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 the police regulations of the Riviera, Ormont-Dessus and Château-d'Oex share one clause: no camping on public ground or public ways, and on private ground only with the consent of the owner, tenant or farmer.³⁶⁷

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 and the clause they share

Ormont-Dessus, above Les Diablerets, regulates camping in its police regulation of 2021. Art. 76 bans camping in all its forms on public ground, except where the Municipalité designates a place, and allows occasional camping on private ground only with the agreement of the owner, tenant or farmer, with a communal permit beyond four days (3 nights). Fines run to CHF 500, CHF 1'000 on a repeat. Isenau is a communal alp leased to an alp keeper, so the yes comes from the alp in summer and from the commune otherwise.⁶ Corrected on 2 October 2026: an earlier version of this page said Ormont-Dessus had no camping article and that the Isenau report rested on a verified absence across all three layers.

Other communes in the Vaud Alps use the same clause. Château-d'Oex has it in its police regulation of 2023, art. 59, with the ban on the public way or beside it, paths included, rather than on all public ground, and it is the rule at the head of the Torneresse above L'Etivaz.⁷ The Riviera's intercommunal police regulation, which covers Montreux, works the same way in art. 33: it presupposes the consent of the landowner or farmer, asks for a permit from the Association Sécurité Riviera only beyond four days, and bans camping outright only on the public road and its surroundings and in forest. A consented single night on the Jaman alp pasture therefore needs no permit and breaks no ban.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 communal clause that speaks only of 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: two where a communal clause asks for the landholder's consent, one inside federal game reserves.

• IsenauReport

  An alp terrace at 1,864 m above Les Diablerets that the commune owns and leases out: no federal layer at the pin, no cantonal camping provision, and Ormont-Dessus's police regulation, art. 76, allows a night on private ground only with the agreement of the owner, tenant or farmer. Ask the alp in summer, the commune otherwise.

• Dent de JamanReport

  The law says yes with a step: the Riviera police regulation, art. 33, presupposes the landowner's or farmer's consent and asks for an Association Sécurité Riviera permit only beyond four days. 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.