Your Car Got Towed in L.A. Here Is Where It Went, What It Costs, and the Two Clocks That Started Without You

A city tow bills $220 for the first hour and $68 a day after that, plus a $115 fee the garage collects for City Hall. Before you pay any of it, the yard owes you an itemized invoice, your belongings back for free, and — if you get there fast enough — one charge it cannot add.

The empty space is the worst place to stand and think, because the billing has already started and it does not care how long you spend deciding it was probably stolen. In the City of Los Angeles a police-directed tow bills $220 for the first hour, $109 for each additional half hour, and $68 a day for storage, and City Hall adds a $115 release fee that the tow yard collects on its behalf. Those are the posted 2026 numbers at Hollywood Tow, one of the city's Official Police Garages; we compared them against the schedule posted by Ross Baker Towing, another one, and the release fee and the tax line match to the ordinance number.

So the useful thing to do in the first ten minutes is not to grieve. It is to work out which of four different things happened to your car, because each one puts you under a different set of rules, with different deadlines and different people to argue with. You are wondering whether it matters that much. It does: one of the four gives you a right to have the car handed back for nothing, and another one lets you sue for double.

Step 1: Four things could have happened. Only one of them is a theft.

A city officer had it towed. LAPD officers and LADOT traffic officers send vehicles to what the city calls Official Police Garages — 17 of them, per the Police Commission's own OPG Section page. This is the most common outcome and the rest of this guide is mostly about it.

A private property owner had it towed. A shopping-center lot, an apartment building, a restaurant's fifteen spaces. Completely different law — the state Vehicle Code, not the city's — and the rules are far friendlier to you than most people realize. Skip to the private-lot section below.

It is still there, wearing a boot. If you have five or more delinquent parking citations, the city immobilizes rather than tows. The Parking Violations Bureau's own page says a self-release boot can be released by the owner over the phone at 855-288-2642, or in person at a Public Service Center.

It was stolen. Rule this in last, not first, and note one thing before you do: the state lets a city waive its administrative charge on proof that the vehicle was stolen at the time it was removed. That is in Vehicle Code section 22850.5, the same section that authorizes the fee in the first place, and it is worth knowing about before you are standing at a counter being told the $115 is non-negotiable.

Step 2: Find the car

For a city tow, the number is 1-866-561-9742, the Customer Care Hotline listed on the city's own towed-vehicle page, which runs 24 hours. The representative issues a Vehicle Release Order and, in the city's phrasing, will "provide you with the name and address of the Official Police Garage (OPG) where your vehicle is being stored." Have the plate and state of registration, or the VIN.

Two things on that page are easy to miss and expensive to miss. If the tow was for delinquent citations, the fines get paid at the city's Customer Service Center, not at the garage. If it was for a registration problem, you will need "proof of current registration or a temporary operating permit" before anyone releases anything — which means the DMV errand comes before the tow-yard errand, not after.

Step 3: Understand why, because the why sets the deadlines

Nearly every routine city tow runs through one of four subdivisions of Vehicle Code section 22651, and we read the section to pull the thresholds out, because the thresholds are the part people guess at:

(i) — five or more unpaid parking tickets. Not one, not two. Five notices of parking violation the owner has not answered within the required time.

(k) — 72 or more consecutive hours in the same spot. The statute reaches a vehicle "parked or left standing upon a highway for 72 or more consecutive hours in violation of a local ordinance," and in California traffic law "highway" means the street in front of your building. This is the one that catches people who go out of town.

(o) — registration expired more than six months. The section says "in excess of six months," which is a different and much later line than the one your renewal notice implies.

(p) — the driver was cited for driving without a valid license under section 12500 or one of the 14601 series. This one takes the car at the roadside, with the driver standing there.

