Parking a Golf Cart or LSV on Carolina Beach and Kure Beach: The Complete Guide
Parking is the single most confusing part of driving a cart on Pleasure Island, and most of the confusion comes from one fact people don't know: Carolina Beach and Kure Beach run completely separate parking programs. Different vendors, different seasons, different hours, different passes. A pass from one is worthless in the other.
Here's the whole picture, sourced from both towns.
New: it's all on one screen now — the Carolina Beach parking map shows every town lot, which ones take an LSV pass, and live availability before you drive.
Carolina Beach: when you actually have to pay
Paid parking in Carolina Beach is enforced March 1 through October 31, 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM, seven days a week, in on-street spaces and standard lots. Fees restart each morning.
Two lots are different: the premium lots at 236 and 237 Carolina Beach Avenue North are enforced year-round, off-season included.
Rates (set annually by the town, so confirm before you rely on them): standard lots $6/hour or $25/day. Premium lots $7/hour or $35/day. On-street $5/hour, with no daily rate. Buses and oversized vehicles $10/hour or $40/day.
Payment is by text — text 25023 and enter your location code, no app registration required. The program is administered by Pivot Parking rather than the town directly, which is also who handles citations and appeals. A citation is $60, discounted 25% if you pay within 48 hours, and it escalates by $50 at 30 days and another $50 at 60.
The two things called a "pass," and why they're not the same
This is where nearly everyone gets lost. Carolina Beach issues two completely different things that both cost $100 a year.
A golf cart permit is an operating permit. It's legal authorization to drive a non-plated golf cart on town streets, it's a physical decal that goes on the left front of the cart, and it expires December 31 every year. It happens to also work as a parking pass. You almost certainly cannot get one. As of July 1, 2023 the town stopped accepting new applicants — only owners who held a permit the previous year may renew. Sales end entirely on December 31, 2027, and from January 1, 2028 golf carts are no longer permitted in Carolina Beach at all. It's a closed, expiring program. We wrote up what the 2028 change actually means.
An LSV parking pass is parking only. A street-legal Low-Speed Vehicle needs no town operating permit — the town says so explicitly, because an LSV already carries an NC plate and registration. So the only thing an LSV owner can buy is the $100 annual parking pass, and unlike the golf cart permit it's available to everyone: residents, property owners, and visitors alike. The only documentation is a current vehicle registration.
That distinction is the whole reason the town is phasing golf carts out in favor of LSVs, and it's the reason the LSV vs. golf cart difference is worth understanding before you rent anything.
Where a golf cart or LSV pass actually gets you free parking
Not everywhere. The pass covers all street-end parking spaces on both the beach and canal sides, all on-street parking south of Carl Winner Avenue, and a long list of town lots — including the lots on Alabama, Atlanta, Canal Drive, Hamlet, Fayetteville, Ocean Boulevard, Sandpiper, South Carolina, Spartanburg, Tennessee, Texas, the Marina and Town Hall lots, and the Shell lot on South Lake Park.
Five lots charge everyone, permit holders included: the two premium lots at 236 and 237 Carolina Beach Avenue North, plus the lots at 1008 Carolina Beach Avenue South, 207 North Lake Park Boulevard, and 304 Carolina Beach Avenue South. Pulling into one of those with a pass and assuming you're covered is a $60 lesson.
Read the sign, not the map. The town marks this visually: a whale symbol means a residential or downtown-employee pass is valid there; a golf cart symbol means a golf cart permit or LSV parking pass is valid. If neither symbol is on the sign, everybody pays.
Yes, there are designated golf cart spaces — and no, they aren't free
Several town lots have spaces striped specifically for golf carts and LSVs, including the lots at 401 South Lake Park Boulevard, 807 South Lake Park Boulevard, 219 Hamlet Avenue, 102 Hamlet Avenue, 205 and 207 Canal Drive, 100 Sandpiper Lane, and the free Community Center lot on Cape Fear Boulevard.
Here's the trap: a designated golf cart space is not free parking. The town is explicit that a vehicle without an annual pass "must pay the hourly/daily rate to park in any regular or golf cart designated space." The stripes tell you the space fits a cart. They don't tell you it's paid for.
Kure Beach is a different country
Everything above stops at the town line.
Kure Beach runs its own program through a different vendor entirely. Enforcement runs March 15 through September 30, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM — a shorter season and a shorter day than Carolina Beach. Rates are $6/hour, $25/day, or $125/week, and a season pass runs up to $225 depending on how early you buy it (there's a tiered structure that starts cheap in early February and steps up).
Three things visitors consistently get wrong here:
A Carolina Beach pass does not work in Kure Beach. Not the residential pass, not the LSV pass, none of it. Both towns say so on their own websites and both point you to the other town's hall to buy separately.
Kure Beach charges residents and visitors the same. There's no local discount — a Carolina Beach resident pays the same $225 as someone from Ohio. (The asymmetry runs one way: Kure Beach residents are eligible for Carolina Beach's discounted residential pass. Carolina Beach residents get nothing in return.)
Kure Beach has no LSV or golf cart parking provision at all. The town publishes golf cart street rules — tagged, licensed, insured, licensed operator, federal equipment standards — but no cart permit and no cart parking pass. In practice that means an LSV in Kure Beach is parked as an ordinary vehicle, at ordinary rates, in ordinary spaces. Kure Beach passes are virtual and enforced by license plate scanning, so there's nothing to display.
The residential parking trap
The most expensive mistake visitors make in Carolina Beach isn't a lot — it's a shoulder.
Those unmarked parallel strips alongside drive aisles in residential neighborhoods look like free parking. They aren't. The town calls them undesignated parking areas, and parking in one requires a town-issued re-entry decal — a credential issued to residents and property owners primarily so they can get back onto the island after a hurricane evacuation, which happens to also unlock residential shoulder parking. It's non-transferable between vehicles, and no visitor pass substitutes for it.
Two more that catch people: a pass never overrides a posted time limit — the town states this directly, so a two-hour zone is still two hours with a pass on the vehicle. And there's a 24-hour maximum stay in town facilities.
How this works if you're renting from us
Every JellyCarts LSV carries its Carolina Beach LSV parking pass on the vehicle, as an annual permit. You don't apply for it, buy it, or display anything — it's already there when the cart shows up, on a half-day rental or a seven-night rental alike. It isn't a seasonal sticker that lapses in the off-season, and it isn't an add-on line on your quote. It's part of the all-in price, the same as the Road Service Plan.
Two honest caveats, because a pass you misunderstand is worse than no pass:
It's a Carolina Beach pass. It does nothing in Kure Beach, where you'll pay Kure Beach's rates in Kure Beach's spaces during their season. You can absolutely drive there — just plan to pay to park once you arrive.
It doesn't cover those five excluded lots, and it doesn't override time limits or the 24-hour rule. Check the sign for the golf cart symbol. That's the whole test.
What it does do is cover the town lots and street-end spaces you'll actually use ninety percent of the time, in the season when parking is hardest and most expensive — which, at $25 a day for a standard lot, adds up fast on a week-long trip.
Rates, seasons, and pass rules are set by each town and change year to year — the figures here reflect the 2026 season as published by the Town of Carolina Beach and the Town of Kure Beach. Confirm current rules with the towns before relying on them. Questions about your rental: text or call 910-999-2278.