ADA Parking Requirements Calculator

Enter a lot's spaces to get the accessible spaces the ADA requires, how many must be van accessible, and the room they take on a restripe.

A 120-space lot needs 5 accessible spaces, 1 of them van accessible: 8 ft car spaces and a van space 11 ft wide, each beside a 5 ft access aisle.

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Total parking spaces in the lot

Facility

Standard stall width (ft)

Count each lot or garage on the property separately: the table applies per parking facility. At the medical facilities the percentage covers patient and visitor spaces; staff spaces follow the table. The stall width only sizes the row: one 90° row, rounded up; splitting the spaces between entrances adds aisles.

Enter the number of spaces to see the accessible spaces required, how many must be van accessible, and the room they take on a restripe.

The count starts with the stalls, and the owner's number is usually last year's. Count them on satellite imagery and trace the pavement for the sealcoat line of the same bid.

Counts from the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, checked September 2026 against ada.gov and the U.S. Access Board. Federal minimums: your state or city can require more.

How many ADA parking spaces are required?

One for every lot up to 25 spaces, then more by the table below, counted separately for each lot or garage. At least one, and one in every six, must be van accessible. A 120-space lot needs 5, 1 of them van accessible, and laid side by side they take 58 ft of the row: the room of 7 standard stalls.

ADA Parking Requirements Table

Table 208.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. The left column is the total spaces in one parking facility, accessible ones included. The van column is 208.2.4: one in six, or fraction of six.

Minimum accessible and van accessible parking spaces by total spaces in the parking facility, 2010 ADA Standards Table 208.2
Total spaces	Accessible	Van accessible
1 to 25	1	1
26 to 50	2	1
51 to 75	3	1
76 to 100	4	1
101 to 150	5	1
151 to 200	6	1
201 to 300	7	2
301 to 400	8	2
401 to 500	9	2
501 to 1,000	2 percent of total
1,001 and over	20, plus 1 for each 100, or fraction thereof, over 1,000

The formula rows, worked

600 spaces

2 van

1,000 spaces

4 van

1,250 spaces

4 van

Any fraction rounds up: 2 percent of 501 spaces is 10.02, which means 11. The Access Board's own expanded table does the same. Count each lot and each garage on its own: a property with a 90-space front lot and a 40-space rear lot needs 4 + 2 = 6, not the 5 that 130 spaces would need as one lot.

ADA Parking Space Dimensions

Where spaces share a painted line, widths are measured to its centerline. The Standards set widths, not lengths; the aisle must run the space's full length.

Three accessible spaces take 37 ft of row: 8 + 5 + 8 + 11 + 5. A diagram at the Standards' minimums, not a site plan.

ADA parking space dimensions: minimum widths, aisle, slope and clearance
Element	Minimum
Car spaceSection 502.2	96 in (8 ft) wide
Van spaceSection 502.2	132 in (11 ft) wide
Or a van spaceSection 502.2 exception	96 in with a 96 in aisle
Access aisleSection 502.3	60 in (5 ft) wide, full length
Slope, space and aisleSection 502.4	1:48 maximum, any direction
Height clearance, vanSection 502.5	98 in, space, aisle and drive route

Two spaces may share one aisle between them, which is how a restripe fits the count into the fewest stalls. Angled van spaces are the exception: each needs its own aisle on the passenger side. The aisle must be marked so nobody parks in it; the Standards leave the method and the color to the state, and hatching is the usual answer.

The aisle has to be as level as the space, so a built-up curb ramp cannot poke into either one, and nothing can stand in the aisle: no bollard, pole or column. Where cars pull up to a sidewalk that is the accessible route, wheel stops keep a bumper from narrowing it.

ADA Parking Sign Requirements

60 in

ground to the bottom of the sign, minimum

ISA

the International Symbol of Accessibility

Van

“van accessible” on van spaces

Every accessible space gets a sign, mounted high enough that a parked car does not hide it. Nothing else is required on it by the federal Standards, which set no color or size. A painted symbol on the pavement, even where a state requires one, does not replace the sign: snow, sealer and tires cover it.

