Lucerne is notorious for not offering many cheap places to park (and certainly no free parking spots) but here are some other possibilities:
Carparks
If you are going for traditional parking then you should check out this website, it has all the prices for the various parkings (including if you plan to leave your car for several days) and you can even reserve a spot in a car park (which can definitely come in handy on a Saturday or big festivity day). Parking Lucerne
This website gives you an overview of how many spaces are still left in each parking house in Lucerne. Parkleit System.
A cheap all day parking is the Eiszentrum (where you can leave your car for CHF 10.- a day).
Parking in blue zones
This is the closest you’re going to come to parking for free downtown. The Blue Zone areas (recognisable because they are painted blue on the ground) require that you put a sign on the inside of your windshield (like the one above), you are then allowed to park for 1 hour. If you arrive at 14.45 it’s okay to start at 15.00, so you gain a bit of time. You can now buy day passes for blue zone areas for CHF 20.- and if you live in the area you can get a monthly pass for CHF 50.- only valid for the area where you live. More information here.
Park & Ride
This defeats a little bit the purpose of having a car, but were you to park your car in Emmenbrücke and then take the train or bus into town you would only have to pay CHF 6.- for the whole day, you can park your car this way for up to 7 consecutive days..
You can look up for different train stations here.
Renting a Parking Space
If you are planning on staying a bit longer you might want to consider renting a parking space, I would recommend checking out comparis.ch, a quick search today revealed spaces for as little as CHF 40.- a month, of course the closer to downtown the more expensive they get.
Other solutions
You can find out about this cool parking app here.
You could sell your car and then use the Mobility car sharing service, you pay a membership fee starting at CHF 70.- (for four months) and then are able to rent cars all over Switzerland.
But it really is worth asking yourself whether you need a car when you live in Luzern, as our public transport system is excellent, find out more here.