Step 4: The bill, itemized

Hollywood Tow's posted schedule, effective January 1, 2026, is the city's schedule; the garage's own page says Official Police Garages "are required by the LAMC to collect the above fees for the City of Los Angeles" and sends rate questions to the city's Office of Finance. Every line below carries two numbers, because the garages post a lower rate for payment by means other than a credit card:

Tow, first hour: $220, or $215. Each additional half hour: $109, or $106.

Storage, per day: $68, or $66. Not per 24 hours from the minute of the tow — per day, which is why a Friday-night tow and a Monday-morning pickup is a three-day conversation.

Vehicle release fee: $115. This is the city's own charge, not the garage's. Ross Baker Towing's page cites the authority by number — "Los Angeles City Ordinance #169128" — and directs fee complaints to the City Clerk at 213-485-3988.

Then a 10% Parking Occupancy Tax on the storage, under city ordinance 165949, which both garages post. And if the car is electric, an EV surcharge of $220, or $215.

Run the arithmetic on an ordinary bad weekend — one hour of towing, three days of storage, the release fee, the tax — and a car that was parked legally on Thursday costs about $550 to get back on Monday. That is the number to hold in your head when you are deciding whether to drive out there tonight or in the morning. Drive out tonight.

Step 5: What the yard owes you before it takes a dollar

This is the section nobody reads, and it is the one that saves money. Vehicle Code section 22651.07 is a list of things a towing or storage business must do, and it applies whether the tow was ordered by a police officer or a landlord.

Your belongings come out free, before you pay anything. The section entitles a vehicle owner to "receive his or her personal property, at no charge, during normal business hours." The car stays until the bill is settled. The car seat, the laptop, the medication and the work tools do not.

Inside the first 72 hours, there is no lien fee. The same section gives you the right to "retrieve his or her vehicle during the first 72 hours of storage and not pay a lien fee." A lien fee is a separate line item from towing and storage, and 72 hours is the whole window in which it does not exist.

An itemized invoice comes before payment, not after. The statute requires "a clear, itemized, and detailed explanation" of the charges, handed over before you pay — including the hourly or per-item rate used to calculate the tow, the daily storage rate, the times of service, and the identity of whoever requested the tow. That last field is the one to read twice on a private-lot tow.

Cash, an insurer's check, or a valid bank credit card. All three, at your choice. A yard must also publicly post a document the statute names the "Towing and Storage Fees and Access Notice," and hand you a copy on request.

Inspection is free. You may look at the vehicle at no charge, and so may your insurer, during normal business hours.

The enforcement is real but small: a violation exposes the operator to civil liability of up to twice the charges, capped at $500 per vehicle. Small enough that the compliance depends on you knowing the list.

Step 6: What to bring

Ross Baker Towing's posted release requirements are the standard set: the make and model, the plate or VIN, a driver's license or government photo ID, and proof of ownership — "Current Vehicle Registration, Certificate of Ownership or DMV deposit of fees print out." A vehicle on a police hold needs a release form from the impounding agency before the yard can hand it over at all, so ask on the phone whether there is a hold before you drive anywhere.

Hours are the garage's, not the city's, and they are not the same hours. That yard releases vehicles 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, but releases valuables only 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. If your Saturday errand is really about the thing in the glove box, call first.

Step 7: The two clocks, and the hearing you are entitled to

Thirty days. The city's towed-vehicle page states it flatly: "You must pay all parking fines, as well as towing and storage fees, within 30 days. After 30 days your vehicle may be lien sold." A car worth less than the accumulated storage is a car the storage will eventually take.

Ten days. Under Vehicle Code section 22852, notice of the storage must be mailed or personally delivered to the registered and legal owners "within 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays," and the owner has ten days from the date on that notice to ask for a post-storage hearing — in person, in writing, or by telephone. The hearing itself has to happen within 48 hours of the request, weekends and holidays excluded.