The one exception is small sites. Where the whole site has 4 or fewer spaces, accessible ones included, the accessible space needs no sign, so it is not reserved. It still has to be there, van accessible, with its aisle. Assigned spaces at apartments are also exempt from the sign.

Where Accessible Parking Has to Go

On the shortest accessible route to an accessible entrance. A building with several accessible entrances gets its accessible spaces spread among them; a lot that serves no one building puts them nearest its own accessible pedestrian entrance. The Standards set no maximum distance, only the shortest route.

The route itself should not run behind parked cars where it can be avoided, and it cannot cross a curb without a curb ramp. In a garage, all the van spaces may be grouped on one level, as long as that level gives them 98 in of headroom.

For a restripe, that turns into a site question before a paint question: which stalls are nearest the door, and which of those are level enough. The flattest stalls by the entrance become the accessible ones, and the count decides how many.

Hospitals, Rehab Clinics and Apartments

Three kinds of facility follow their own rule for part of their parking. Staff spaces at the medical ones still follow the table. A doctor's office or clinic outside a hospital is not a hospital outpatient facility, and a general therapy center is not a mobility rehab facility. Most private apartment parking also answers to the Fair Housing Act, which has its own rules.

Accessible parking at hospitals, rehabilitation facilities and apartments
Facility	Minimum	80 spaces
Hospital outpatient facilities	10% of patient and visitor spaces	8 of 80
Mobility rehab and outpatient physical therapy	20% of patient and visitor spaces	16 of 80
Apartments: residents	With at least one space per unit: one per unit with mobility features, plus 2% (at least one) of the spaces beyond one per unit. Fewer: Table 208.2	Per the unit count
Apartments: guests and staff	Table 208.2	4 of 80

Every one of them still needs one van space in six. The ADA National Network works a 200-space physical therapy lot as 40 accessible spaces, 7 of them van accessible.

Restriping and Sealcoating: When the Rules Apply

The Department of Justice is direct about it: a business that restripes a lot must provide accessible spaces as the 2010 Standards require, and restriping is cheap enough that adding them is readily achievable in most cases. Its small-business primer calls restriping an alteration. The Access Board's guide adds resurfacing and resealing to the list, while repainting existing lines in place for a few spaces, or patching, stays maintenance.

So the sealcoat-and-restripe job is the latest point at which a lot has to meet today's count. The ADA National Network's example is a 250-space lot striped to the 1991 rules: 7 accessible spaces, 1 of them van accessible, legal until a planned alteration. Restriped, the same 7 need 2 van spaces, because the ratio went from one in eight to one in six.

That is a line on the bid and a conversation with the owner, and both go better before the crew arrives. A second van space is 3 ft wider than a car space, and a lot that has none striped loses stalls to the aisles: 5 accessible spaces take the room of 7 standard stalls. The parking lot striping cost estimator fills its ADA line from the same count.

Blue Paint, California and Other State Rules

The federal Standards do not require blue paint, or any color, for the space or the aisle. Blue comes from state and local codes, which can also make the spaces bigger. Texas's parking rules (TAS 208, 216.5 and 502) repeat the federal text word for word. California is the strictest, under the 2025 California Building Code, chapter 11B:

Car spaces 9 ft wide, van spaces 12 ft (or 9 ft with an 8 ft aisle), both 18 ft long
The van aisle on the passenger side, angled or not
Aisles outlined in blue, hatched no more than 36 in apart, with NO PARKING in 12 in letters
The symbol painted on the space, 36 × 36 in, white on blue or in a blue-outlined space
A white-on-blue reflective sign stating the $250 minimum fine, and a 17 × 22 in tow-away sign
No sign exception for sites with four or fewer spaces

California's table is the same as Table 208.2, so the calculator's general count holds there; the widths do not, and its hospital rule also covers a hospital's free-standing outpatient buildings. Anywhere else, check the state accessibility code and the city's parking ordinance before laying out a new lot. The site plan's reviewer has the last word.

Count the Stalls From Satellite

The ADA count starts with the stall count, and the owner's number is usually from the last restripe. Get the real one from the office, with the square footage for the rest of the bid.

Search the address

Any U.S. lot loads on satellite imagery, with its stalls, islands and the entrance the accessible spaces have to face.

