Wild camping is banned everywhere in Greece. The statute prohibits setting up tents and parking caravans and motorhomes in archaeological sites, on the seashore and beaches, on the fringes of public forests and on public-use land in general, and it puts the fine at 300 euros per person or per camping or transport unit. No region has a softer version, and there is no right to roam to fall back on. Verified against the Government Gazette text on 23 August 2026.

The current wording sits in paragraph 18 of Article 7 of Law 4276/2014, rewritten by Article 27 of Law 5170/2025, published in Gazette A 6 on 20 January 2025. Greeks call the offense ελεύθερη κατασκήνωση, free camping, and the ban is not new: the same sentence runs back through Law 2160/1993 to a law of 1976. Greece has prohibited free camping for fifty years. What the 2025 rewrite changed is mostly the vehicle side, which is where most readers of this page live.

What enforcement looks like on paper

The enforcement is written into the same paragraph. The 300 euro fine is imposed on the spot by a police officer or, on the shore, by a coast guard officer, per person or per tent, caravan or vehicle, and collected like a traffic fine. Beyond that, the statute allows up to three months’ imprisonment with the court ordering removal of the camp, handled under the fast-track procedure for offenses caught in the act. That is the frame on paper; nothing in it requires a warning first.

A parked motorhome versus a camp

The 2025 rewrite contains two clauses aimed squarely at vehicles. First, the parking ban applies “subject to Article 34 of the Road Traffic Code”: where the Greek traffic code allows parking, parking a motorhome remains parking. Second, where you do park legally, the vehicle may not take up any space beyond itself.

In practice that second clause is the whole game. Awning in, no chairs, no table, no levelling ramps outside the door. The moment anything sits on the ground next to the van, you are no longer a parked vehicle, you are a camp, and the camp is illegal. The law says nothing about sleep; it regulates where the vehicle stands and what is next to it.

What does not follow from any of this is a right to spend the night wherever parking is allowed. Greek municipalities post their own restrictions on motorhome parking, and the sign at the entrance beats this page and every other. Our guide to overnighting in a parked vehicle covers how to read that situation country by country.

Beaches and archaeological sites

They come first in the statute’s list, and that is not an accident of drafting. The beach is where the fantasy of free camping in Greece is set, and it is exactly the terrain for which the law names the coast guard as an enforcer. The Greek National Tourism Organisation’s own site says it without hedging: “free camping is prohibited in Greece”, including tents and caravan parking in archaeological sites and along the coast. Verified on 23 August 2026.

Organized campsites. The tourism organisation’s page counts 268 of them across the country carrying the EOT sign, from bare pitches to sites with shops and pools, and many sit directly on the coastline the ban closes off to you otherwise.

The same paragraph of the law also writes out one narrow private option: what it prohibits is a private individual hosting more than one caravan free of charge. A single van on a friend’s land, invited and unpaid, is outside this particular ban. Anything bigger or commercial needs a licensed site.

For how the neighbors answer the same question: Italy bans it in a similar way, Croatia is stricter still, and Spain is more fragmented. Every framework we have verified is indexed in the wild camping rules hub and on the rules pages.

Sources

  1. Law 5170/2025, Article 27, Government Gazette A 6/20.01.2025 (statute text, PDF)
  2. Camping in Greece, Visit Greece, Greek National Tourism Organisation
  3. Law 2160/1993, Article 4, statute text (PDF)

When a source is not in English, follow the link for the official wording.