The exact answer depends on the city where you parked. The vast majority of Brazilian municipalities hire different companies through public tenders to manage rotational parking. That means you need to download a specific app for each location, such as Digipare, Zul+, SIGAPAY, RekPay or EstaR Digital. (Zona Azul is Brazil's paid rotational street parking.)
Why isn't there a single app for all of Brazil?
You may ask why all this confusion exists. The answer lies in how the public sector works. Almost every city hall runs a public tender to choose who will operate the service on the streets. Usually the lowest bidder wins. This creates a fragmented landscape. In the same region, five different companies may manage the spots in five neighboring cities. Think of Greater São Paulo or the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre. The obvious result? Each company develops its own charging system.
The headache for drivers
In practice, the situation borders on the absurd. You live in the capital and travel to the countryside for work. You arrive in town, try to park and discover that the app on your phone is useless there. You download another one. The following week, you head to the coast. Guess what? Yet another new app to install. Your phone's home screen fills up with icons just to pay for parking. You spend R$ 2.00 here, R$ 3.50 there. Memory runs short and frustration piles up.
The mission to integrate rotational parking
In this tangle of cities that do not talk to each other, Digipare is trying to help. Its big mission is to integrate this whole network in one place. We have come a long way. Many cities are with us. The app is present in more than 50 Brazilian municipalities. It's worth having Digipare installed with some balance in your wallet. Trust me. It can help a lot when you're in a hurry. Today the platform holds 4.8 stars and more than 164,000 reviews in the app stores.
How to know which app to download?
To avoid fines, you need to be sure of the system used at the exact spot where you parked. We created a tool to make your life easier. Visit our page to find out which app to use in your city. Just search the name of the municipality and the system shows the correct option. There is plenty more we could discuss about this endless network of different apps. We'll leave that for another time.