Where can I park at Sacramento airport? How much does it cost? See options
Looking for the best place to park at Sacramento International Airport?
In October, the Sacramento airport closed a parking lot to make way for construction on a new garage.
Meanwhile, a new parking lot is slated to open “soon” on airport property, according to a spokesperson for the airport.
Here’s where to find parking at the Sacramento airport and how much it costs:
Where can I park at Sacramento International Airport?
Sacramento International Airport offers three options for parking your car on-site for a half-hour or longer.
All available lots can be used for short-term and long-term parking, according to the airport.
A parking garage and daily lot just off Airport Boulevard offer parking spaces that are within walking distance of Terminal A.
There are more than 5,200 spots in the main parking garage and 3,000 spots in the daily lot, according to Sacramento County Department of Airports spokesperson Scott Johnston.
There is also a larger economy lot just east of Aviation Drive, with roughly 6,000 spots available, Johnston told The Bee.
The airport also has an economy lot west of Terminal B with 3,300 parking spaces. However, that was listed as closed on the airport’s website on Thursday.
The west economy lot is only used as an overflow lot when the main parking lots are full, an airport spokesperson told The Bee via email on Wednesday.
What are parking rates at Sacramento airport?
All parking lots have a base short-term price of $2 per half-hour, which will remain consistent with the new lots, according to Myers.
For overnight airport stays, each lot has a different daily maximum price, according to the airport website:
- Parking garage: $20 per day
- Daily lot: $13 per day
- Economy lot: $11 per day
Where can I wait in my car for free?
Whether you’re waiting for a loved one’s flight to arrive or hoping to do some plane spotting, you can park at the free cell phone waiting area just south of Crossfield Drive.
You can’t leave your car unattended in the cell phone lot, the airport said on its website, and you can only wait for a maximum of three hours.
How early should I get to the airport to find good parking?
If you are planning on parking at Sacramento International Airport, Johnston said he recommends arriving at the airport roughly 2.5 hours ahead of your flight.
Increased traffic through the Sacramento airport, combined with construction on Sacramento-area highways and airport roads, means that the airport’s parking lots are routinely filling up, according to Johnston.
“Pretty much every month we’re seeing another record broken for the number of passengers entering our airport,” he said.
Despite the consistent increase in the number of travelers passing through Sacramento, Johnston said the airport will “always have a (parking) spot for you.”
What are busiest times for air travel?
The Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons are the most popular times of year for travelers passing through Sacramento International Airport, according to Johnston.
The airport also sees a major bump in air travel beginning in March and continuing through the summer, Johnston said.
During the spring and summer travel seasons, “The (parking) garage fills up (almost) every day,” he said.
Johnston noted that the Sacramento airport also sees a spike in travel during the weekend ahead of Indigenous Peoples Day, which is on the second Monday of October.
However, he said, airport officials haven’t been able to figure out why that weekend is a popular time for travel through Sacramento.
When will more parking be available at airport?
Two new parking projects were in the works at the Sacramento airport as of early April.
That includes a new economy parking lot, according to Lindsay Myers, Sacramento airport spokesperson.
The lot, which will be located at the south frontage road near AM-PM and Arco gas station, is “awaiting its final punch list items” before it is able to open, Myers told The Bee in an email on Thursday.
The new south lot will add 3,000 new parking spots to the airport, Johnston said.
Another 5,500 parking spaces will be available in a six-story garage just west of Terminal B that’s slated to be ready for travelers in 2026.
The new, nearly 2-million-square-foot garage is part of the $1.3 billion SMForward airport expansion project, which includes a pedestrian walkway, several new gates and a ground transportation center to the airport’s campus.
Can I reserve a parking space at Sacramento airport?
Johnston said travelers will be able to reserve a parking spot in Sacramento International Airport’s new parking garage ahead of time, a first for the Sacramento airport.
Having the option to reserve a space should ease the stress of trying to find parking without being late for your flight, he said.
According to the SMForward website, construction on the garage began in late 2024 and is expected to be completed in the final quarter of 2026.
Does the airport have off-site parking?
There was no official off-site parking associated with the Sacramento airport as of early April.
Johnston previously told The Bee that the county airport department has tried to work with developers on off-site parking, but the “competitive rates” of the airport’s economy parking can hinder such projects.
“It would be challenging to open a new lot further away with comparable pricing,” he told The Bee in January.
This story was originally published April 5, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Where can I park at Sacramento airport? How much does it cost? See options."
