To park on the street in a Kurzparkzone (short-term parking zone) in Vienna, you need to fill out and display a Parkschein (prepaid parking voucher). Here’s how…
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The prepaid parking vouchers
(A Parkschein displayed behind a car windscreen)
Almost all areas in Vienna are now covered by one giant Kurzparkzone.
So, if you’re not using the phone-based parking payment system, you need Parkscheine for almost everywhere in the city except for some areas on the outskirts.
You obtain these prepaid parking vouchers from, for example, newsagents / tobacconists (Trafik), public transport ticket offices, ticket machines in subway stations, some petrol stations, and the Austrian automobile associations ARBÖ and ÖAMTC.
The 15-minute purple Parkschein is free, but the others cost as follows in 2025:
- up to 30 mins (red voucher): 1.30 Euro
- up to 60 mins (blue): 2.60 Euro
- up to 90 mins (green): 3.90 Euro
- up to 120 mins (yellow): 5.20 Euro
Get all the formal requirements and information from the official pages of the Vienna city authorities, and find helpful tips and photos below.
The 15-minute Parkschein
(The purple Parkschein for quick stops)
This purple voucher allows you to park for up to 15 mins in a Kurzparkzone without paying. All you have to do is fill in the time of your arrival as follows:
Stunde: This is where the hour goes. Use the 24-hour clock system, e.g. 15 for 3pm. If it’s before midday, put a zero in the first box, then the hour, e.g. 09.
Minute: Surprise! This is where you put in the minute. Again, if it’s before ten past, put a zero in the first box.
(How your voucher should look like if you parked at six minutes past seven in the morning)
Important: once the 15 minutes is up, you have to leave. You can’t (unfortunately) combine this voucher with paid vouchers or additional 15-minute vouchers.
This “free” Parkschein is intended for those stopping briefly to, for example, pick up kids from school or make a quick purchase in a store.
Tip: all Parkschein markings must be clear and permanent. No pencils.
The paid vouchers
(An example of the 2-hour Parkschein from cheaper times)
You can display combinations of the paid vouchers to reach whatever parking duration you require, as long as you don’t exceed the maximum allowable stay.
So to park for 2 hours you could use one blue and two red vouchers. Or four red vouchers. If you display more than one voucher, put the same starting time on each one.
The paid vouchers consist of four columns for you to mark the relevant date and time you started parking.
The first column is marked “Monat” (month) and here, well, you have to mark the current month with a cross, like this:
(The first month is January (Jänner), the second is February (Feber), the third March (März) and so on; you can mark the right month easily even without knowing the meaning of the German words)
The second column (“Tag”) is for the day of the month, which you also mark with a cross. Write out the year in the box marked “Jahr”, too:
(Remember 2019? Before pandemics and inflation. Happy days indeed.)
You put the start time in the third and fourth columns.
The third column is for the hour (“Stunde”) and uses the 24 hour clock. The fourth column is for the minutes (“Min.”), where you only have the choice of 0, 15, 30 or 45.
This means you mark the time as the start of the next quarter hour.
So if you park at 7.06am, you would mark the voucher as hour 7 and minute 15. If you park at 1.55pm, you would mark the voucher at hour 14 and minute 0 (= 2pm).
(I filled out this voucher at 6.25pm)
Cunning readers will wonder whether you then need a Parkschein at all, if the following quarter of an hour is already outside the restricted hours of the Kurzparkzone. Unfortunately, you still need to mark (and thereby use up) a voucher in this case, too.
Where do you put them?
Place the Parkschein where it can be seen clearly by any official checking cars, i.e. put it just behind the windshield.
For more information on the Parkschein system, see my overview on parking.