Metal Detecting in North Carolina

1. The rule, in full

North Carolina – 07 NCAC 13B .0203

Read from the North Carolina Administrative Code published by the Office of Administrative Hearings, Rules Division (reports.oah.state.nc.us), Title 07 Chapter 13 "Parks and Recreation Area Rules" in full, 159,579 characters. Re-read 4 Oct 2026; both quotations below are exact and the entry gains the permit rule and the history note.

Operative text, 07 NCAC 13B .0203, whose heading reads "METAL DETECTORS PROHIBITED":

"Metal detectors are not allowed in any park area except to locate lost personal property when authorized by a Special Use Permit as provided by Rule .0104 of this Subchapter." History Note: Authority G.S. 143B-135.16; Eff. January 1, 1983; Amended Eff. May 1, 2010; Transferred from 15A NCAC 12B .0203 Eff. April 1, 2017.

The heading overstates the rule, which is now the third instance in this directory. "METAL DETECTORS PROHIBITED" is not what .0203 says: it permits detector use to locate lost personal property under a Special Use Permit. Ohio has two rules titled "Metal detectors prohibited", one of which states the opposite of its text; this is a third. A heading is never quoted on its own – see METHODOLOGY rule 13.

And the permit is a named category, not a discretionary favour. 07 NCAC 13B .0104(b) lists the uses of Division property requiring a Special Use Permit, and metal detector use is the first item on it:

"(b) The following uses of Division property shall require a Special Use Permit authorized by the Division: (1) metal detector use; (2) rock climbing, rappelling and bouldering for individual climbers … (3) licensed vehicle operations …"

Applications are made to individual Park and Recreation Area offices or to the Deputy Director of Operations, Division of Parks and Recreation.

Scope. "Any park area" is the phrasing that needs checking, because it is exactly the shape of the Georgia error. The subchapter's definitions rule, 07 NCAC 13B .0101, settles it: "Division Property" or "State Parks" means

"any state park, recreation areas, natural areas, state lakes, or other property leased or managed by the Division."

Authority is G.S. 143B-135.16, the state parks act.

Determination: state park system only. Does NOT reach municipal parks.

Recreational detecting is effectively banned on NC state park land – the only exception is retrieving a specific lost item, by permit.

Source: NC OAH, 07 NCAC 13B .0203 and .0101. Checked 19 Sep 2026.

2. Cities in North Carolina that publish a rule

2 cities in North Carolina publish a rule we can quote, out of 89 checked.

Of the 89 checked, 49 had pages on the city’s own site that we found and read. For the other 40 we could not locate a municipal source, so nothing is claimed about them either way.

3. County rules

County rules exist in North Carolina, and they govern county land only. 8 county rules surfaced while checking cities in this state. Each was read and then set aside, because a county park rule does not answer whether a city park allows detecting, and it is not the state rule either. They are listed because their existence is the useful fact: if you are in a county park, a separate rule probably applies to you.

0 of these 8 name their county in the text that was read; the rest name only “county park” or “county parks”, so the source is given instead of a county name. A county is never inferred from a web address.

4. Cities checked - no published rule

87 cities in North Carolina were checked and have no published rule on this page. Of those, 79 returned no rule, and 8 did return something that has not been published – mostly rules that turned out to govern county land, which are in the county section above. A city here is not a city where detecting is allowed. It is a city whose own published material did not answer the question.

All 87 were checked on 13 September 2026, in one sweep, so that date applies to every row. 1 has no municipal site recorded and is shown without a link rather than dropped, because dropping them would understate what was checked.

5. Land this page does not cover

This page answers for North Carolina state land, and for city and county land where the state rule reaches it. Several other kinds of ground are not covered here, and naming them is more honest than letting a reader assume the page is complete.

Tribal land. This directory does not cover it, and will not.

There are 574 federally recognised tribal nations. Each is a sovereign jurisdiction with its own law, its own permitting, its own enforcement and its own cultural-resource provisions, and none of them is answered by a state's code or by any federal rule quoted on these pages. A one-line instruction to "get tribal permission" would be worse than this paragraph, because it implies one process and one authority where there are 574. If you are on or near tribal land, the governing law is that nation's, and the place to ask is that nation's own offices. Nothing on this page applies there.

BLM land is covered, partly, in its own place. The Bureau of Land Management holds about 245 million acres and the federal rule names metal detectors and permits them, which is the opposite of the national park rule. See BLM land: the detector is named, and permitted. That page covers the base regulation; it does not yet cover the supplementary rules individual BLM State Directors issue for particular field offices.

Named and not examined. These are recorded so their absence is visible rather than silent. No claim is made about any of them:

• Military withdrawn land, including ranges and training areas.
• Bureau of Reclamation land, which surrounds a great many reservoirs.
• Water district and irrigation district land.
• Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas and National Conservation Areas, which carry designations of their own. And one general point about signs. The commonest piece of reasoning in this subject is "there was no sign, so it was allowed." Arizona's State Land Department answers it in writing, in condition 2 of its own Recreational Permit terms:

"You will comply with all laws, rules, regulations and ordinances. Posting is not required for these provisions to be enforceable."

That is Arizona's sentence about Arizona's provisions and this directory does not present it as the law of any other state. But the proposition it states is the one to carry: nothing read for this project makes a published rule's enforceability depend on a sign at the boundary. Where posting does matter, a specific provision says so, and that provision is quoted on the page where it occurs.