🅿️ Rates & Tolls

Parking in Brisbane

Parking is the main argument against driving in Brisbane. Between CBD rates, hotel charges and electronic-only tolls, a car in the inner city costs more than most visitors budget for.

✍️ By Frank Adam Burns 📅 Updated 2026📍 Brisbane, QLD

Brisbane is an easy city to drive in and an expensive one to park in. The honest advice for most visitors staying centrally is to skip the car entirely, use the fifty-cent network, and hire a vehicle only for the days you actually leave town.

CBD Parking

On-street parking in the CBD is metered, time-limited and competitive. Rates are highest in the core during business hours and drop in the evenings and on weekends, when some streets become free — but the signage governs and it varies street by street. Read it rather than assuming.

Commercial car parks are widespread. Early-bird rates, where you enter before a morning cut-off and exit after an afternoon one, are substantially cheaper than hourly and are the option locals use.

Weekend and evening flat rates at commercial parks are usually good value compared to weekday hourly.

Hotel Parking

The cost visitors most often miss. Inner-city hotels frequently charge $30 to $60 a night for parking on top of the room rate, and a few have none at all.

Ask the rate rather than whether parking exists, and check whether it is on site or in a nearby commercial park. On a week's stay this is a meaningful number that does not appear in the room comparison.

Park and Ride

The practical answer if you have a car but are spending the day in the city. Park and ride facilities sit at outer train stations across the network, and from there any journey into the city costs fifty cents.

Spaces at the busier stations fill early on weekdays. On weekends they are generally straightforward.

Tolls

Brisbane's motorways and tunnels are tolled, and the system is entirely electronic — there are no cash booths. You cannot pay at the roadside.

The tolled routes include the airport link road, the Clem7 and Legacy Way tunnels and the Gateway Motorway. If you drive one without an arrangement in place, the toll operator bills the registered vehicle owner afterwards.

For a hire car, that means the rental company pays and then charges you, generally with an administration fee per toll or per day. Ask how tolls are handled when you collect the vehicle — the admin fees can exceed the tolls themselves on a short trip.

Where Parking Is Genuinely Hard

South Bank on a fine weekend — the Cultural Centre car park fills and the surrounding streets are limited.

New Farm on Saturday mornings during the Powerhouse farmers market. West End around Davies Park at the same time.

Kangaroo Point clifftops at sunset, which is a small car park with a large audience.

Mount Coot-tha at sunset and on weekends. Eat Street Northshore on weekend evenings.

In every one of these cases the CityCat, a bus or a train reaches the same place for fifty cents, which is the point.

Accessible Parking

Accessible parking permits issued by other Australian states are recognised in Queensland, and international permits are generally accepted — carry documentation.

Designated bays are available across the CBD, at the Cultural Centre, South Bank and the major parklands, and the Mount Coot-tha lookout has accessible parking close to the viewing area.

The Alternative

Every bus, train and ferry journey in South-East Queensland costs fifty cents, and the CityCat reaches most of the places where parking is worst.

For a visitor staying in the inner city, a week of unlimited public transport costs a few dollars and one night of hotel parking costs more than that. If you are arriving by air and staying centrally, a fixed-fare transfer plus the fifty-cent network is usually cheaper and simpler than a hire car.

Common Questions

Keep Planning

See also our guide to accessible parking and permits.