Wild camping in Germany: is it legal? (2026)

Federal nature law's § 59 grants the right to ENTER open country for recreation — not to pitch a tent. What happens with the tent is each Land's call: positive rights, permissions or express exclusion.

Germany's famous 'no tent makes it fine' isn't in any federal law: some texts regulate sleeping out separately, others never mention it. It depends on the Land and the site — and some regimes expressly allow it by name, like Saxon Switzerland's Boofen.

The federal forest-entry right (§ 14 BWaldG) doesn't include tents either: each Land forest law builds its own permission mechanism — and fire rules, closures and the landholder always stack on top.

Germany's gem: travellers on foot, by bike, on horseback or by water may pitch for ONE night in the open landscape — no permission needed. Gardens, courtyards, the domestic sphere and operational land stay out.

• Municipalities can additionally designate Biwakplätze (municipal bivouac sites) with their own capacity and booking rules.

In forest the free night doesn't apply: you need the forest owner's WRITTEN permission, limited to occasional one-day tenting.

Bavaria's entry right (Art. 27) covers forest, mountain pasture, rock and shores — but neither tents nor a planned overnight come included: the owner's consent, and protected-area rules trump even that consent.

Saxony expressly excludes tents from its access right: a designated site or a separate legal basis (landholder permission included), and public-law rules aren't negotiable with the owner.

One night for non-motorised hikers in open country, away from campsites — but with the necessary private-law authority (normally the landholder's permission), and never in national parks or reserves.

No tent or vehicle in forest without special legal authority or permission under the Land forest law. The good route is the official trekking camps — below, with the Black Forest.

The second Land that gifts the non-motorised traveller a night — with fine print Brandenburg doesn't have. § 37 of the nature-protection act lets a non-motorised hiker pitch for one night away from campsites, provided they have private entitlement to use that ground, outside national parks and nature reserves, and where no other law conflicts.

• The difference from Brandenburg matters: there the law gives you the night without asking anyone; here the law lifts its own prohibition, but getting the landowner's permission is still on you.
• The general rule in § 37(1) is the opposite: tents and mobile accommodation only on approved places. The hiker's night is the exception, not the starting point.

Here's something almost no country has: a court saying it outright. Schleswig-Holstein's Higher Regional Court held in 2020 that overnighting in a motorhome on a public car park, having already arrived and for leisure, breaches § 37(1). And it distinguished — without applying it on those facts — a stop to restore fitness to drive during an onward journey.

• The line the ruling draws is Germany's usual one, but finally said by a judge: resting so you can drive on is one thing, setting up for the night at your destination is another. What decides it isn't the bed, it's the purpose and the duration.
• Beschluss of 15 June 2020, 1 Ss-OWi 183/19. Traffic rules and local parking rules still apply on their own account.

Lower Saxony's forest and landscape act says it head on: in the open landscape, outside approved campsites, you don't camp. There is a way out and it's narrow — the forest owner or landholder may allow it, but only for a few days and only case by case.

• That § 28 permission is what stops this being an absolute ban. It isn't a general permission: it's individual, short, and the owner's.

The same provision covers the vehicle: outside approved campsites, neither setting up nor occupying a caravan or motorhome in the open landscape. Again with the § 28 door: a few days, case by case, with the owner involved.

• This doesn't touch ordinary public-road parking within traffic rules — that remains the unresolved national question.

The Land government answered this in writing in parliament: the act says nothing about sleeping under the open sky with a sleeping bag and mat. It isn't part of the access right, and on publicly owned land the official position is that it's unregulated.

• Unregulated is not permitted, and we stop where the source leaves us. Protected-area instruments and other public-law rules may prohibit it independently.
• Land government answer, Drs. 18/9463, question 8.

On private ground the same official answer changes tone: sleeping under the open sky isn't part of the access right, so you need the § 28 landholder permission before lying down in private forest or open land.

• And the owner's permission doesn't lift protected-area instruments or any other public-law restriction.

All over Germany people argue about whether sleeping without a tent counts as camping; Thuringia settled it in writing in a 2024 regulation: tenting "also includes lingering overnight and bivouacking". So much for "I'm not camping, I'm bivouacking".

• Practical consequence: in Thuringian forest a bivouac needs the forest owner's consent exactly like a tent.
• It's the only Land that expressly resolves the question. In the others the law names the tent and stays silent on the sleeping bag.

With the forest owner's consent, and without impairing forest functions, other legal interests or nature conservation. The Thuringian forest act groups it with driving and other conduct that needs permission.

Driving a motor vehicle in forest outside forestry tasks needs the owner's consent, and leaving caravans outside the facilities approved under § 25(4) does too.

• Motor-vehicle use of forest tracks for forestry tasks is expressly permitted.

Germany's most populous Land puts the tent on the same list as driving through the forest: you need a besondere Befugnis, a special authority. Not a closed ban, but not something you can settle on your own either.

• Owner consent doesn't override nature-protection rules, temporary closures or other public-law restrictions.

Driving through the forest and leaving a caravan or vehicle there need the same special authority. Cycling and powered wheelchairs are expressly carved out on roads and firm tracks.

