Wild camping in England: what the law says
Wild camping in England is trespass by default, with one exception. What the CRoW Act allows, where Dartmoor stands in 2025, and why Scotland is different.
On a cold January morning in 2023, a judge in London said you could no longer pitch a tent on Dartmoor without the landowner's permission. It was a ruling that reached the national press. For a few months, one of the best-loved wild camping landscapes in England had, legally speaking, a no-camping rule. Then the Court of Appeal disagreed. Then the Supreme Court had the final word.
The result of that case is the single most important piece of recent law on wild camping in England, and understanding it requires knowing what the rules were before it started. Most people assume wild camping in Britain is broadly tolerated, that remote hillsides are fair game as long as you leave no trace. In Scotland that assumption rests on a clear statutory right. In England it rests on the fact that most landowners do not bother you on a remote hillside, which is a very different thing. The distinction matters more than most people realise.
What wild camping is, legally
Wild camping, in the relevant legal sense, means sleeping overnight on land without the landowner's permission, in a tent, under a tarp, in a bivvy bag, or otherwise. It does not need to be remote. It does not need to be a moor or a mountainside. Any private land without permission is the same question: are you a trespasser?
In England and Wales, land belongs to someone unless it is subject to specific public rights. The fact that a piece of moorland is open, unfenced, and seemingly unused does not mean the public has a right to sleep on it. It still has an owner. Going there without permission is trespass. Sleeping there without permission is trespass that lasts longer.
Trespass is a civil wrong in England and Wales, not a criminal offence in ordinary circumstances. You will not be prosecuted for putting a tent up in a field. The landowner can ask you to leave, and if you refuse they can seek a court order to remove you. But the absence of a criminal sanction does not make camping without permission a right. It makes it a risk that most landowners will not bother to pursue in remote places, and one that some will.
What the CRoW Act 2000 does and does not cover
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 is where most people get confused.
The Act created what is widely called the right to roam: a statutory right of access on foot to designated open access land in England and Wales. The land it covers is mountain, moor, heath, down, and registered common land. Roughly 865,000 hectares of England. It came into force progressively between 2004 and 2005.
Section 2(1) of the Act gives a person the right to enter and remain on any access land for the purposes of open-air recreation, provided they observe the general restrictions in Schedule 2. Schedule 2 is where camping appears. It is listed as a restricted activity, meaning the right the Act creates does not cover it. The British Mountaineering Council's summary is direct: camping is not covered by the statutory right of access. You can walk; you cannot pitch a tent and invoke the Act as justification.
This does not mean camping is illegal on access land. It means the Act does not authorise it. Whether a particular landowner permits it, tolerates it, or objects is a separate question. But the statutory right stops at walking.
Natural England maintains a public access map at openaccess.naturalengland.org.uk, showing the open access land where the Act applies, plus registered common land. The layer tells you where you have a right to walk. It does not tell you where you can sleep.
Common land and the same rule
Common land in England is included within the CRoW Act's access right. Registered common land is open access land for the purposes of the Act, so the public can walk across it. For the background on what common land actually is and who owns it, common land in England and Wales covers the full picture.
But the walking right is the walking right. It does not extend to camping. The CRoW Act's Schedule 2 restriction applies to common land as much as to any other access land. A registered common is somewhere you are free to walk, not somewhere you have a statutory right to sleep.
The Dartmoor exception
Dartmoor is different, and it is different because of a separate piece of legislation that has nothing to do with the CRoW Act.
The Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 gives the public a right of access to the Dartmoor Commons on foot and on horseback for the purpose of open-air recreation. The phrase at the centre of the 2023 and 2025 litigation was "open-air recreation." Does recreation include sleeping overnight? Does it require physical activity, or can resting count?
In January 2023, the High Court said no. Sir Julian Flaux held that the 1985 Act did not confer any right to pitch tents or make camp overnight on Dartmoor Commons, and that such camping required the landowner's consent. The case had been brought by Alexander and Diana Darwall, landowners on the moor, who argued that some campers were causing problems for livestock and the environment.
Six months later, the Court of Appeal reversed it. In July 2023, Sir Geoffrey Vos held that section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 confers on members of the public the right to rest or sleep on the Dartmoor Commons, whether by day or night and whether in a tent or otherwise.
The Darwalls took the case to the Supreme Court. In May 2025, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in Dartmoor National Park Authority v Darwall 2025 UKSC 20. The Court held that the ordinary meaning of section 10(1) encompasses wild camping. Recreation is not confined to physical activity. The Dartmoor National Park Authority has the power to make bylaws regulating how that right is exercised, and the existing 1989 bylaws apply, but the right itself is confirmed.
Dartmoor Commons covers roughly 954 square kilometres. It is the only place in England where you have a statutory right to pitch a tent without the landowner's permission.
