Kirklees Council made nearly £2m profit from car parking in the last financial year.
The authority comes 97th for surplus parking cash out of the 353 councils in England.
Locally, only Leeds pocketed more by reaping £7.2m.
The Kirklees figure of £1.8m is listed as English councils chalked up another record surplus from parking activities – hitting almost £700m – and 4% up on the previous year.
Figures for other neighbouring councils were: Bradford in 105th place with a surplus of £1.58m; Calderdale at 165 with £889,000 and Wakefield at 162 with £896,000.
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Kirklees’ profit is actually down on last year when there was a surplus of £2m, but it is up on 2012/13 when the figure was £1.4m.
The previous two years had seen much higher profits – £2.9m in 2011/12 and £2.4m in 2010/11.
A council spokesman said: “Any surplus is re-invested into services.”
Nearly half the overall surplus total was generated in London.
The figures are calculated by taking income from parking charges and penalty notices, then deducting running costs.
The rise in profits is put down to an increase in parking income rather than a reduction in running costs, which were in line with the previous year.
The data has been analysed for the RAC Foundation from annual returns councils must make to the government.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “The financial sums involved in local authority parking are huge and the overall profits eye-watering. And once again the year-on-year direction of travel is upwards.
“It is unsurprising that London leads the way in making money. Its roads are most congested and the pressure on road space immense.
“The legal position is that parking charges are to be used as a tool for managing traffic. But with local government budgets under ever-greater pressure the temptation to see them as a fundraiser must be intense.
“The precarious financial state of many councils is a genuine concern, not least when it comes to the risk of a cut in road maintenance spending which will hit every one of us. A funding solution requires national and local government to look beyond the High Street parking meter.”
