parking lots, we will offer those permits to folks on the wait list.
• Want to carpool to campus? We don't have separate carpool permits, but you can always split the cost with your carpool buddy and add the vehicles that will be used for carpooling inside the Parking Portal! Send us an email at transit@uw.edu and we'll make sure your joint permit is linked correctly.
• Try transit! The U-PASS allows you to ride the bus anytime, anywhere without paying fare — it's even good on the Sounder Train! Learn more about public transit.

Sorry, no! There is a strict limit of one permit per customer.

No, your permit only allows you to park one vehicle in the designated parking lot at a time.

No. Parking and traffic on the UW Tacoma campus are regulated by WAC Chapter 478-118, which states that motorcycles and scooters may not park in stalls that are not designated as motorcycle/scooter parking (WAC 478-118-270).

If you received some kind of citation or warning for backing into a parking stall, it is likely because your front license plate is missing or placed in a way that it does not get picked up by our parking enforcement. If you do not have a license plate mounted on the front of your vehicle, do not back in.

Unfortunately, no. If we only sold one permit for each stall, our lots would not be utilized very effectively! We are mandated by the state of Washington under WAC Chapter 478-118 to "allocate limited parking space for the most efficient use". To do this, we monitor the occupancy rates in all of our parking lots throughout the year and use that data to determine how many permits we can issue for each lot. Our goal is to find the sweet spot where we can issue enough permits to avoid having too many stalls sitting empty without it getting so full that it is impossible to find parking during peak hours.

Luckily, we do a pretty good job at this! The busiest time for parking is at the beginning of Autumn quarter. After a couple of weeks, things tend to slow down.