Scotland: a different legal world
Cross the border and the position changes completely.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 created broad access rights over most land and inland water in Scotland. Those rights include camping. The Act was a deliberate political choice: access is framed as a right, not a privilege, with a corresponding duty on both the public and landowners to exercise it responsibly.
The Scottish Outdoor Access Code defines responsible camping as lightweight, carried out in small numbers, and not staying in any one spot for more than two or three nights. Campervans need the landowner's permission. Tents pitched responsibly are covered by the right.
The practical consequence is that most of Scotland's mountains, glens, and open land can be camped on without permission, provided you follow the Code. Landowners cannot put up signs prohibiting access; obstructions erected solely to restrict the right can be removed by the local authority.
England has no equivalent of the 2003 Act, and as of 2026 no legislation to create one has passed. The Dartmoor case prompted renewed calls for reform, and several campaign groups have pushed for an expanded right to roam. The position as it stands is as described above.
The practical picture across England's hills
The formal legal position is clear: camping without permission is trespass, except on Dartmoor Commons. The practical reality in remote upland England is more complicated.
Landowners of extensive open moorland rarely pursue trespassers who arrive quietly, camp for a single night, and leave nothing behind. The tradition of camping high on the fells of the Lake District, in the Brecon Beacons, or on the hills of Northumberland is longstanding. Many landowners tolerate it tacitly. Some actively welcome it.
This tolerance can and does disappear. Near heavily used areas, on enclosed farmland, close to agricultural buildings or livestock, or during dry periods when fire risk is high, the calculation changes. You can be asked to leave. Some landowners will threaten legal action and occasionally follow through.
The gap between what is legal and what happens in practice is real, but it is not a legal right. If a landowner asks you to leave, you are obliged to go. If you refuse, you are trespassing deliberately. Relying on tolerance as though it were law is a poor strategy, and it tends to erode the tolerance it depends on.
What type of land are you actually on?
Before any of this becomes relevant, the question worth asking is what type of land you are actually looking at. The answer makes a material difference.
Open access land under the CRoW Act is where tolerance tends to be highest and where being present is itself lawful, even if camping is not a right. Common land adds a layer of specific access rights, and Dartmoor Commons adds the specific camping right. Enclosed private agricultural land is the place where the risk is highest and tolerance is lowest.
The INSPIRE Index Polygons dataset, which maps every registered freehold in England and Wales, is a useful starting point. Edgelands presents the same layer in a browser, letting you see the registered freehold boundaries and identify gaps that may indicate common land or unregistered private land. It will not tell you directly whether a piece of ground is open access land or Dartmoor Commons, but it gives you context about what type of ground you are looking at before you consult the access map.
For the specific question of whether access land applies, Natural England's open access map is the right resource. For whether land is common land, the MAGIC map at magic.defra.gov.uk shows the commons layer. For whether a piece of land is registered freehold, the INSPIRE layer or the HM Land Registry map search gives you the answer.
Edgelands is a research tool for mapping the registered freehold layer: it shows the gaps, which is the starting point for understanding what kind of land any given patch of ground is. £5 a month, 7-day free trial.
If the gap you find raises the question of what happens to land nobody seems to have registered, unregistered does not mean unowned explains the distinction, and how to find unregistered land in the UK walks through the research process from there.
FAQ
Is wild camping legal in England? Not as a general right. Camping is a restricted activity under Schedule 2 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, so the statutory right of access to open land does not extend to pitching a tent. On private land without permission it is civil trespass. The one exception is Dartmoor Commons, where the Supreme Court confirmed in May 2025 that the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 includes a right to wild camp.
Does the CRoW Act give a right to camp in England? No. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives the public a right of access on foot to open access land: mountain, moor, heath, down, and registered common land. Camping is listed as a restricted activity under Schedule 2, which means it falls outside the statutory access right. You can walk; you cannot pitch a tent.
Where in England is wild camping a legal right? Dartmoor Commons is the only place in England with a statutory right to wild camp. Section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 gives the public access for open-air recreation, and the Supreme Court ruled in May 2025 that this includes camping, subject to bylaws made by the Dartmoor National Park Authority.
What happened in the Dartmoor wild camping court case? Three courts tested whether the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 includes a right to wild camp. The High Court said no in January 2023. The Court of Appeal reversed it in July 2023. The Supreme Court dismissed the final appeal in May 2025, in Dartmoor National Park Authority v Darwall 2025 UKSC 20, confirming that camping is a legal right on the Dartmoor Commons.
Is wild camping legal in Scotland? Yes. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 gives the public access rights over most land and inland water, including the right to camp responsibly. The Scottish Outdoor Access Code describes lightweight camping for up to two or three nights in any one place as a legitimate exercise of those rights.
Is wild camping trespass in England? Yes, on private land without the landowner's permission. Trespass is a civil matter, not a criminal offence in these circumstances. You can be asked to leave, but you cannot be arrested solely for pitching a tent on private land.