Nashville, TN Parking Rules: Towing & Impound Rights (2026)

Chapter 6.80 applies "within the area of the metropolitan government," which Metro Charter Sec. 1.02 defines as the total area of Davidson County. That makes the chapter county-wide rather than city-limits-wide: a tow from a lot in Belle Meade, Berry Hill, Forest Hills, Oak Hill, Ridgetop, or the Davidson County portion of Goodlettsville sits inside the same licensing scheme as one from downtown Nashville, because those smaller cities kept their charters at consolidation but remain inside the metro area the Charter describes. Section 6.80.020 also reaches an out-of-county wrecker service once it picks up or delivers inside that area more than five times in any thirty-day period.

Two moments decide what a driver pays. Section 6.80.550(G) requires every licensee towing from public or private property to post a notice on each wrecker, on the boom or rear in letters at least two inches high, reading "FEE TO DROP VEHICLE BEFORE DEPARTING: $75.00," with a C-Class drop fee of $175.00 and $140.00 for a C-Class drop of a vehicle over seven thousand pounds. If the owner reaches the car before it is connected, the same subsection says no fee at all may be charged. If the owner arrives after connection, the vehicle may not be towed and the owner owes no more than fifty-five dollars in lieu of towing, with "connected" defined down to the attachment of the safety chains.

Rates split by who ordered the tow. A police-directed tow of a vehicle under seven thousand pounds GVWR to the Metro impound lot is capped at $155.00 inside the I-40/I-24/I-65 loop, $165.00 out to and including the Briley Parkway, White Bridge Road, Woodmont Avenue and Thompson Lane Circle line, and $175.00 from beyond that ring to the Davidson County line, with no add-on for dollies, trailers, lifts, go-jacks, slim-jims or mileage. Storage on a police tow runs $30.00 a day for a car after the first two hours. A trespass tow from private property is capped separately at $155.00 for a vehicle under seven thousand pounds, with storage at forty dollars a day and nothing for the first two hours. Section 6.80.550(I) allows a one-time $35.00 administrative processing fee once a car has sat twenty-four hours, plus $25.00 for each additional owner or lienholder notification, and § 6.80.550(J) permits a $40.00 charge for wrapping a salvageable vehicle whose interior is exposed to the elements.

Storage conditions are prescribed rather than left to the operator. Under § 6.80.575 the lot must be inside Davidson County, fenced or enclosed at least six feet on all sides, and lit during darkness to an average maintained two foot-candles at grade. Someone with authority to take payment and release a vehicle must be on duty seven days a week from six a.m. to ten p.m., and between ten p.m. and six a.m. must be available within a maximum one hour of a request. A sign at least twenty-four by twenty-four inches, white with red lettering, must be posted at the impound lot entrance nearest the office stating the towing charge, the daily storage rate, that no storage fee may be charged if the vehicle was held under two hours, and the two forms of payment accepted with no additional fee for paying by card. Section 6.80.190 fixes those options as cash, debit card or a major credit card, with the drop fee payable by cash or major credit card.

Section 6.80.195 governs the sign that authorizes a trespass tow in the first place: permanently affixed at the property's intended ingress and egress, no smaller than twenty-four inches high by eighteen wide, red lettering on a white background, mounted between forty-two and seventy-two inches off the ground, carrying a $75.00 maximum booting fee line and the towing company's 24-hour phone number, and inspected by Transportation Licensing Commission staff within seven days of installation with a compliance decal affixed.

Two date limits are worth stating plainly. Section 6.80.550(K) hands the commission authority to set any fee in that section as of July 1, 2022, so the printed dollar figures are the ordinance text rather than a guarantee of the current rate card, which § 6.80.555 requires each wrecker to carry in full view. And § 6.80.415 still cross-references Tennessee Code Annotated Title 55, Chapter 16, a legacy reference: Tennessee's towing statutes now run through the MOTION Act at T.C.A. §§ 55-31-204(c) and 55-31-207, which supplies the owner and lienholder notice that Metro's $35.00 administrative fee is meant to offset and the personal property release that § 6.80.575(E) defers to state law on.