Motorists

Impound: a new online service to get your car back faster

Publié le 13 octobre 2025 - Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information (Prime Minister)

You can now obtain the authorization to leave the impound of your vehicle directly online. You are no longer required to travel to a gendarmerie or police department before you can pick up your vehicle. Public Service explains how this digital service works.

Since October 2023, an online service supported by the Delegation for Road Safety, and accessible via the Public Service website, lets you know if your vehicle has been impounded. This way, when you can't find your vehicle where you left it, you can more easily find out if it was stolen or impounded. Within this online service, you can consult the impoundment record (reason, date and time of removal, etc.) and obtain the contact information of the location where your vehicle was placed.

Warning  

Not all pounds are yet integrated into the online service.

If you cannot find your vehicle with this online service, you can repeat the search later; there is a time lag between the removal of the vehicle and its registration in the pound information system (maximum delay of 40 hours).

If the vehicle cannot be found, you must inquire at the police station or gendarmerie brigade nearest the place where the vehicle was parked.

If you think it was the City of Paris services that removed or moved your vehicle, one specific online service allows you to search for it from the registration number.

The online service set up by the Delegation for Road Safety adds a new feature —You can now download the impound clearance for your vehicle. This document, also called a release decision, must be presented to the impound in which your vehicle is located for it to be returned to you.

Until then, you had to go to a police station or a gendarmerie brigade to collect the authorization to leave the impound.

Please note

It is still possible to obtain the authorization to leave the impound from the law enforcement agencies that have prescribed the impound. In this case, you must present the following documents to the police station or gendarmerie brigade:

  • the certificate of insurance of the vehicle;
  • your driving license, which must be valid;
  • the vehicle's driving license (registration certificate, provisional registration certificate, etc.), if it has not been removed from you when impounded.

How do I obtain the authorization to leave the impound via the online service?

Within the online service accessible on the Public Service websiteHowever, you must first fill in the registration number of your vehicle to find out if it is impounded. If this is the case, to obtain the authorization to leave the impound you must in order:

  • identify you via FranceConnect (login with, as desired, the username and password used for your account Impots.gouv, Ameli or La Poste Digital Identity, for example);
  • indicate your driver's license number;
  • fill in the form number on the vehicle registration certificate, next to the registration number (if you find that there is no form number, you must indicate the date of issue of the registration certificate);
  • click on the button “download the exit authorization”.

You can then go to the pound in which your vehicle is located, with this exit authorization. In addition, to collect your vehicle, you must pay an impound fee to the caretaker.

Warning  

LWhen your car is subject to a particular procedure, you cannot download the release decision via the online service. In this case, at the end of the online procedure, a message tells you that you need to go to the gendarmerie brigade or police station to retrieve the document.

Additional topics

Agenda

See all due dates