This article covers individual and resident permit programs. For group or commercial permit programs, see Commercial Permits.
Overview
A permit type is the central structure in Permits. Coverage area, duration, pricing, and caps all attach to a specific type, rather than existing on their own. Most of this is configured by the Passport team on your behalf.
The permit type itself
A permit type is the thing an applicant actually applies for, such as a resident permit, guest permit, visitor permit, and so on. Beyond its name and description, a type controls a long list of behavior:
Whether it's offered for self-service application, or issued only by your staff in the back office.
Whether new applications go into a review queue before becoming active, and whether that requirement applies to renewals too, separately from initial applications.
Whether an applicant needs to already hold a different, specific permit before they're allowed to buy this one, for example: a guest permit that requires an active resident permit first.
Whether it can convert into a booklet of short-term guest or visitor passes instead of one continuous permit (covered in full below).
Whether the permit type supports auto-renew at all. Each individual holder separately opts in to auto-renew for their own permit.
What info is collected
Basic information about the applicant, such as name and address.
How many vehicles a permit allows, minimum and maximum, and vehicle information, such as plate and state.
Any extra information collected from the applicant or their vehicle beyond the basics, custom questions, extra vehicle details, and so on.
Whether supporting documents are required to apply (proof of residency, for example), how many files, and whether the requirement multiplies per vehicle on the permit.
What can block a purchase
A cap on how many of this permit type one address can hold, checked at application, at renewal, or both. Addresses and their associated permissions are managed separately in Address Management.
A block on applicants with outstanding citations. This can be scoped to appealed citations, aging on unpaid citations, and whether citations that have been paid but not yet cleared still count.
A block on a license plate that already holds a certain number of permits of this type, checked across that plate's permits in specific statuses.
Other setup
Whether holders can edit their own permit info directly, or need city review first, and if review is required, whether that carries a fee.
Whether a printable or emailable permit document is available. Third-party print and mail fulfillment is not supported.
Who's allowed to park where
Every permit type has what's called permissions, which are tied to a set of zones. Permissions define the areas where the permit is valid, plus the hours and days it's valid. This is set independently of pricing and independently of how long the permit lasts, so the same price and duration can apply across very different coverage areas, or a permit can be restricted to daytime only versus 24/7, without touching anything else.
While a permit type can have multiple permissions available, an applicant is prompted to choose a single permission when applying for the type. For example, a Residential Permit type can have permissions in either Neighborhood A or Neighborhood B.
How long a permit lasts and when it renews
A permit type also has associated cycles, which is where duration and renewal timing are controlled, separate from pricing and separate from coverage area. There are three structures:
Everyone renews on the same schedule. All permit holders share one start and end date and go through renewal together, the standard pattern for most residential programs.
Each holder renews on their own schedule. The clock starts on the date of purchase, so a holder who buys in March renews in March next year, not whenever everyone else does.
A fixed window that doesn't repeat. A specific start and end date, useful for seasonal programs. This is recreated each year rather than repeating automatically.
Within any of these, a purchase window sets how many days before the cycle starts a resident can buy, and a renewal window sets how many days before it ends they can renew. Automatic reminder emails can also be set at a fixed number of days before or after expiration.
While a permit type can have multiple cycles available, an applicant is prompted to choose a single cycle when applying for the type. For example, a Residential Permit type can have monthly or yearly purchase options.
Guest and visitor passes
Instead of one continuous permit, a type can be set up as a booklet of short-term passes, a resident buys the booklet once, then activates individual passes as visitors need them. Four settings control how this works:
How many passes the booklet holds in total, the maximum a resident can purchase within a cycle.
How many passes can be bought in a single transaction.
How many passes can be active at the same time. This is separate from the total, a resident might have 25 passes available across the year but only 2 usable on any given day.
How long each pass lasts once it's activated, in hours.
Passes go live immediately upon activation and cannot be scheduled ahead of a future date.
What you can charge
A permit type also has an associate rate. Everything starts from a base rate, and from there:
Conditional pricing. The price can change automatically based on something about the applicant, for example a different rate for a specific vehicle type or a specific answer on the application.
Tiered pricing by permit count. Common for programs where a household's second or third permit costs more (or less) than the first, calculated as a dollar amount or percentage off the base rate.
Early bird discounts and late penalties, both configured the same way, just displayed differently at checkout.
Per-vehicle fees, useful for charging extra for additional vehicles on a permit, with the option to make the first vehicle free and charge only for additional ones.
Price that changes based on when in the cycle someone buys. Someone joining partway through a cycle can automatically pay a prorated rate, either a flat dollar amount that steps down as the cycle progresses, or a percentage tied to time remaining. This only applies to the base price, not on top of penalties or vehicle fees.
Waitlist pricing is separate from permit pricing. A payment made to hold a waitlist spot is a separate charge and is not applied toward the permit cost if the applicant is later offered one.
Fees (as opposed to rate pricing) can be flat, a percentage of the permit cost, or set up to charge whichever of the two is higher, and can apply to initial purchases, renewals, or both.
Caps and waitlists
There are three separate ways to limit permits:
A citywide cap on how many of a type, cycle, or permission can be active at once.
A per-household cap, checked against the address on file.
A per-vehicle cap, checked against the license plate.
These three are configured independently of one another.
When a citywide cap is reached, new applicants either hard-stop or join a waitlist, depending on configuration. If there's a waitlist, offers can go out automatically as spots open, with a set number of hours for someone to accept before it passes to the next person, and holders can optionally see their position in line. A small renewal payment can also be required to hold a waitlist spot.
Summary
There's a lot of flexibility in how permits can be configured to fit your operation, this article covers the building blocks, but the specific combination that makes sense for your program is worth talking through. Reach out to Passport Support if you want to add, change, or better understand any of this for your city.