Metal Detecting in North Dakota

1. The rule, in full

North Dakota – N.D.A.C. 58-02-08-16

Read from the North Dakota Administrative Code as published by the North Dakota Legislative Branch, chapter 58-02-08 PDF (ndlegis.gov information/acdata/pdf/58-02-08.pdf), parsed locally. Re-verified word for word 3 Oct 2026. History for this section: effective 1 September 1987; amended effective 1 April 2006 and 1 May 2011.

Operative text, 58-02-08-16 "Metal detectors":

"No person may use any device for the purpose of locating or removing any metallic object or any other objects of value from a state park. Exceptions may be made by the director for approved archaeological surveys or law enforcement personnel. Use of a metal detector to find a lost item may be allowed under the direct supervision of park staff. Any person who violates this subsection is guilty of a class 1 noncriminal offense."

Scope, 58-02-08-01 (Authority):

"These state park use rules apply to all those areas which are under the control of or operated by the North Dakota parks and recreation department."

Authority: NDCC 55-08-01.3 and 55-08-05.

Determination: parks and recreation department land only. Does NOT reach municipal parks.

One of the cleanest scope statements found in the whole pass – the rule says outright which lands it governs, in its own authority section.

My citation was wrong first time. I searched NDAC Title 63; that is the Board of Podiatric Medicine. Parks rules are Title 58.

Source: ndlegis.gov acdata 58-02-08.pdf, parsed locally. Checked 19 Sep 2026.

2. Cities in North Dakota that publish a rule

No city in North Dakota publishes a metal detecting rule we can quote. Of the 9 cities we checked, 7 had pages on the city’s own site that we found and read, and none of those sets out a rule. For the remaining 2 we could not locate a municipal source, so nothing is claimed about them either way.

This is a finding, not a queue. It is also not proof that no rule exists: a city that posts its rules on a noticeboard, or in a document our searches do not surface, looks exactly the same from here.

3. County rules

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

4. Cities checked - no published rule

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

5. Land this page does not cover

This page answers for North Dakota 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.