Key West is four miles long and almost all of what you came for sits in the bottom left corner of it. That corner was laid out before cars and has not been widened since, so the parking question is not “how much” — it is whether you should have driven in at all.
The one number that ruins a day
The Old Town Parking Garage has a posted clearance of 7 feet 2 inches.
That is the fact worth carrying, because it is the one nobody prints and the one that cannot be solved in the moment. A rental SUV with a factory roof rail clears it. The same SUV with a rooftop cargo box does not. Neither does a cargo van, and neither do several full-size vehicles that rental desks hand out when they are short. Vehicles longer than 20 feet are directed to the top level. RVs, trailers and boats are not permitted at all.
If you are towing anything, or driving anything tall, the garage is out and you are looking at surface lots — which is a different and worse problem, because the surface lots are small.
What it costs
| Where | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Old Town Parking Garage, 301 Grinnell St | $6/hr, $48/day | 300 spaces. Open 24 hours |
| Key West Bight (Caroline Street) lot | $6/hr, $48/day | 120 spaces |
| Conch Republic (Greene Street) lot | $6/hr | 136 spaces, 10-hour max |
| Fire Station No. 2, Angela & Simonton | $6/hr | 84 spaces, 10-hour max |
| Butler Blvd & Angela St | $6/hr | 75 spaces, by Truman Waterfront Park |
| Mallory Square, 412 Wall St | $7/hr, $48/day | 100 spaces, 10-hour max |
| Half Shell Raw Bar, 231 Margaret St | $6/hr | 19 spaces |
| Ferry Terminal, 100 Grinnell St | $6/hr | 19 spaces, 10-hour max |
| Simonton Street Beach | $6/hr | 10-hour max |
| Jackson Square, 600 Thomas St | $6/hr | Evenings and weekends only |
All figures are the city’s own, plus tax, as posted in September 2026. Mallory Square is the only lot that charges $7, and it is the one people drive to first because it is the name they know — a dollar an hour more for a hundred spaces you are competing for with everyone who had the same idea at sunset.
The Ferry Terminal lot has nineteen spaces. Treat it as a rounding error rather than a plan. If you are coming on the Key West Express from Fort Myers Beach, your car stays at its terminal there: there is no car ferry to Key West.
Why the garage is the answer even when it is not the closest
The city states that paying at the Old Town garage includes free travel on the City Routes buses for you and everyone in your vehicle — not a discount, but included, for the whole car.
One caveat before you count on it. The city has since replaced those fixed City Routes with an on-demand service, and its garage page still uses the older wording without saying whether the free ride covers an on-demand trip. It is worth a call to 305-809-3861 if it matters to your day — more on that, and on what replaced the routes, on getting around without a car.
That changes the arithmetic. The garage is a ten-minute walk from the north end of Duval and further from the south end, which sounds like a reason to look for something closer. But a car that is parked once for $48 and a bus that costs nothing beats circling for a $6 space you will have to feed or move within ten hours. The free transit does not extend to the Lower Keys Shuttle, only the Key West city routes.
Pay at the automated station, which takes credit cards, debit cards and coins only. There is no bill slot.
Street meters
The city prices its lots on its website and its street meters on the meters themselves. The one on-street rate it publishes is Smathers Beach, on South Roosevelt Boulevard: $5 an hour, Monday to Saturday 8 a.m. to midnight and Sunday noon to midnight, with no overnight parking. For any other street meter, the rate is on the meter, and the Passport Parking app is the one the city points you to for paying it.
The residential permit — $39.13 for a year, four free hours a day in five named lots — comes up constantly in searches. It is a resident program. It is not a way for a visitor to park cheaply.
A place to stay with its own parking
The cleanest version of “park it once” is a bed with a space attached. Booking.com keeps a list of Key West places to stay that offer parking, linked below. Three things to check before you book one:
- Whether the parking is free, and what it costs, which is on each listing. The city’s garage is the comparison: $48 a day plus tax.
- The vehicle limits. A hotel lot sets its own; the city’s garage is 7 feet 2 inches, and the city keeps RVs, trailers and boats out of its lots and off its streets.
- The license, if it is a vacation rental. A rental of under 30 days needs a city license, and the city tells visitors to confirm one before sending payment. The where-to-stay page has the check.
If you are driving in for the Dry Tortugas ferry, which checks in at 7 a.m. at 100 Grinnell Street, the hotels near the ferry page has the garage, the 19-space terminal lot and the hotels within a walk of the boat.
The honest version
If your trip is Old Town and the boat trips that leave from it — the Dry Tortugas ferry sails from 100 Grinnell Street, the same street as the garage — do not bring a car into Old Town. Park it once and leave it. The island is small enough that the only thing a car buys you inside Old Town is somewhere to keep your bags, and the only thing it reliably costs you is $48 a day and twenty minutes of circling at the worst possible time, which is sunset.
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