Travelers no longer need to bring cash to park at Denver International Airport (DIA).
The region’s largest airport announced this year that its garages and parking lots no longer take physical currency.
The airport is the latest business or service to go cashless as electronic transactions continue to grow as people’s preferred method of payment. As digital wallets and mobile payment apps become standard, more businesses are choosing to do away with cash transactions. Labor costs go down if you don’t need someone to provide customers with change, accounting gets easier and customers find the transactions faster and more convenient.
DIA officials believe taking only digital forms of payment will speed up the exit process.
For travelers, that could mean thinking ahead to make sure and not max out a credit card while on vacation because you have cash in your wallet.
“Transitioning to a cashless experience at our exit lane kiosks will improve traffic flow and create an even more efficient operation across all of (DIA’s) parking locations,” Mark Nagel, senior vice president of DIA Parking and Commercial Transportation, said in a statement.
Those Fees
The shift is not without detractors.
Opponents argue that processing fees get passed to businesses or customers while advocates for people who struggle to get credit or stay up with technology say cash remains their only viable form of payment.
DIA began switching to cashless kiosks at parking lot exits Jan. 6.
“Once the transition process is complete by the end of January, drivers will not be able to pay with cash from their vehicles while exiting (DIA) parking facilities,” the airport says in a statement.
People can still pay with cash — just not at the parking gates. To use cash, drivers need to pay at parking payment kiosks on Level 5 of the Jeppesen Terminal before heading to their cars, the airport said.
DIA processes about 60,000 cash transactions for parking each year, but they make up an increasingly declining fraction of parking payments. In January 2024, cash represented 4.25% of total parking transactions, the airport reports. By November, total cash transactions parking decreased another percent.
Parks Fees And Vending Machines
In summer 2023, all vending machines on the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie became cashless and accessible only using credit cards, mobile pay or WyoOne college IDs.
The National Park Service has also been moving toward cashless transactions to enter certain parks. In April 2022, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming began accepting cashless entrance fee payments.
Parks officials said the switch reduces the amount of time park staff spends handling cash and opportunities “for improprieties,” the Park Service said in a statement.
“Cashless fee collection helps us stay safe, secure, and effective and allows our rangers to spend more time with visitors,” the Park Service said.
Last year, three people from California, New York and Georgia respectively sued the National Park Service over the elimination of cash payments at several parks sites. The plaintiffs argued that the system made the parks inaccessible to some Americans. As long as cash is legal tender, the claimants argued, it should be accepted at all federally owned sites.
A new policy has gone into effect at Denver International Airport where people can't pay for parking with cash. Here is one of the facility's new parking kiosks that accepts digital forms of payment. (Denver International Airport) 
A new policy has gone into effect at Denver International Airport where people can't pay for parking with cash. (Denver International Airport)
Complications For The Creditless
Robin Bocanegra, the executive director of COMEA, a provider of temporary housing for the homeless in Cheyenne, said the nonprofit often has to buy bus tickets for day laborers and others because many out-of-state carriers only accept credit cards.
“They’ll give us cash for it, but that becomes kind of an accounting nightmare,” she said. “It can be complicated, but we make it work.”
It’s not just homeless people who need to pay with cash but released prisoners, as well.
“They never had debit cards when they went to prison,” Bocanegra said. “They haven’t been around that long. Those who’ve gone to prison for 10 years, they come out and everything’s plastic.”
Others are older, live paycheck to paycheck or don’t have the financial competency to understand how credit works. Getting a credit card can be a pitfall for those who aren’t capable of handling the responsibility, Bocanegra said.
Americans with lower incomes are the most reliant on cash. The Pew Research Center found that 3-in-10 Americans whose household income falls below $30,000 a year said they use cash for all or almost all of their purchases in a typical week. The percentage of cash users drops by 10% among households earning between $30,000 to $49,999. The percentage increasingly decreases as wealth goes up.
It doesn’t seem as if the cashless trend will reverse anytime soon, either. According to Pew, Americans who use cash for all or almost all their purchases has decreased from 24% in 2015 to 18% in 2018 to 14% in 2022.
Justin George can be reached at justin@cowboystatedaily.com.
