Where wild camping is actually forbidden in Switzerland

Four instruments do nearly all the work. A communal camping or police regulation, a federal hunting-ban district, a cantonal or communal nature reserve, and the court-backed prohibition. Across the 48 spots we have researched one at a time, 15 came out forbidden, and every one of them is forbidden by one of those four. None of them are forbidden by anything called a wild camping law, because Switzerland does not have one.

1. The communal camping or police regulation

The most common, and the one you cannot see from the trail. A Swiss commune can prohibit camping across its entire territory, private ground included, and a lot of them have. There is no central register of which ones, which is exactly why this is the instrument that catches people.

Kandersteg does it at Art. 7 of its police regulation, in force since 2021, and that single article is why the Oeschinensee is out.¹ Grindelwald does it at Art. 9 of its camping reglement, with no exception for being above the treeline, which is what decides the Bachalpsee, First and the Faulhorn.² Lauterbrunnen brought one in on 1 January 2025 reaching the whole municipality.³ Zermatt does it at Art. 43, which is why both the Riffelsee and the Stellisee are prohibited despite sitting well above 2,500 metres.⁴

Ceilings run from a few hundred francs to CHF 5,000. What is actually applied is usually CHF 100 to 200. The important part is not the number, it is that these rules apply at any altitude inside the boundary, and that neighbouring communes frequently disagree, so the answer can flip when you cross a ridge.

2. The federal hunting-ban districts

Free camping inside a federal hunting-ban district is prohibited by federal ordinance. The cantons may grant exceptions; a commune or a landowner cannot.⁵ That is the practical difference from everything else on this page: there is nobody local to ask.

The fixed penalty is CHF 150, and unlike most Swiss camping figures this is a tariff rather than a ceiling, so it is what you would actually pay.⁶ The ceiling behind it under the federal Hunting Act is CHF 20,000.

These districts are drawn around high alpine terrain, so they overlap heavily with exactly the ground people assume is free. The Hagelseewli and the Tannhorn are inside the Schwarzhorn and Augstmatthorn districts, and the Milchspüelersee sits deep inside the Freiberg Kärpf, the oldest federal game reserve in the country.⁷ Wildlife rest zones are a separate instrument with a separate tariff, and they bite only during their protection period, which is usually winter into spring.

3. Cantonal and communal nature reserves

This is where the largest numbers live, and they have nothing to do with camping law. The Engstlensee and its shores are inside a cantonal reserve created by a 2012 decree that bans tents and bivouac year round, with the penalty ceiling coming from the Bern Nature Protection Act at CHF 50,000.⁸ That is the highest figure anywhere in our corpus.

Reserves can also be tiny and communal. The summit of the Gnipen is a protection zone listed as a single object, a mountain meadow with significant orchid populations, and the Arth protection ordinance forbids camping there specifically.⁹ Nothing about the terrain tells you that.

The useful signal: if the reason a place is protected has nothing to do with camping, enforcement tends to be more serious rather than less, because someone is already watching that ground for other reasons.

4. The court-backed prohibition, which is not a fine

The least understood of the four. A landowner can obtain a richterliches Verbot, a prohibition backed by a court and posted on the ground. It is not a police regulation and rangers cannot write you a ticket under it.

People read that as tolerance. It is not: it is a different route, through a court, and the consequence arrives later instead of on the spot. At the Oeschinensee this is what covers the tentless bivouac, closing the gap the communal tent ban leaves, up to CHF 2,000.¹ At the Limmernsee a court order obtained by the power company with the commune covers the two land parcels that make up the whole basin, so the lake, both dams and every shore bench sit inside it.¹⁰

There is a field test for the sign. A genuine court prohibition names the court, the date, the case number and a franc amount. A plain "camping verboten" board without those is the landowner telling you consent is refused, which matters under the access rule but is a different thing from a court order.

How to check a spot that is not on any list

Work the four in order of how much ground they cover. First, which commune is this, and does it have a camping or police regulation. Second, does the spot fall inside a federal hunting-ban district or a wildlife rest zone in its protection period. Third, is there a cantonal or communal reserve over it. Fourth, is there a posted prohibition on the ground itself.

If all four come back empty, nothing prohibits you, and our own verdicts say so plainly rather than hedging. That is how 9 of our 48 spots came out legal. The work is in the checking, not in the conclusion.

Fifteen verified as forbidden, and which instrument does it

Every one of these is read to the named article, not inferred from a tourism page. Dated August 2026; communes do change these, so the date on each report is part of the answer.

• Oeschinensee, BECommunal + court

  Kandersteg police regulation Art. 7 for the tent, and a court-backed prohibition at the lake for the bivouac. Up to CHF 5,000 and CHF 2,000 respectively.¹

• Bachalpsee, BECommunal

  Grindelwald camping reglement Art. 9, municipality-wide with no above-treeline exception. Up to CHF 1,000, and up to CHF 20,000 in the hunting-ban district.²

• Stellisee and Riffelsee, VSCommunal

  Zermatt police regulation Art. 43 covers the whole commune including the mountain lakes. About CHF 200 per tent plus operation costs.⁴

• Milchspüelersee, GLFederal

  Deep inside the Freiberg Kärpf. A federal offence at CHF 150 fixed penalty, and no landowner can wave it through.⁷

• Engstlensee, BENature reserve

  Cantonal reserve by decree of 2012, tents and bivouac banned year round. Ceiling CHF 50,000 under the Bern Nature Protection Act, the highest in our corpus.⁸

• Limmernsee, GLCourt order

  A court order over the two parcels that make up the entire basin. Up to CHF 2,000, on complaint only.¹⁰