Camping near Cologne

Sleeping in your vehicle or a tent in Germany

• 🚐 In the vehicle: Generally accepted. Germany — there is no federal rule for or against sleeping in your vehicle: a stopped vehicle is simply parked (StVO §12), and parking is unrestricted unless signed. Resting a night at a Rastplatz or Autohof is normal practice and widely tolerated, but it is not something we can point at a law for. Setting up camp is a different matter, and not on ordinary streets.
• ⛺ A tent outside a campsite: Federal law grants entry to woodland, never a night in it — and the detail is set by each of the 16 Länder, so this is genuinely sixteen answers. Brandenburg requires the owner's WRITTEN permission; Bavaria's forest and nature acts contain no tent prohibition at all, which makes the honest line there "not expressly forbidden" rather than "allowed". No German source publishes a distance in metres for pitching. (BWaldG §14 and BNatSchG §59 (entry only; Länder set the rest) — e.g. Brandenburg LWaldG §17)
• 🅿️ 44 rest areas and motorway services within 30 km — the nearest SVG Autohof Köln-Eifeltor (6.3 km), Autohof Frechen (9.2 km), Autohof Frechen (9.2 km).
• 🚫 Cologne: Umweltzone (green Umweltplakette) — Any vehicle without a green sticker.

Germany: every overnight rule, with its source →