Count and trace

Count the stalls in each lot for the ADA minimum, then trace the pavement for the sealcoat and striping lines of the same bid.

Quote it once

Send one branded PDF with the measured area, the stall count and the accessible spaces the restripe has to add.

Try it on a real lot →

Where an ADA Restripe Goes Wrong

A lot restriped short of the count gets restriped again, and the owner will ask who pays.

Counting the whole property as one lot

The minimum is per parking facility. Two lots split by a street or a fence, or a lot and a garage, each carry their own count, and together they usually need more than one lot of the same size.

Restriping to the old van count

Lots striped before 2012 used one van space in eight. The restripe is an alteration, and one in six applies the day the new lines go down: a 201 to 400 space lot goes from one van space to two.

Picking stalls on a slope

Space and aisle both have to hold 1:48. The stalls nearest the door are the right ones only if they are level; a built-up ramp in the aisle fails it.

Paint instead of a sign

A symbol on the pavement is not the sign. Every accessible space needs a sign on a post or wall with its bottom at least 60 in up, unless the site has four or fewer spaces.

Standard stall sizes, per-acre counts and measuring the lot zone by zone are on the parking lot square footage calculator.

ADA Parking Questions

Counts, van spaces, dimensions, signs, paint and restriping.

Table 208.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design sets the minimum by the spaces in each parking facility: 1 accessible space for up to 25, 2 for 26 to 50, then another every 25 spaces up to 100, every 50 up to 200 and every 100 up to 500; 2 percent of the total from 501 to 1,000, and 20 plus one for each 100 over 1,000. A 120-space lot needs 5. Fractions round up, and hospital outpatient and mobility-rehab facilities need more.

One in every six accessible spaces, or fraction of six, must be van accessible, so every lot needs at least one. Seven accessible spaces means two van spaces. The 1991 Standards required one in eight, so a lot of 201 to 400 spaces striped to the old rule has one van space; restriped, it needs two.

A car space is 96 inches (8 ft) wide and a van space 132 inches (11 ft), each beside an access aisle 60 inches (5 ft) wide that runs the full length of the space. A van space may instead be 8 ft wide if its aisle is 8 ft. Widths are measured to the centerline of the painted lines. The Standards set no length; California requires 18 ft.

At least 60 inches from the ground to the bottom of the sign, so a parked car does not hide it. The sign carries the International Symbol of Accessibility, and a van space's sign adds the words "van accessible". The federal Standards set no color or size for the sign; states such as California do.

Under the federal Standards, yes. A new or restriped lot with even one space needs one accessible space, and it must be van accessible. Where the whole site has four or fewer spaces, the space needs no sign, so it is not reserved, but it still needs its width, its marked aisle and its level surface. California removed that sign exception.

Not under the federal ADA Standards. The Access Board's guide says the Standards do not specify the method or color of space and aisle markings, only that the aisle be marked to discourage parking in it. Blue comes from state and local codes: California requires blue borderlines around the aisle and a blue or blue-outlined symbol on the space. A painted symbol never replaces the above-ground sign.

Under the federal Standards, usually yes. The Department of Justice says a business that restripes a lot must provide accessible spaces as the 2010 Standards require, and calls restriping an alteration. The Access Board treats resurfacing or resealing as an alteration too, while repainting existing lines in place for a few spaces is maintenance. The crew that lays out the lines is the one that can make the lot compliant.

1:48 in any direction, about 2 percent, for both the space and its access aisle, which must be at the same level. A built-up curb ramp cannot stick out into the space or the aisle, because it would make the slope steeper than that. Check the grade before choosing which stalls become the accessible ones.

Yes. Two spaces may share one aisle between them, which is how most restripes fit the count into fewer stalls: two 8 ft car spaces around one 5 ft aisle take 21 ft. The exception is angled van spaces, which need their own aisle on the passenger side.

Per parking facility. The Standards calculate the count separately for each lot or garage, not from the property's total. The Access Board says lots divided only by landscaping or drive aisles can typically be treated as one facility, while a garage, a lot serving a different building, or lots split by a street or fencing are counted separately, each with its own minimum.