Wild camping in Canton Vaud

Facility law at the top, communes below. The Vaud camping act defines a campground as a site equipped to receive mobile installations regularly and regulates exactly that; camping outside campgrounds appears nowhere in it.¹ The cantonal nature-heritage act contains no camping provision, and the hunting-reserve regulation no camping terms.² The commune is the operative layer, and our two researched Vaud spots show the span: verified silence at Isenau, a permit route on the Riviera.³

What the cantonal acts actually cover

The Loi sur les campings et caravanings résidentiels of 1978 opens by defining its subject: "Est réputé terrain de camping l'emplacement aménagé en vue de recevoir régulièrement des installations mobiles servant à l'habitation passagère ou saisonnière, telles que tentes, caravanes, fourgonnettes ou voitures de tourisme avec couchettes." Zoning, permits, operations. A tent for one night on an alp is not an "emplacement aménagé", and no article of the act reaches it.¹

We checked the acts where a conduct ban would otherwise live: the cantonal nature and landscape heritage act has no camping provision at all, and the regulation on hunting and wildlife protection reserves contains no camping, bivouac or tent term.² That leaves the Vaud position as verified facility-only at cantonal level. Where that puts Vaud nationally: our canton comparison.

The communes, from silence to permit routes

Ormont-Dessus, above Les Diablerets, publishes a communal règlement with no camping article, which is exactly what our Isenau report rests on: a verified absence across all three layers. The Riviera works differently: the intercommunal police regulation that covers Montreux runs camping through an authorization from the Association Sécurité Riviera, art. 33, which is a real route rather than a dead gate, and exactly why the Dent de Jaman is restricted rather than forbidden.³

The federal layer runs as everywhere, at CHF 150 in hunting-ban districts, and the Muverans massif shows it at full strength: two integral reserves whose lines run over the summits.⁴⁵ How to check every perimeter is in our protected areas article.

Tent or bivouac: no cantonal verb exists

Vaud names neither the tent night nor the bivouac at cantonal level, so the communal wording decides, and the span is real: a règlement built on an authorization for camping leaves the tentless bivouac arguable, an integral reserve closes everything. The full verb logic is in When is a bivouac a bivouac.

How it plays out

Three researched cases on Vaud ground, one per outcome.

• IsenauReport

  An alp terrace at 1,864 m above Les Diablerets: no federal layer at the pin, no cantonal camping provision, and Ormont-Dessus publishes no rule that reaches it. The report stacks the three layers.

• Dent de JamanReport

  The law says yes with a step: the Riviera police regulation runs camping through an Association Sécurité Riviera authorization, art. 33. The mountain itself is the harder judge.

• MuveransReport

  One massif, two integral reserves whose boundary runs over both summits, four communes, two cantons, and every line closes the same way.