Conflicts over parking in the yards of apartment buildings continue in Riga. Local residents unexpectedly faced a situation where the previous rules have effectively stopped working.
Cars without permits have started appearing in residential parking lots under the signs "No Parking" and "Permit Only." There has been no response from the municipal police.
Indignant residents noted that the requirement to "display the parking permit in a visible location behind the windshield" has been removed from the rules.
Cars without permits and digital problems
In response to the situation, initiator Maxim Tereshchuk posted a public initiative on the portal manabalss.lv calling for a review of the new rules:
"Since April 1, 2026, residents of Latvia have become hostages to ill-conceived changes in the Traffic Regulations (Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 279). A fundamental requirement that has ensured order in the yards for years has been excluded from the rules — namely, that to use a parking space, it is necessary to 'place a permit of the appropriate content in the passenger compartment of the vehicle behind the windshield.'
The removal of this requirement has caused uncontrollable chaos in our shared property, as this is no longer just a problem of legal nuances — it is a daily injustice affecting every resident of the yard...
In the absence of visually visible permits, residents have no way to identify violators, and the municipal police refuse to respond since they have no legal grounds to fine a vehicle that 'should no longer' have the document in the passenger compartment."
Inability of digital lists
"The current system is based on the assumption that managers can maintain 100% accurate digital lists in real-time.
In practice, this is impossible. If a resident acquires a new car or uses a rented one (for example, during repairs), they become a violator in their own yard, as the systems are not updated quickly enough," the petition states.
Paralysis of guest permits
"Receiving guests has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.
The use of physical guest permits is no longer recognized as a sufficient basis for parking, and registering each guest in some 'mystical' digital list in the middle of the night or on weekends is technically impossible..." the petition notes.
What to do?
Maxim Tereshchuk proposes to amend Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 279 ("Traffic Regulations"), restoring the requirement that cars parked in spaces with additional sign No. 849 must have a visible permit in the vehicle's passenger compartment:
"As an alternative solution, we propose to establish an obligation for building managers to promptly register digital lists in the municipal police systems. Until such a unified and accessible digital system is fully implemented, the previous order with physical permits must be maintained to eliminate the possibility of various interpretations between ministries and regulatory bodies."
By the end of May, more than a thousand people had voted for this initiative.
Do you have a ticket to the movies?
Latvian bureaucrats are confused themselves and confuse others. As a result, the Road Traffic Safety Directorate (RTSD) recently had to issue a clarification: "Parking permits must still be displayed in a noticeable place."
"The mentioned amendment does not cancel the previous requirement — to display parking permits in a noticeable place. At the same time, this has caused confusion among regulatory authorities. To avoid ambiguity, the Ministry of Transport has sent a proposal to the Saeima to supplement the Traffic Law with a general norm that provides for the obligation to display a parking permit in a visible place," the RTSD reports.
It also provides clarification from a representative of the Ministry of Transport in this regard:
"The amendments do not cancel previous requirements, including the obligation to display a parking permit in a visible place. Therefore, claims that the permit no longer needs to be placed behind the front windshield are incorrect. If a person is granted certain rights, regulatory authorities must have the ability to verify them.
Just as a ticket must be presented in a cinema, a permit must be in a visible place," emphasizes Talivaldis Vektirans, Director of the Traffic Department of the Ministry of Transport.
