Westminster council issued 13,423 traffic ticket penalty charge notices to United Arab Emirates vehicles between 2018 and 2022, and roughly one percent were settled. The pattern leaves London with a record of repeated parking breaches, but not much collected debt.
Westminster council and UAE vehicles
The notices covered lower-level and higher-level parking contraventions, with Westminster charging £110 for one and £160 for the other. It halves both penalties if they are paid within 14 days, and the realistic worst case is £80.
Four Gulf states together account for 41% of Westminster borough's foreign-plate tickets. Qatari-registered cars collected 2,570 Westminster penalty notices in a single year, showing that the issue reaches beyond one registration group.
Harrods and nearby streets
Harrods and the streets around it are described as a dependable hotspot for these parking tickets. Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces with Gulf plates have been part of the same summer pattern in London.
A British parking penalty is a civil debt rather than a criminal fine, and vehicle-keeper information cannot be exchanged internationally to enforce that debt. The UK government said in December that the information cannot be exchanged internationally for that purpose, which leaves councils with notice records but weak collection tools once the cars leave the UK.
Directive (EU) 2024/3237
Westminster now tows illegally parked supercars to a pound, but British law does not allow a car to be retained or auctioned over unpaid parking penalties. The government has said it has no plans to authorise either step.
Directive (EU) 2024/3237 was adopted in December 2024 and widens the offences for which one member state can request keeper data from another. Member states have until 20 July 2027 to apply it, but it works only between member states, so the foreign-plate collection problem described in Westminster remains tied to the limits of cross-border enforcement.
