Parkin told its shareholders in May why its seasonal card sales had more than doubled: “The growth in seasonal card sales volumes is underpinned by customers taking advantage of the existing price gap between the variable daily tariffs effective April 2025 and the unadjusted seasonal card rates.” When the operator itself publishes that a product is underpriced, the arithmetic is worth doing.
What Dubai parking costs by the hour since April 2025
The variable tariff started on 4 April 2025. The National’s tariff table that day put it plainly: “Peak pricing will apply for six of the 14 chargeable hours each day, from 8am to 10am and 4pm to 8pm.” Off-peak covers 10am to 4pm and 8pm to 10pm, and “Parking will continue to be free from 10pm to 8am.”
The rates that matter for an office worker:
| Bay | Peak | Off-peak | Day rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zone A standard | Dh4 | Dh4 | none listed |
| Zone A premium | Dh6 | Dh4 | none listed |
| Zone B standard | Dh4 | Dh3 | Dh30 |
| Zone D standard | Dh4 | Dh2 | Dh20 |
A standard Zone A bay is the clean case, because peak and off-peak are the same Dh4. Park from 8am to 5pm and the day is 9 hours, so Dh36. A premium Zone A bay over the same hours is Dh42, because three of those hours fall in the peak window at Dh6.
What a Parkin seasonal card costs, and where it breaks even
Parkin’s Q1 2026 results print the card table it still sells:
| Card | Zones A to D | Zones B and D only |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month | AED 500 | AED 250 |
| 3 months | AED 1,400 | AED 700 |
| 6 months | AED 2,500 | AED 1,300 |
| 12 months | AED 4,500 | AED 2,400 |
Divide the monthly card by the daily meter cost and the break-even falls out:
- Zone A standard, Dh36 a day: AED 500 ÷ 36 = 13.9, so the card pays from the 14th full day. A Monday-to-Friday month of 22 days is Dh792 at the meter, AED 292 more than the card.
- Zone B standard, Dh30 day rate: the B-and-D card is AED 250, so it pays from the 9th day. A full month is Dh660 at the meter against AED 250.
The second line hides a mistake I see people make. A Zone B bay is covered by both cards, and the A-to-D card costs AED 250 a month more for coverage that bay never uses. Read the zone code on the sign before choosing the card, not after.
A seasonal card is a volume commitment. It is only cheaper if the volume turns up.
The hybrid worker: the monthly card loses, the annual one wins
Three office days a week is about 13 days a month. At Dh36 that is Dh468 at the meter, so the AED 500 monthly card costs AED 32 more than paying as you go. On a monthly view, skip it.
The annual card changes the answer. AED 4,500 a year is AED 375 a month, 25% under twelve monthly cards, and it breaks even at 4,500 ÷ 36 = 125 office days a year. Take out a month of leave and a three-day week still gives about 143 days. At the meter that is Dh5,148, so the annual card comes out AED 648 ahead.
At the trading company where I work, this is the conversation the purchasing team has with every supplier offering an annual rate. The discount is real, but it is bought with two things: cash paid upfront, and the risk that the volume shrinks. A card bought in October does not care that the office moves to four days at home in March. Run the annual number on the office days the year will actually have, not the ones the contract says.
VAT and the pending price revision
Two details move the numbers without changing the logic. From 1 June 2026, VAT at 5% applies to “on-street and off-street parking, seasonal cards, permits, and reservations”, Khaleej Times reported. Both sides of the comparison rise together, so the break-even days stay the same, but the cash is AED 525 for the monthly card and AED 4,725 for the annual one.
The second is that the gap Parkin described is the gap it has asked to close. In February 2026 it submitted a tariff revision covering seasonal card pricing, and Gulf News reported the RTA “will conduct a detailed review before referring the matter to Dubai’s Executive Council.” By the Q2 results in August nothing had moved: Khaleej Times quoted Parkin that demand stayed strong “as customers continued to take advantage of the gap between variable daily tariffs and unchanged seasonal card prices.” When a new table is published, the division above takes a minute to redo.
An annual card is also the same shape as a rent cheque: one payment that covers twelve months of cost. I book it the way I book a rent cheque as a prepaid expense, releasing AED 375 a month into the transport line, so the month I buy it does not look like the month I overspent. It sits next to what Salik costs a commuter and the Metro pass break-even: three flat-fee offers, the same division each time.