Montgomery County, MD Parking Rules: Towing & Impound Rights (2026)

Montgomery County regulates private-property towing under Chapter 30C, Motor Vehicle Towing and Immobilization on Private Property, which the Office of Consumer Protection and the Montgomery County Police Department enforce jointly. Section 30C-3(a) directs the County Executive to set maximum rates by method (2) regulation and to review them at least every two years. The rates in force appear in COMCOR 30C.02.01.03: $170.00 covers attaching the vehicle, towing it to a storage site and the first 24 hours of storage for a vehicle rated 8,000 pounds GVWR or less, with storage after that at $35.00 per 24-hour period. Vehicles rated 8,001 to 20,000 pounds run $285.00 plus $50.00 per period, and vehicles over 20,000 pounds run $570.00 plus $100.00 per period. Nothing else may be billed unless the vehicle owner expressly asked for it, and no storage may be charged for time before the vehicle actually reaches the storage site. Because Maryland's trespass towing law applies its statewide tow and storage caps only where local law has not set figures of its own, these county numbers, not the state defaults, are the ceiling in Montgomery County.

Getting the vehicle back is regulated in detail. Under Section 30C-9 the storage site must be within 15 miles of where the tow started, must sit inside Montgomery County unless the nearest site is within one mile of the county line, must be brightly lit, and must stay open with personnel on site for redemption 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company must take cash or a traveler's check with reasonable identification and the two most widely used major credit cards, and it must let the owner, a secured party or the insurer of record inspect the vehicle and remove unattached personal property at no charge. A receipt on an Office-approved form must show the amount paid, the violation that triggered the tow, the photograph of that violation required by Section 30C-5(c)(9), and a note telling the owner the Office can explain how to press a claim in small claims court.

Signage and authorization rules are what most disputes turn on. A sign must be at least 24 inches high by 30 inches wide, must be readable from every parking area and every vehicle entrance, and in a lot with more than 45 spaces there must be one sign for each 45 spaces. Signs go up at least 24 hours before any towing, and each must state the maximum the vehicle owner can be charged and name every towing company hired for that property. On residential property the tower may instead attach a violation notice and wait 48 hours; on a commercial lot the wait is 24 hours; either way a repeat of the same violation on the same property within the previous 180 days needs no further notice. A vehicle may be towed without the property owner's express written authorization only between 2:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. or when it blocks a marked fire lane or access, and outside those same hours a tow company may not monitor, patrol or surveil a commercial property looking for vehicles at all. Vehicles displaying a valid handicapped plate or disabled parking permit are off limits under Section 30C-7 unless a police officer authorizes the tow or the vehicle blocks a fire lane, and no vehicle may be towed solely for failure to display current registration until 72 hours after a notice of violation is placed on it.

Police tows follow a separate track. COMCOR 30C.00.02 carries the police tow-list schedule, whose editor's note dates the fees to August 1, 2005: $113.00 for an ordinary complete tow, $195.00 for 10,001 to 20,000 pounds and $308.00 above that, with towing and winching fees doubling during a declared state of emergency or the county snow emergency plan. Storage caps out at $63.00 for a vehicle released from the Abandoned Vehicle Section lot and $230.00 from a tower's own lot, and a vehicle may not sit on the tower's lot longer than 120 hours. A separate Chapter 30D, the Vehicle Recovery Act added by 2026 L.M.C., ch. 15 and written to expire four years after its effective date, spells out the identification that redeems a police-impounded vehicle.