Bellingham, WA Parking Rules: Overnight Parking (2026)

Bellingham does not have a general citywide overnight on-street parking ban for properly registered passenger vehicles. Two main constraints still bound how long an overnight parker may stay. First, BMC 11.33.060 caps continuous on-street parking at seventy-two hours, regardless of time of day - the rule expressly applies to motorhomes, travel trailers, boat trailers, utility trailers, cars, trucks, vans, buses, motorcycles, and motor scooters. When a complaint is filed, a parking technician places an orange warning tag on the vehicle, and the owner has seventy-two hours to move it before it may be impounded under BMC Chapter 11.18. Second, downtown Bellingham paid parking hours under BMC 11.36.030 (Parking meters - Payment and time limits) are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, so a vehicle parked downtown overnight from 6 p.m. through 10:59 a.m. the next paid day is not in violation of the meter rule. In the Residential Parking Zones established under BMC 11.38 (around Sehome, York, and other neighborhoods near Western Washington University), it is a parking infraction to park between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, except holidays, on any street within an RPZ unless the vehicle displays a valid residential parking permit or visitor's parking permit for that zone - so overnight and weekend parking in RPZ streets does not require a permit. Distance setbacks under RCW 46.61.570 apply at all hours (fifteen feet from a fire hydrant, twenty feet from a crosswalk at an intersection, no parking on sidewalks, in intersections, or in front of public or private driveways), and RCW 46.55.085 authorizes law enforcement to tag a vehicle on the right-of-way and impound it if not moved within twenty-four hours. Enforcement: Bellingham Parking Services (360) 778-7780.