Wild camping in Canton St. Gallen

St. Gallen does something no other canton in our survey does: it bans nothing itself and instead puts a price on breaching whatever ban your commune has written. The answer to your night here is almost never cantonal. It is in the commune reglement, the protection ordinance, or nowhere at all.

No cantonal camping ban, but a pre-priced communal one. St. Gallen's law collection contains no general camping prohibition.1 What it contains is a fixed-penalty item in the chapter for violations of communal reglements: "Unberechtigtes Campieren auf öffentlichem Grund", unauthorized camping on public ground, CHF 80.1 Whether that item applies to you depends entirely on whether your commune wrote a ban, and several famously did not.

The canton bans nothing, and prices everything

We searched the collection: campieren appears in two acts, zelten in one, Biwak in none, and no general or protected-area cantonal camping act exists.1 The one place camping shows up with teeth is the cantonal fixed-penalty list, and its position is telling: item 21.651 sits in chapter 21, violations of communal reglements. The canton does not decide whether camping is banned where you stand; it just standardizes the price, CHF 80, when a commune has banned it.

The one square-metre exception with cantonal rank is a curiosity: the ordinance on the St. Gallen abbey square bans, among the things you must not do there, "das Campieren und Übernachten", camping and overnighting.2 Note the second verb: on the Klosterplatz even a sleeping bag without a tent is covered. Where St. Gallen sits nationally: our canton comparison.

Protection ordinances, and the calendar

Where the ground is protected, the rules are communal protection ordinances with real camping clauses. Flums bans camping in its nature reserves through Art. 8 of its protection ordinance, which is what makes the ground around the Sächserseeli split by perimeter. Quarten's protection ordinance of 2021 works by season instead: its Art. 18 closes the Murgtal wildlife rest zone to entry in winter, which is why the Oberer Murgsee is a question of the calendar, open in summer, closed from mid-December to the end of the ski season.3

The federal layer runs as everywhere: the game reserve Säntis reaches St. Gallen ground on the Alpstein's east side, free tenting inside it is CHF 150, and wildlife rest zones carry the same amount.45 How to check all of these perimeters before you go is in our protected areas article.

The friendly surprises

St. Gallen holds some of the most quietly permissive ground in Switzerland, and it is written down. Bad Ragaz has a camping reglement whose Art. 5 Abs. 2 exempts the occasional single tent from the permit regime: no permission needed, just inform the commune. That is what makes the Wangsersee one of the rare Swiss lakes where the governing rule is expressly permissive.6

Wartau, the commune under the Gonzen, publishes forty reglements and has no police reglement at all, so a summit night there rests on a verified absence. And at the Mutschensattel on the Alpstein's east rim, every layer comes back empty. Three researched spots in this canton turn on exactly these quiet instruments.

Tent or bivouac: the wording is communal here too

The canton itself distinguishes nothing, with one exception: the Klosterplatz ordinance bans overnighting as such, tent or no tent.2 Everywhere else the communal wording decides. Reglements built on "Campieren" or a device list leave the tentless bivouac arguable; a protection ordinance that closes an area to entry in winter, like Quarten's, catches you however you sleep. The full logic is in When is a bivouac a bivouac.

How it plays out

Five researched St. Gallen spots, and a different instrument does the deciding in every one.

  • WangserseeReport

    One of the rare Swiss lakes where the governing rule is expressly permissive: Bad Ragaz exempts the occasional single tent, no permit, just inform. On the south shore the commune of Vilters-Wangs has no rule at all.

  • GonzenReport

    The summit at 1,830 m lies in Wartau, which publishes forty reglements and no police reglement. The whole answer turns on eleven metres of commune boundary, and they fall the right way.

  • MutschensattelReport

    The federal inventories come back empty at the point on the Alpstein's east rim, and the Säntis game reserve stays away. The BLN listing binds authorities, not you; the report stacks the layers.

  • Oberer MurgseeReport

    The calendar decides: Quarten's protection ordinance closes the Murgtal wildlife rest zone to entry from mid-December to the end of the ski season. In summer the zone rule sleeps.

