The concession companies of Madrid’s public parking spaces pay the City Council, on average, a fee of 170 euros per space in exchange for their operation. However, when adding what they bill users, the figure exceeds 2,680 euros per year on average for each parking space. This means that from the exploitation of the places they earn up to 16 times more than what they have to pay to the public coffers.
The three car parks that earn the most, Hernani, Plaza de Oriente and Sánchez Bustillo, pay fees between 49 and 70 euros per space per year while their income is more than 6,300 euros per year per space. This appears in the data obtained via the transparency portal by elDiario.es after submitting a request for access to information to the Madrid City Council linked to the 40 publicly owned car parks whose operation is currently assigned to companies, large fortunes, construction companies and multinationals.
These amounts correspond, on the one hand, to the average annual collection of the concessionaires between 2018 and 2023 (last year with available data) for each parking space open to the public and, on the other, to the average annual rates that they must pay to the city council for its exploitation in the form of a fee. These agreements between the public and private spheres, in exchange for works and infrastructure both underground and above ground, date back in some cases to concessions made during the Franco regime.
The data obtained allows us to know for the first time that the collection for companies skyrockets to 34 million euros per year, while the public coffers barely receive 2.1 million euros per year in royalties – a fee for private exploitation. That is, the concessionaires earn 16 times more from this type of business than what they pay to the City Council. The figures also show how the year 2023 marked a collection record for dealerships, even exceeding pre-pandemic income levels.
Thus, while the fee has remained practically fixed over the last five years, adjusted by the CPI, the income of the companies has continued to increase, being able to comfortably pay the rate required by the council.
The car parks that earn more than 6,000 euros per space per year are Hernani and Plaza de Oriente, which were built in 1994 by the former mayor of Madrid for ten years, Jose María Álvarez del Manzano, of the Popular Party. The one in Hernani, located in the financial area of Nuevos Ministerios and managed by the Belgian group Interparking, has an average turnover that exceeds 835,000 euros per year. According to the figures, it collects 7,200 euros per place per year, but pays 50 euros in fees for each one.
The one in Plaza de Oriente generates income of 1.4 million euros and the concessionaire company, APK Aparcamientos, pays 14,000 for its operation in total per year. With these figures, you obtain 6,500 euros in revenue for each parking space and must pay 68 euros in fees. In the following graph you can see the difference that exists and how much each company pays for parking spaces and the income they have received for each of them on average.
The car park in Madrid with the most spaces open to the public is Serrano, made up of three underground parking spaces with a total of 947 spaces. They were built in the time of Alberto Ruiz Gallardon (2003-2011) and on the day of its inauguration the former mayor said that, thanks to them, “the commercial attractiveness” on the Golden Mile would increase. In 2023 the Serrano Park company invoiced 6.9 million euros for them and paid 326,000 canon.
On the list there are also car parks that pay around 30 euros per year per space, such as Felipe II, located in Goya and operated by El Corte Inglés. Here, the place costs 26 euros per year, but each one generates a turnover of 1,888 euros. With similar values are Corazón de María or the parking lot of Brazil.
Of course, among those that contribute the least to the council is the central Las Descalzas parking lot, which has not paid any type of fee since its construction in 1962 and all the income, almost 4,000 euros per space per year, goes to the company Aparca. SA. As we reported in elDiario.es, it is a concession granted by Franco’s mayor José Finat initially to Emilio Colomina de la Torre, in favor of Construcciones Colomina G. Serrano SA
11,000 euros per month to rent 75 public places for the police
The Seville car park is one of the underground ones that brings in the most money. It is in the hands of Alse Park, previously linked to the Villar Mir family, former historical shareholder of OHL. It obtains an annual turnover of more than 2 million euros and pays the Madrid City Council around 58,000 euros. Or what is the same: for each place it collects 6,200 euros and pays 193 euros in exploitation fees.
The parking lot was built in 1965 and transferred in 2014 to the current concessionaire. The reforms of 2017, valued at 32 million euroshave allowed the parking to continue to be exploited in private hands for 10 more years. In addition, the council has rented for 11,000 euros per month 75 parking spaces for the Municipal Police of the Central District from 2022 to 2026, including extensions. That is, it pays 1,770 euros per year for each public square, transferred to Alse Park. From elDiario.es we have contacted the Madrid City Council about the management of these spaces, but neither the Urban Planning Department, in charge of the rotational parking, nor the Works and Heritage Department, which signed the contract, have responded regarding the details of these conditions.
Despite the remunicipalization of some of the parking lots during the Manuela Carmena era (2015-2019), in which the money now goes directly to the public coffers, the arrival of José Luis Martínez-Almeida has consolidated this type of contracts where most of the income ends up in private hands. As of today, Almeida has already renewed the concessions of the Luna-Tudescos, Velázquez and Santa Ana parking lots for another 25 years.
Among the conditions required of new tenants, the council requests an advance payment of 50% of the rent. Money that will be reflected in the accounting of the coming years and that, however, will leave subsequent municipal governments with fewer resources, given that they will only receive the difference of what remains to be paid.
Furthermore, as confirmed by the Urban Planning Area, the next car parks that will follow the same path will be Descalzas, Sevilla, Príncipe de Vergara and Mostenses whose concessions are about to expire between 2026 and 2028. Some of them are among the 10 car parks that bill the most . According to what they say, they are already “prepared to put out to tender the renovation and concession projects.”
Madrid earns six times more when it manages the public
The data analyzed also shows that the city of Madrid earns six times more from directly managed parking lots. The council obtains 12.8 million euros on average per year for operating 13 public car parks. A figure that goes directly to the public coffers and that contrasts with the 2.1 million euros it receives in the form of fees from companies. This is reflected in the collection figures for the car parks operated through the Municipal Transport Company (EMT).
Among those that bring the most income to the city are the Plaza de España car park with a turnover of 2.7 million euros on average, followed by the Plaza Mayor car park, with 1.9. In fifth position is the Fuencarral subway, which was remunicipalized in 2019, along with the Olavide subway, and which contributes between 600,000 and 1 million euros per year.
In the following search engine you can find the list of public parking lots with rotational spaces in Madrid, the name of the company that has managed each parking lot between the years 2018 and 2023, the money collected in the last five years, the amount that each one earns per plaza and what the concessionaire companies pay to the Madrid City Council.
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