The Knesset Economic Affairs Committee voted on Tuesday to advance a bill, proposed by committee chairman David Bitan, that would cancel the so-called parking law and restore the previous charging system for private parking lots. The law took effect in December 2025, but committee members now say it failed because no proper preparatory work was done and small parking lots were not exempted.
According to a research report prepared by the Knesset’s Research and Information Center, most parking lots raised prices by 30%, alongside increases in parking fees by local authorities throughout 2025. Under the law, parking was supposed to be billed by the minute, instead of a flat first-hour charge and then billing in 15-minute blocks, as had been common before.
Because operators feared losses, they sharply raised prices, prompting Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to say he would work to cancel the law. Bitan argued that the problem was not the principle of minute-based billing, but the lack of responsibility for implementing it. He said the Finance Ministry and Interior Ministry failed to use authority granted by the committee to pass secondary legislation that would have exempted lower-priced lots.
After the committee’s approval, the proposal moves to second and third readings in the plenum. However, because it is tied to a metropolitan authorities bill, the process could be delayed. The linkage was meant to avoid four plenum votes, but it now complicates repeal, especially as ultra-Orthodox parties fear the metropolitan bill could be used to transfer authority over Sabbath public transport to local councils. Bitan also accused Smotrich of backing parking companies that used the situation to inflate prices excessively.