  • Hoher KastenReport

    Not a legal verdict but a common-sense one: the summit is St. Gallen ground with a revolving restaurant 106 m away and the cable car at 65. Nobody sleeps well on a terrace.

Somewhere else in Canton St. Gallen?

Put it into the wild camping check. In this canton the answer is in the commune reglement or the protection ordinance, and finding and reading those is exactly what the spot reports do.

Is wild camping allowed in Canton St. Gallen?
The canton does not ban it: no general cantonal camping prohibition exists. Communes can and some do, and the canton prices breaching a communal ban at CHF 80 on public ground. Several communes are verifiably permissive or silent, and several are verifiably permissive or silent; the Wangsersee, Gonzen and Mutschensattel reports walk through three of them.
What does wild camping cost in Canton St. Gallen?
CHF 80 as the cantonal fixed penalty for unauthorized camping on public ground where a communal ban exists. Inside the federal game reserve Säntis and in marked wildlife rest zones, CHF 150 under federal law. Protection-ordinance violations run under their own sanctions.
Where is it expressly allowed?
Bad Ragaz exempts the occasional single tent from its permit regime in Art. 5 Abs. 2 of its camping reglement: no permission, just inform the commune. That covers the Wangsersee's north shore. Elsewhere lawfulness usually rests on verified silence rather than written permission.
Is bivouacking treated differently from tenting?
The canton says nothing about either, except on the St. Gallen abbey square, where overnighting as such is banned. In the communes it depends on the wording: a Campieren ban leaves the tentless bivouac arguable, a seasonal entry ban like the Murgtal's catches you either way.

Sources

  1. Canton St. Gallen, Strafprozessverordnung (sGS 962.11), annex: kantonale Ordnungsbussenliste, chapter 21 "Widerhandlungen gegen Gemeindereglemente", item 21.651: "Unberechtigtes Campieren auf öffentlichem Grund ... 80.–". Collection-wide searches: campieren appears in two acts, zelten in one, Biwak in none; no general or protected-area cantonal camping act exists. gesetzessammlung.sg.ch. ↩
  2. Verordnung über den Klosterplatz in St.Gallen (KPV) vom 29.05.2012 (Stand 01.10.2021), sGS 732.12, Art. 7 Abs. 1: "Wer den Klosterplatz begeht oder sich auf ihm aufhält, unterlässt: ... j) das Campieren und Übernachten". gesetzessammlung.sg.ch. ↩
  3. Politische Gemeinde Quarten, Schutzverordnung vom 1. März 2021, Art. 18: the Murgtal wildlife rest zone is closed to entry from mid-December to the end of the ski season; all winter sports activity is banned inside it. Politische Gemeinde Flums, Schutzverordnung, Art. 8: camping is banned in the commune's nature protection areas. Both read in full for our Oberer Murgsee and Sächserseeli reports. oereblex.sg.ch. ↩
  4. Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete (VEJ, SR 922.31), Art. 5 Abs. 1 lit. e: "Das freie Zelten und Campieren ist verboten. Vorbehalten bleibt die Benutzung offizieller Zeltplätze. Die Kantone können Ausnahmen bewilligen." Anhang 1 lists the game reserve Säntis (object no. 16), which reaches St. Gallen ground on the Alpstein's east side. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩
  5. Ordnungsbussenverordnung (OBV), Anhang 2, Ziff. 12005: "Freies Zelten oder Campieren in eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebieten (Art. 18 Abs. 1 Bst. e und Abs. 3 JSG, Art. 5 Abs. 1 Bst. e VEJ)", CHF 150. Ziff. 12003 covers wildlife rest zones at the same amount. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩
  6. Gemeinde Bad Ragaz, Campingreglement, Art. 5 Abs. 2: the occasional pitching of a single tent is exempt from the permit requirement; the commune asks to be informed. Read in full for our Wangsersee report, where the exact wording and its conditions are quoted. badragaz.ch. ↩