Wild camping in Italy: what the regions and parks actually say

Can you wild camp in Italy? We found no national law on tents in open country, and the specialist site Montagna.tv says the same: ‘non esiste una norma univoca a livello nazionale’, meaning there is no single rule at national level (our translation) [1]. The rules come from the regions and the autonomous provinces, then from municipalities and parks. We read their texts on 7 November 2026, on the official portals or, where those could not be reached, in a copy that we flag. Here is what they ban, what they allow under conditions and what we could not verify.

Who decides: law, regulation, order or custom

A rule is only as good as whoever wrote it, and it holds only on that author’s territory. Four kinds of rule come up here.

• Regional or provincial law: it applies across a whole regionRegione: one of Italy’s regions, with its own assembly and laws. or autonomous provinceProvincia autonoma: Trento or Bolzano, with law-making powers of their own., as in the Aosta Valley, Piedmont and Trentino.
• Park regulations: they apply inside the parkParco: a protected area run by its own managing body, national or natural. only. Italy’s 1991 framework law on protected areas bans fires in national parks and punishes breaches of the rules set by their managing bodies with fines of €25 to €1,032; after a set period, a park’s regulations take precedence over those of municipalities [2].
• Municipal regulation or order: it applies only on the territory of the municipalityComune: Italy’s basic unit of local government, with a mayor., and a court can annul it.
• Custom: what gets said with no text behind it. ‘Il bivacco notturno dal tramonto all’alba (con o senza tenda) è quasi sempre consentito’, meaning that a night bivouac from sunset to dawn, with or without a tent, is almost always allowed (our translation), we read for example on Montagna.tv in 2024, with no reference to any law [3]. We found it in no law we read: the nearest timetable is that of a single park, Mont Avic.

Seven Alpine regions and provinces: the table, text by text

Three situations stand out from our reading, outside parks. Banned, with written exceptions: the Aosta Valley, Piedmont and Trentino. Left to municipalities: South Tyrol, where we did not find a general ban. Not verified: Lombardy, Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, where no text in force that we read mentions the lone tent. That last label does not mean allowed.

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Aosta Valley: where the 2,500 m rule comes from

You often read that bivouacking is banned in Italy except above 2,500 m. What the text says: that figure comes from the Aosta Valley, and we read it in the law of no other region. Article 20 of the 2002 law sets the ban, Article 19 the exception [4].

What that means for you: below 2,500 m, tents are banned throughout the region, except for association camps authorised by the mayor. Above that height, only the mountaineers’ bivouac in a tent falls outside Article 19. We read that as an exception, worded obliquely, and Montagna.tv reads it the same way [1]; the law says neither what this bivouac is, nor how long it lasts, nor when it starts [4]. The municipality is still best placed to tell you how it reads it. Our article on the Tour du Mont-Blanc shows what this changes on the Italian side. The time of day, for its part, comes from a park: in Mont Avic Natural Park, a bivouac in a tent is allowed only above 2,500 m, as a ‘sosta notturna occasionale’, an occasional night stop, from sunset to one hour after sunrise [14], and no more than 50 m from waymarked paths [15]. That rule applies to this park only. In Gran Paradiso National Park, which also covers part of the Aosta Valley, 2,500 m changes nothing (see below).

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Piedmont and Trentino: 48 hours here, 24 hours there

Piedmont has no altitude threshold, but it does have a time limit. Its 2019 law excludes free camping (campeggio libero) ‘in nessuna forma’, in any form, then an exception added in 2021 takes certain short stays out of that article [6].

The law counts tents among this mobile equipment [6]. So the exception is not general: it requires a lone, occasional installation and no space available on a campsite or in an authorised area. The fine runs from €250 to €1,000, with, since 2025, seizure and confiscation of the ‘mezzo mobile di pernottamento’, the mobile overnight vehicle; the law files vehicles under that name and tents separately, and does not say whether a tent is affected [6].

Article 7 of Trentino’s 2012 law bans camping in a tent or vehicle outside accommodation facilities and the spaces provided by farm stays (agriturismi), except ‘insediamenti singoli occasionali, per un periodo non eccedente le ventiquattro ore, in zone dove non esistono espliciti divieti da parte delle competenti autorità’, meaning occasional lone installations, for 24 hours at most, in areas with no express ban from the competent authorities (our translation) [8]. Another exception: occasional, free hospitality from an owner near their home. A breach costs €150 to €450 [8]. The text does not list the bans: ask for the list.

South Tyrol: the municipalities take over

The 1988 provincial law on public establishments defines campsites and motorhome areas, but we did not find a ban on the lone tent in it [9]. We have not read every provincial law. We have, however, read recent municipal regulations. Funes (Villnöss) and Plaus cite a model from the municipalities’ consortium (communication No. 133/2025) [16, 12], Luson (Lüsen) has passed a resolution on the same subject [13], and the full text from Villabassa, adopted on 18 May 2026, says this [5].

