An idle fee at a charging station is a per-minute charge applied for the time your vehicle keeps occupying the socket after charging has finished. In other words, what you're paying for isn't electricity — it's the time another driver couldn't use that socket. On your invoice it may appear as "idle fee," "occupancy fee," "waiting charge," or under local names such as "işgaliye" in Turkey.

This is the line item that surprises EV owners most. On a session where you drew 18 kWh of electricity, two hours of a forgotten cable can produce an idle fee higher than the electricity itself. In this guide we explain why idle fees exist, how they're calculated, how they differ between AC and DC stations, and exactly what to do so you never pay one.

What exactly is an idle fee?

The definition is simple: a per-minute charge for the time between the moment the charging session technically ends and the moment the cable is unplugged.

Three different time periods often get confused, so let's separate them first:

Charging time: The period when current is flowing and the kWh meter is running. You pay for this per kWh.
Post-charge waiting: The vehicle has reached 100%, or you stopped the session yourself, but the cable is still plugged in. This is where the idle meter starts.
Grace period: The buffer allowed after charging ends before any fee kicks in. Across the industry this is typically 5 to 15 minutes.

One critical point: an idle fee is not about "parking" at the unit. Parking at an EV charging bay without charging is a separate issue, usually handled by the shopping centre or car park operator, or under traffic regulations. An idle fee, by contrast, is a tariff item the charging operator applies based on its own recorded session data.

Why do charging stations charge idle fees?

The answer in one word: capacity. The economics of a DC fast-charging socket depend entirely on how many vehicles it serves per day.

Let's run the numbers. A 150 kW DC socket takes an average electric car from 20% to 80% in roughly 25–35 minutes. That's theoretically about 2 vehicles per hour, or 15–20 sessions on a busy day. If one vehicle sits there for an extra hour after charging, that socket loses two customers that day. From the driver's side the result is even more frustrating: someone arriving mid-journey sees an "occupied" unit and has no way of knowing it's actually sitting idle.

On the AC side the picture flips, but the outcome is the same: an 11–22 kW AC socket fills the same car in 3 to 6 hours. Drivers usually plug in and walk away to work. That's why post-charge waiting times at AC stations run far longer than at DC ones, and in total the idle fees accrued on AC sockets can meaningfully exceed those on DC — on ADZE's own network the gap runs to several times over. So the assumption that "idle fees are only a fast-charging problem" is simply wrong.

There's a grid dimension too: a socket that looks occupied but draws no current also locks up that site's electrical capacity. Neighbouring sockets on the same panel keep running at reduced power because of the waiting vehicle.

How is an idle fee calculated?

The formula is nearly identical across operators:

Idle fee = (Total occupancy time − Grace period) × Per-minute rate

"Total occupancy time" here is the gap between the moment charging ended and the moment the cable was pulled. The unit's own OCPP records store these two timestamps separately, and the invoice is generated from that record.

As of mid-2026, common ranges among operators in Turkey look like this (tariffs vary by operator and location — always check the station screen and the app for exact figures):

	AC charging (11–22 kW)	DC fast charging (50 kW+)
Typical charging time (20%→80%)	3–6 hours	20–45 minutes
Common grace period	~10–15 minutes	~5–15 minutes
Common per-minute rate	roughly 2–6 TL/min	roughly 5–10 TL/min
Overnight exemption	offered by some operators (e.g. 00:00–10:00)	generally none
Real purpose of the fee	keep sockets turning over during the day	keep the queue moving on transit routes
Typical driver mistake	"I'll just leave it plugged in overnight"	"I'll grab a coffee and be right back"

Now let's ground this in a real scenario. Say a DC station applies a 15-minute grace period and charges 10 TL per minute:

Time left plugged in after charging	Billable minutes	Idle fee
12 minutes	0	0 TL
30 minutes	15	150 TL
1 hour	45	450 TL
2 hours	105	1,050 TL

Assume that same session delivered around 30 kWh at roughly 14 TL per kWh: the electricity comes to about 420 TL. So two hours of forgetfulness costs more than the charge itself. Put in range terms, that 1,050 TL is close to the cost of enough electricity to drive over 400 km at average consumption (around 17 kWh/100 km).

At exactly which second does the meter start?

This is where most disputes originate. There are two distinct timestamps:

The moment charging ends: When the vehicle is full or the BMS cuts the current, the unit marks the session "completed."
The moment the cable is pulled: The socket physically frees up.

