A night on the road
Sleeping in a camper in 🇩🇪 Germany
A night in the vehicle is generally accepted in Germany. A tent needs a campsite or the landowner's word. A pitch runs about €22 a night.
The same rules the planner warns with when it puts you to bed in Germany. Where a rule is what everyone does rather than what a statute says, this page says so.
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.
In a tent
No right to pitch
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.
🔥 Also per Land, and strict: Brandenburg bans fire and even smoking in forest or within 50 m of its edge, tightened further by the daily Waldbrandgefahrenstufe.
The instrument: BWaldG §14 and BNatSchG §59 (entry only; Länder set the rest) — e.g. Brandenburg LWaldG §17
What a night costs
- In the vehicle €0 · derived
- A campsite pitch €22 · derived
- A hostel bed €50 · derived
Per night, for two. A figure marked derived is computed from the country's price level, not read off a price list — the plan says the same.
Plan the drive and we place the nights for you: the free lawful spots first where you sleep in the vehicle, a pitch where you asked for one, each priced the same honest way.
Looking for tonight rather than a trip? Find a place for the night near you →