How to get your car out of impound in New Orleans

If the City towed your car in {c}, call (504) 658-8100 to confirm where it is stored. City impound payments go to 400 N. Claiborne Ave, even if the car was moved to Almonaster. Confirm the pickup location and same-day hours before traveling.

New Orleans sits entirely in Orleans Parish, and it's the seed market for the whole metro: a below-sea-level city whose aging drainage pumps turn a normal thunderstorm afternoon, not just a named storm, into standing water that strands cars. Add a car culture running from six-figure Garden District SUVs to generations-old family sedans, plus a tourism economy that fills the streets with unfamiliar rental drivers, and demand never really slows. Any tow inside the city follows the City of New Orleans' own fee schedule, raised July 27, 2026: a $228.75 minimum for a Light Duty tow and impound, storage confirmed with the City, not stated here. Release happens at the Claiborne Avenue Auto Pound, 400 N. Claiborne Ave, open 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Call (504) 658-8100 to confirm a vehicle was towed, or (504) 658-8284 to check a fee balance. You can inspect the car and retrieve personal belongings before paying anything, and Louisiana law (R.S. 32:1720) requires written notice of your right to an administrative hearing if the car sits unclaimed. Corridors like I-10, I-610, and Claiborne Ave carry most of that volume, from the French Quarter to Audubon Park.

New Orleans is the hub city and the busiest call area on the whole map, running from the French Quarter and the CBD out through Mid-City, Broadmoor, Carrollton, and Uptown to the Bywater and Marigny arts district along St. Claude Ave. Each of those neighborhoods carries its own dedicated page. Two call types define this market like nowhere else on the Gulf Coast: flood-stranded cars and Mardi Gras parade-route tows. Below-sea-level ground and an aging Sewerage and Water Board pump system mean a hard summer thunderstorm puts standing water in the street fast, at spots like the Carrollton Ave underpass and along Claiborne Ave, and that happens on an ordinary July afternoon, not just during a named storm. If your engine stalled in rising water, don't crank it again, a hydrolocked engine is a different job than a jump start, so say the car took on water when you call. Carnival season brings its own towing economy: parade routes post hard no-parking zones and the city moves cars fast, towed vehicles land at the retrieval lot on North Claiborne Ave, and we help drivers get there instead of guessing. Calls come in from downtown, the Superdome, City Park, and the French Quarter, and the operators we dispatch run flatbed by default through the tight Quarter streets and for any car that's taken on water, with wheel-lift covering the ordinary breakdown everywhere else.