The invention discloses a parking management method and system based on a mobile terminal. Users are classified, and difference management is performed on the users of different types; for registered users holding terminals, parking management comprises receiving user requests, performing parking place querying, making parking reservations, performing vehicle recognition, generating guiding information, performing timing charging, controlling parking and updating parking place states, and vehicle take-back management comprises receiving user vehicle take-back requests, performing the vehicle recognition, performing the timing charging and updating the parking place states; and for unregistered users holding the terminals, the parking management comprises performing the vehicle recognition, generating a terminal-vehicle corresponding relation, generating the guiding information, performing the timing charging, controlling vehicle parking and updating the parking place states, and the vehicle take-back management comprises performing the vehicle recognition, performing charging identification, updating the parking place states and the like. A conventional garage stereo parking and take-back manual management mode is reserved for users without the terminals. The method provided by the invention is based on the general structure and the operation mode of a conventional stereo garage and simplifies and optimizes parking and take-back management of the stereo garage.