• That exception is about moving, not sleeping: it creates no vehicle-camping route.

Checked against the new version of the Hessian forest act, in force from 28 May 2026: any use of the forest going beyond what's permitted needs the forest owner's consent. The tent falls there.

Driving forest tracks with registrable motor vehicles and leaving caravans or other mobile accommodation in the forest need the forest owner's consent.

The 2026 act names tents and mobile accommodation but doesn't mention sleeping with no shelter. Its catch-all requires consent for any use beyond access and limited Verweilen — so the prudent route is to ask, not to hunt for the gap.

• Saying every planned bivouac exceeds permitted Verweilen would be our interpretation, not law. It stays unconfirmed.

With the forest owners' consent, under § 22(4). The Land's official visitor guidance is blunter than the statute and directs camping to specifically designated places: campsites, trekking pitches and motorhome areas.

• When the statute opens a route and the administration applying it says "only in designated places", the practical reading is the administration's.

Driving or leaving a motor vehicle or trailer in the forest needs the forest owner's consent. Official guidance points you to signposted parking.

The statute names the tent and is silent on the bivouac. But official guidance puts "a night under the open sky" in the same camping section and sends it to designated places — so the statutory silence isn't permission.

• The official explainer points to the restrictive reading, but the controlling text doesn't define tentless bivouac. It stays unconfirmed: guidance is not a statutory ban.

Pitching a tent in the freie Landschaft needs the prior consent of the person entitled to use the land. The statutory category covers forest and field, with its listed exclusions.

Setting up a caravan or motorhome in the open landscape needs the same prior consent. The provision is about placing it in forest or field, not ordinary public-road parking.

• § 22 names tents and vehicles but doesn't classify sleeping al fresco, so we say nothing there.

§ 25(3) of Saarland's forest act opens with "only with the forest owner's consent are the following in particular permitted:" and point 5 is tenting in the forest. Hard to be clearer.

Same article, point 3: driving or leaving motor vehicles in the forest, only with the owner's consent. § 25(6) expressly preserves road and traffic law.

In the open landscape the § 11 access right in Saarland's nature act doesn't include tenting. Being outside the access right doesn't make it a crime, but it does mean you need your own private permission plus any public authorisation that ground requires.

Nor does the access right cover driving draft or motorised vehicles, except for the exceptions the provision itself lists — motorised wheelchairs among them.

• This is about off-road access, not about sleeping inside a vehicle lawfully parked on the street.

Berlin's forest act only allows erecting a tent "or a similar campsite" on plots expressly released for it. Outside those, no.

Using the forest with motor-powered vehicles is prohibited unless the owner grants individual permission, and vehicles and trailers may only be left in designated areas.

• Checked in Berlin's official database after the 2024 amendment: § 17 was untouched by it.

Here's the open question: the act says tent "or similar campsite", and nobody has defined whether a bare sleeping bag counts as "similar". Don't assume sleeping without a tent falls outside the rule.

Only with the forest owner's special permission. And even with it, the competent authority may prohibit tenting for the protective reasons the act lists.

Leaving a vehicle or trailer in the forest needs the same special owner permission, with the same reservation for the competent authority.

Bremen still has a 1965 field-order act making it an offence to pitch tents "without authority" on a Feld. The operative word is unbefugt: not entitled.

• It's a field rule, not a general permission for the rest of Bremen.

The German oddity: a Wohnwagengesetz from 1956, still in force and last amended in 2025. Setting up a caravan needs written authorisation from the competent authority, and outside the public and event pitches listed in § 2(2), setting one up on public ground is flatly prohibited.

• The 1956 date in the title doesn't mean the fact is stale: the official portal identifies this as the version in force.
• The sources don't decide sleeping inside a vehicle or motorhome that remains lawfully parked under traffic rules.

In and around the national park, the legal overnight runs through the official trekking camps: bookable pitches, a May-to-October season, per-camp fire and capacity rules. Outside them, the park's rule is no sleeping — tent or no tent.

• The booking covers your allocated camp, not 'the forest' at large.

The exception is surgical: only the UNAVOIDABLE tentless bivouac on longer mountain tours. A planned convenience bivouac stays inside the general overnight ban.

Tents banned for ordinary visitors, and vehicles only on roads open to public traffic — the park even publishes its enforcement round-ups.

Germany's most characterful regime: sleeping out only at the 58 authorised, marked Boofen outside the core zone, in direct connection with rock climbing, and only 16 June to 31 January — all close 1 February to 15 June for nesting season.

• Tents stay banned throughout the park: Boofen are bivouac, not camping.

In the landscape-protection area around the park, official regional guidance generally permits tentless nights out — never in nature reserves, where both tent and open-sky sleeping are banned. Tents outside admitted places need the conservation authority's written permission.

Germany has no express national rule blessing the night inside a parked vehicle: the StVO governs stopping and parking, and practice tolerates 'one night to restore driving fitness' — but that famous formula isn't in any text we could verify. Unconfirmed; signs and local rules control.

• Forests and protected areas can separately ban the parking itself (Baden-Württemberg, above).