Waitlist FAQ

Waitlist is a ChargePoint Platform feature that lets drivers get in line when all charging spots at a location are busy. It notifies drivers when a charging spot becomes available, and gives them time to go plug in.

Waitlist is convenient for station owners and equitable to EV drivers. If a charging spot is available, drivers just tap their phone, ChargePoint card, or use their mobile app to plug in and start charging. If all spots are full, drivers can join a Waitlist via the mobile app and get notified when it’s their turn to charge. Drivers are offered spots on a first-come, first-served basis. Stations are held for an amount of time that is configured by the station owner, allowing drivers to move their vehicle into position to charge.

Station owners can enjoy greater convenience and increased station utilization, even for stations that were already in high demand. Once it’s set up, Waitlist manages station demand automatically, freeing up time for station managers.

Waitlist also offers drivers the convenience and peace of mind that they’ll be able to find a place to charge. Drivers can simply join a Waitlist, go about their day, and get notified when it’s their turn to charge, with confidence that their station will be held for a reasonable amount of time until they can plug in. They no longer must drive around looking for open spots, or in the case of a workplace or community parking area, try to contact other drivers by SMS, email or phone to coordinate charging.

There is no extra charge to drivers for Waitlist. For station owners, it’s bundled with the Commercial and Enterprise cloud plans on the ChargePoint Platform. As of 2025, CP6000, CT4000, Express 250/280 and Express Plus stations all support Waitlist. Third-party hardware is not currently supported.

You can create Waitlist policies in your account and apply them to the stations of your choice. To learn how to configure Waitlist Policies, go to ChargePoint Platform Online Help, select Stations and then Waitlist in your ChargePoint account. For additional assistance, contact ChargePoint customer support.

For Waitlist to work best, drivers need to be able to locate the station that’s being held for them. To avoid any confusion when enabling Waitlist, please make sure your stations are precisely pinpointed on the map and that the names are clear and suggest the location. Make sure to name stations by location and in order: Front1 and Front2 or East1 and East2, for example. Please contact customer support if you need assistance. Your drivers will appreciate having Waitlist set up in a way that makes sense to them.

A mix of Waitlist and non-Waitlist stations can confuse drivers, so we recommend enabling Waitlist on all stations at a single site like a building or a parking lot. However, there are some important exceptions: Waitlist should not be enabled for visitor or disabled parking spaces, to ensure easy access for people parking in these spots. Waitlist can be configured flexibly for all stations or the stations of your choice, including the ability to disable it specific stations that serve ADA spots.

Just like with other ChargePoint services, you are in control of Waitlist. Each Organization gets to decide whether to enable Waitlist, and how to configure it for specific circumstances. The amount of time drivers have to move their cars, how long drivers can charge at a station, and how many times they can defer a spot are all configurable. To get started, go to ChargePoint Platform Online Help, select Stations, Waitlist and then Create a Waitlist Policy.

Drivers can join the Waitlist either directly by tapping on the station or, more commonly, through the mobile app or driver portal. You can control which methods are available to drivers in the Advanced section within the Waitlist Policy configurations in your ChargePoint account. To disable joining Waitlist remotely through the mobile app or driver portal, admins are able to disable Remote Queueing. Joining locally by tapping a digital or physical RFID card on the station is always enabled and cannot be disabled.

Yes, when a driver joins Waitlist directly by tapping on the station, the default configuration is for the driver to join stations within 1000 feet. of the station that the driver tapped, as long as those stations are part of the same organization and have a Waitlist policy applied.

The distance from the tapped station to the stations where a driver can join a Waitlist queue is configurable in the Advanced section within the Waitlist Policy configurations up to a maximum of 2500 feet. Should you want drivers to join Waitlist for only the station for which the driver tapped on, set the distance to 0 feet.

You can also configure your settings so that drivers can only join stations that are within the same Waitlist policy of the one they tapped on. You can access this setting by going to the Advanced section within the Waitlist Policy configurations in your ChargePoint account.

Waitlist is always in effect once enabled for a station, but a station owner can decide when they would like drivers to be able to join the Waitlist queue remotely. To do so in your ChargePoint account, set a remote queue time block in the Advanced section within the Waitlist Policy configurations by selecting “Allow drivers to get in line before the remote queue opens using the web or mobile app”. There you can set a time period for when you would like for remote queueing to be available. If a driver joins outside of the time period configured, they will be placed in the remote queue at the opening time in random order. Drivers will not be assigned a station to charge at until the remote queue opens.

Waitlist prioritizes drivers in sequential order of when they joined the queue. In scenarios where the station owner has set up a specified remote queue time block and the driver joins the Waitlist outside of that time period, drivers are added to the queue in random order.

Under the Reports menu in your ChargePoint account, Analytics tools let you create charts that show how many drivers are waiting right now or at different times of day at Waitlist enabled stations. You can also visit the Driver Log in the Waitlist section under Manage Stations to identify the drivers who don’t move when asked, or don’t plug in after accepting a Waitlist update. If many drivers don’t plug in, it might indicate that the “time to plug in” is too short and should be extended.

Drivers must have a ChargePoint account and may use a ChargePoint RFID card or Digital Wallet card to use Waitlist so they can receive notifications when a charging spot becomes available. Contactless credit cards and other anonymous access methods aren’t supported on Waitlist enabled stations

No, should a driver encounter any issues with a station and receive no energy during that session, their Waitlist positions will be maintained in all queues that they have joined and they will have 1 additional attempt to successfully initiate a charging session. The driver will have to return the plug to the station and wait for a notification assigning them to the next available station. Please note that the driver may be assigned to a different station than their original.

If a driver received any amount of energy after getting assigned a station and the session was interrupted, they will have to rejoin the Waitlist queue from the end.

Yes. Log into your account, go to Manage Stations, and click on the station in the table to bring up its property sheet. On the Status and Actions tab, click Mark Under Maintenance and specify which port(s) are not working correctly. When a port is set to “Maintenance Required”, drivers will not be offered those ports through Waitlist but may still be able to use them for regular sessions. After marking a spot under maintenance, please contact Customer Support for help resolving the issues.

Log in to your account and go to ChargePoint Platform Online Help, select Stations, then Waitlist for more information.