The idle fee is calculated from the interval between these two. The meter can start even if your car never reached 100% — for example, if the current was cut because the battery got too warm, or the vehicle stopped the session itself. That's why the technical answer to "but my car wasn't even full, why was I charged an idle fee?" is usually: the car wasn't full, but the charging session had closed.

How is the idle fee paid, and how does it appear on the invoice?

An idle fee isn't a separate payment; it's added to the total cost of the charging session. In practice it's taken from your saved card when the session closes, and most operators show it as a separate line in the transaction details (kWh cost, service fee, idle fee).

Three practical warnings:

A card with insufficient balance may fail on a total inflated by an idle fee; the session stays in "unpaid" status and is collected later.
Keep the transaction record. If you plan to dispute it, what you'll need is the session number (transaction ID) and the unit number.
For corporate and fleet users, idle fees usually show up as a lump item on the month-end invoice — and because the driver never sees them, they pile up. For a fleet manager, idle fees are the single most measurable output of driver training.

6 practical rules for never paying an idle fee

Turn on app notifications. Nearly every charging app sends a "charging complete" alert. If your phone is on silent, that alert is useless — add the app to your notification exceptions.
Set a target charge level in the car. Above 80% DC charging slows down anyway; capping the car at 80% means the session ends at a predictable time.
Do the math up front. Plan around 30 minutes on a 150 kW DC unit and 4 hours on a 22 kW AC unit, and set your alarm for 10 minutes before the charge is due to finish.
Check the overnight exemption on AC. Some operators waive idle fees on AC sockets during night hours. Unplugging on your way to work in the morning may be enough — but verify it against the tariff rather than assuming.
Don't move the car without unplugging, and don't leave the cable behind after moving it. A common scenario: the driver pulls out of the bay without returning the connector to its holster, so the session never closes.
Read the unit's screen when charging stops. A "Finishing" message means the meter has started running.

How to dispute an unfair idle fee

Because an idle fee rests on a device record, it's an auditable line item. Incorrect charges do happen: if the unit's clock has drifted, if the unit was restarted before the session closed, or if the record contains a nonsensical timestamp (for example a session showing 0 kWh or a date in the distant past), the bill can balloon.

When you dispute, have these three things ready:

The session number and the unit number
A screenshot or the timestamp of the app notification confirming the charge ended
The approximate time you unplugged the cable

Serious operators will check these three against their own OCPP logs and issue a refund if there's an inconsistency. At ADZE Charge this audit is automatic: every idle-fee record is compared against the unit's own event log, and records flagged as "erroneous" are filtered out before they're ever collected. In other words, a genuinely undeserved idle fee is dropped without waiting for you to notice it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are idle fees legal? Yes. Charging services are provided by licensed charging network operators under published tariffs, and idle fees are one item within that tariff. The condition for legality is that the fee is published in advance: the tariff must be visible on the station screen and/or in the mobile app before any charge is applied. If you're being billed under an item that was never published, you have grounds to dispute it.

Will I be charged an idle fee if I stay a long time while my car is charging? No. As long as current is flowing, no idle fee accrues; you pay the kWh cost for that time. Idle fees start only after charging ends. So sitting there through a 6-hour AC session is not a problem — the problem is the 6 hours after it finishes.

What happens if I don't pay the idle fee? The amount stays on your account as a debt and is usually collected on your next charging attempt or through a repeat charge to your card. With most operators, an unpaid balance blocks you from starting a new session. If the amount is wrong, using the dispute channel gets results far faster than simply refusing to pay.

Do drivers pay more in idle fees on DC or AC? The per-minute rate is higher on DC, but in total, drivers pay more in idle fees at AC stations. The reason is simple: on DC people stay near the car; on AC they don't. Twenty minutes at 10 TL/min is 200 TL; five hours at 3 TL/min is 900 TL.

Conclusion: an idle fee isn't a penalty, it's queue management

Reading idle fees as "extra revenue for the operator" is misleading. For a charging network operator, the ideal scenario is a socket that is continuously selling electricity — a car sitting idle costs the operator too. The idle fee is the mechanism that keeps a limited number of sockets circulating; when it works well, nobody pays it, because nobody waits unnecessarily.

For drivers it comes down to three things: know the grace period, work out your finish time in advance, and keep notifications on. A driver who does those three can charge for years without paying a single lira in idle fees.

ADZE Charge operates more than 850 sockets across over 50 locations throughout Turkey, and our tariffs and grace periods are stated clearly in the station details and in the app — all you need to do is check before you head out to charge.

What Is an Idle Fee at an EV Charging Station? How It's Calculated and How to Avoid It