What the hearing decides is narrow and worth understanding before you request one: whether there were adequate grounds to store the vehicle. It is not a forum for arguing that the fee is too high. But if the grounds are not established, the section puts the towing and storage bill on the agency that ordered the tow, not on you. Note also, from section 22850.5, that a city may charge a fee for the hearing only if you requested it in writing, and only to the person who requested it — and that a legal owner (the lender on the title) cannot be required to request a hearing as a condition of getting the vehicle released.

If a private lot took it, you are under different law — and it favors you

Two sections govern this, and both give you leverage that a police tow does not.

Section 22953 forbids towing a vehicle from private property serving a business establishment "within one hour of the vehicle being parked." The exceptions are the obvious hazards — within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, in a fire lane, blocking an entrance or exit, or in a space marked for disabled parking — and the rule does not apply to residential parking or to hotel and motel spaces clearly marked for specific rooms. Everywhere else, a car hooked at minute forty is a violation, and the remedy in the statute is not a refund. The property owner "is civilly liable to the owner of the vehicle ... for two times the amount of the towing and storage charges."

Section 22658 carries the rest of it:

The signs are specified down to the inch. Not less than 17 by 22 inches, lettering not less than one inch high, at each entrance, prohibiting public parking, stating that vehicles will be removed at the owner's expense, and carrying the towing company's telephone number. A lot that towed you without that sign has a problem.

Someone had to call the police within the hour. The property owner must notify the local traffic law enforcement agency within one hour after authorizing the tow — by telephone, or by the most expeditious means available if a call is impracticable. Which means there should be a record of your car's removal, made the same afternoon.

If you catch it in the lot, it is yours, free. On request from the owner or the owner's agent, the towing company "shall immediately and unconditionally release a vehicle that is not yet removed from the private property and is in transit." Immediately, and unconditionally, and at no charge.

If you catch it hooked up, it is half. Once the vehicle is coupled to the truck but before it has left the property, the company may charge "not more than one-half of the regular towing charge." Running down the stairs is worth roughly a hundred dollars in this city.

Cash or credit, and a ceiling on the rate. Storage facilities must accept a valid bank credit card or cash, and post that all valid cards are taken. A towing charge is excessive under the section if it exceeds either the rate that agency charges for law-enforcement-directed tows or the rate the CHP has approved for that jurisdiction — which gives the numbers in Step 4 a second job as a benchmark.

Where the complaint goes, and the three tows nobody in the city will investigate

The Police Commission's OPG Section, at 100 West First Street, Room 147, handles "the regulation of towing, storage and all charges levied by the OPG" and investigates complaints about the care and disposition of vehicles in a garage's possession. Its number is 213-996-1270. The same unit runs investigations into non-permitted operators — the page calls them "Bandit Tow or Predatory Tow."

Then the sentence to read before you spend a week on a complaint: the section "does not investigate tow complaints that originate from tows on freeways, outside city limits or verified AAA dispatched tows." A freeway tow is the CHP's world. A tow in Santa Monica or Inglewood or unincorporated county belongs to that agency. And a tow you or your insurer summoned through the auto club is a contract dispute, not a city one. For a private-lot tow, section 22651.07 points complaints about a public tow back to the law enforcement agency that ordered it — and for a private one, the leverage is the double-damages clause, not a hotline.

The part that is genuinely reassuring

Almost every rule above is written against the tow operator and in your favor, and almost none of it is enforced unless somebody invokes it at the counter. The belongings come out free. The first 72 hours carry no lien fee. The invoice is itemized before payment, not after. The car in transit across a private lot is released unconditionally, and the car hooked but not yet gone is half price. Ten days to ask for a hearing, and the agency pays if it cannot show grounds. None of it requires a lawyer and all of it requires knowing the number of the section, which is why the numbers are printed above.

Rates, phone numbers and procedures above were checked on August 11, 2026 against the City of Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau, the Los Angeles Police Commission's OPG Section page, the California Vehicle Code, and the posted rate schedules of two Official Police Garages. Tow rates are reset by the city and were last changed effective January 1, 2026; the linked source wins over this page, which is re-verified and updated in place at this address.