The same article bans camping on public land, tents included, and counts as a bivouac any night in the open in a sleeping bag. A breach costs €300 to €900, and you must remove your gear at once, failing which the municipality can do so at your expense [5]. The text covers public land and says nothing about private land. These amounts apply to Villabassa: the resolutions we read from other municipalities give none. A regulation can also fall: according to il Dolomiti, a judgment of the administrative court in Bolzano, filed on 7 April 2026, annulled the ban on overnight parking in Selva di Val Gardena, because the municipal council lacked the power to impose it [17]. That concerns parking, not tents, and the valley’s tourist site still says that camping or spending the night in your vehicle is banned there, private land and protected areas included [18].

Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli: what we could not find

At the risk of being the office killjoy, here are three boxes with no answer. In Lombardy, the 2015 law, in its version in force, deals with campsites, temporary camps and shelters, not the lone tent [7]. In Veneto, nor does the 2013 law [10]. In Friuli, the December 2025 code, in its version of 8 August 2026, deals with campsites and mobile camps, and says nothing about the lone tent [11].

A silent text is not a permission. Some sites write that camping is banned outside equipped areas in Veneto and Friuli, or that you must ask the municipality in Lombardy [3]; they cite no text, and we do not repeat it as a rule. That leaves the municipalities, which we have not surveyed, the landowners and the parks. In Veneto, the regulations of the Ampezzo Dolomites Natural Park, published without a date by the Cortina tourist site, say ‘non si può campeggiare con tende e camper’, you cannot camp in a tent or motorhome (our translation) [20]. For the Friulian Dolomites Natural Park, the regulations could not be read: not verified.

The national parks we read: no lone tent, emergencies apart

In a national park, the park’s regulations come on top of the regional law: a tent has to clear both. Stelvio has to be read sector by sector: its three parts answer to Lombardy, Trento and Bolzano, and they are not at the same stage [21, 22, 23].

In practice, none of the texts we read provides for an altitude exception or a planned bivouac. Gran Paradiso, whose text also appears on its website [27], allows the emergency bivouac for a single night only, when there is no hut or the hut is full [24]. Stelvio’s Lombardy sector writes for its part that a tent is allowed only on equipped campsites [28], and that a roving bivouac is banned there as a general rule [29]. Fires are banned in Gran Paradiso [24] as in the Belluno Dolomites, where the park also reminds its visitors of these rules [26, 30].

Bivacchi: shelters, not mountain huts

The texts we read describe bivacchi fissi in similar terms: in the Aosta Valley, unstaffed high-mountain premises with a minimum of equipment to shelter mountaineers [31]; in Piedmont, structures open at all times, equipped with the essentials for a ‘ricovero di fortuna’, a makeshift shelter [32]; in Friuli, unstaffed buildings for sheltering and rescuing mountaineers [11]. The thresholds vary: at least 1,200 m in the Lombardy law in force [7], more than 1,600 m according to Veneto [33].

The Italian Alpine Club (Club Alpino Italiano, CAI), the national mountaineering club, which owns some of them, describes in its rules a small structure with generally 6 to 12 places, open at all times, with minimal services for emergency shelter, where animals are banned [34]. Its magazine Lo Scarpone points out that they were not created as the end point of a walk, but as an intermediate stage, above all on alpine climbs [35]. And a tent beside a bivacco? We found no text that allows it: the rule of the region, the municipality or the park applies.

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Campervans and fines: what comes on top

Sleeping in a vehicle follows a different logic: the Italian highway code, whose Article 185 we explain in detail, distinguishes parking from camping. Regional texts refer to it: Trentino treats as unauthorised camping a motorhome that spreads beyond its outline, rests on anything other than its wheels or discharges liquids [8], and Piedmont reserves Article 185 [6]. Parks are more direct: in Gran Paradiso, outside equipped areas, stopping a habitable vehicle in a way that amounts to camping is banned [24], and Mont Avic says the same [14].

As for fines, we did not find a national scale. In 2024 Montagna.tv spoke of €100 to €500, €300 on average, with no source [3]: those are not the amounts in the texts. The ones in the table are minimums and maximums set by each text, and each applies only on its own territory. The highest we read for a tent is that of the Aosta Valley, €1,700 [4], and in Piedmont it is the municipality that applies the penalty [6].

What to check before you go

1. The region: go back to the table and read the text in its current version; the links are in the sources.
2. The park: are you in a national or natural park? Its regulations come on top of the regional law and may ignore its altitude threshold.
3. The municipality: is there a regulation or an order? Write to it before you go.
4. The landowner: on private land, ask; in Trentino, the law governs this hospitality [8].
5. The bivacco: check that it still exists and is usable, with the CAI or the municipality [35].
6. Emergencies: in the national parks we read, this is the only exception for a lone tent, and it cannot be planned. The number to dial is still 112 [36].

Italy gives you no general right to bivouac, but a patchwork of texts, each with its own date: we read these on 7 November 2026. A rule read this autumn will not protect you next summer. For a crossing without a tent, our article on the Alta Via 1 goes from hut to hut; to compare, see Austria, Switzerland and France; for that first night out, our guide to your first wild camp.

Arnaud Couderc

Fact-checking, regulations and safety

Arnaud Couderc reviews our contributors’ articles and writes for Outfarer about regulations, safety, fishing, the sea and outdoor pursuits. He traces every rule back to its official text and every figure to its source, so that you set off with sound benchmarks.

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