You were probably sent here by a page saying that an agency prohibits metal detecting but that its own regulations do not carry the prohibition. That sounds like good news. It is not, and this page explains why.
Every other page in this directory works the same way: find the state's own code, read the section, quote it, link it. Seven states break that method, in four different ways. In all four, the thing that will actually govern your afternoon is not in any code you can search. (The table at the end has eight rows because Virginia breaks it twice, once for its parks and once for its forests.)
The one thing to take away
A code search is not a defence.
Normally, "we looked and found no rule" means a reader is probably fine. In the states on this page it means the opposite: the rule is unwritten and still enforced. So the practical advice inverts. Where a page in this directory tells you the code is silent but the agency says no, treat it as prohibited and ask the agency, rather than treating the gap as permission.
Two reasons that is the right call rather than timid.
First, the agency does not need a detector rule to stop you. Park services hold general powers: to close areas, to set conditions of entry, to order a visitor to leave, to revoke a permit. A ranger who tells you to pack up is usually exercising one of those, not citing a detector section. Whether the code mentions detectors is close to irrelevant to how the encounter goes.
Second, the cost is asymmetric. If you assume prohibited and you were actually entitled to search, you lose an afternoon. If you assume permitted and the agency disagrees, you lose the afternoon anyway, plus whatever else follows. There is no version of this where reading the code carefully gets you the afternoon back.
What the code search is good for is something else: knowing which of those two situations you are in, and being able to ask the agency a precise question.
Alaska: the strongest version, where the code speaks and does not reach this
Alaska leads this page because it is the only one of these states where the gap is demonstrable rather than inferred. In the others we can say the code is silent. In Alaska we can say the code speaks and what it says does not reach a metal detectorist's find.
Alaska State Parks' own FAQ states flatly:
"No, you may not use a metal detector in a state park."
Read from the Alaska Administrative Code published by the Alaska State Legislature at akleg.gov, Title 11 chapter 12: its complete section list and the text of 11 AAC 12.170 and 12.175. Checked 4 October 2026.
All thirty-odd sections of 11 AAC 12 were read, from 12.010 "Limitation on use of park lands and waters" through 12.990 "Definitions". There is no section about metal detectors. The two that bear on detecting are these.
11 AAC 12.170, "Disturbance of natural objects":
"(a) No person may disturb, damage, deface, or remove natural objects including trees, plants, moss, rocks, gravel, or minerals, unless authorized by this section or by the director under 11 AAC 18.010."
11 AAC 12.175, "Cultural, archaeological, and historical material", in full:
"No person may disturb or remove cultural, archaeological, or historical material from a state park, unless authorized by the director under 11 AAC 18.010."
Now look at what those two do not cover. 12.170 lists natural objects: trees, plants, moss, rocks, gravel, minerals. A dropped coin is none of those. 12.175 reaches cultural, archaeological or historical material, not modern losses. So between them, the two provisions that exist do not obviously reach an ordinary modern find, which is precisely the gap the FAQ fills by assertion.
That is a stronger and more useful finding than "we could not find a rule". It tells you what the division's position rests on, which is its authority over the land rather than a provision of the code.
And a warning that belongs here. The text that circulates online as "the Alaska metal detecting rule" – possessing or using "a mineral or metal detector, magnetometer, side scan sonar, other metal detecting device, or subbottom profiler", with exceptions for a device broken down and stored – is not Alaska law at all. It is 36 CFR 2.1(a)(7), the National Park Service regulation, quoted word for word. See what ARPA actually covers for what that federal rule does and where it applies.
Three states where the code is simply silent
In these the finding is narrower than Alaska's: we read the chapter that would carry a detector provision, and it does not.
New Jersey wildlife management areas. The State Park Service Code's own definition at N.J.A.C. 7:2-1.7 puts WMAs outside that chapter, so any detector rule would have to be in the Division of Fish and Wildlife's regulations. N.J.A.C. 7:25 was read in full, 1,168,684 characters, and contains no occurrence of the word "detect". DEP's WMA page nonetheless states that metal detecting is prohibited on wildlife management areas.
Virginia state forests. 4VAC10-30 has no detector provision. What it has is 4VAC10-30-50(A), prohibiting removal of "any tree, flower, artifact, fern, shrub, rock, or other plant or mineral in any forest" without the State Forests Superintendent's approval. The Department of Forestry's visitor page states that no metal detectors are permitted in state forests. That is policy, not regulation, and the Virginia page says so rather than attributing it to the Code.
Florida state parks. Rule 62D-2.013 governs state parks and carries no detecting provision. The Division of Recreation and Parks' published policy carries both halves of the real rule: a statewide prohibition and a beach allowance between the toe of the dune and the high-water line. Note what that means: on a Florida state park beach, the thing that permits you to detect is also outside the Code. The policy is not only the restriction, it is also your permission.
Virginia state parks: where the policy is the whole regime
This is the case most likely to matter to a reader planning a trip, and it is worth separating from the three above because the policy here is detailed rather than a bare prohibition.
4VAC5-30 carries no detector provision. DCR's rules page states that metal detectors "may be used only on designated man-made beaches and only with a DCR special use permit", obtained from the park manager, with designated beaches at six parks: Bear Creek Lake, Douthat, Fairy Stone, Holliday Lake, Hungry Mother and Twin Lakes. Everywhere else in the Virginia state park system, detecting is not permitted.
So the list of six parks, the man-made-beach limit and the special use permit are all agency policy. None of it is in the Virginia Administrative Code. That list is the single most actionable thing on the Virginia page and it is the part with no citation behind it.
This was read from dcr.virginia.gov on 19 September 2026 and has not been re-read since. The date matters more here than it does for a quoted regulation, for the reason in the next section.
Virginia wildlife management areas are left open rather than answered. The Department of Wildlife Resources publishes WMA rules stating that metal detecting and artifact hunting are prohibited, and every code search returned repealed provisions. We have not established the current regulation.
Two states with no code behind the rule at all
Different shape. Here there is no gap between the code and the policy, because there is no code.
South Carolina. SCPRT's "Metal Detection Policy" document is the instrument, not a description of one. There is no regulation to check it against; South Carolina's detector rule is agency policy and is not codified. The policy names seventeen properties where detection is prohibited, and that list is reproduced in full on the South Carolina page because a reader cannot follow a link to it.
Arkansas. Park Directive 3225 was supplied in writing by the Division of Arkansas State Parks, by email, on 23 September 2026. The division confirmed that no park operation manuals or directive series relating to metal detecting are published online. This text exists nowhere public – no consolidated code, no agency page, no register – so the Arkansas page reproduces the directive in full rather than linking to it.
Both of those are verified as far as verification can go. The test we apply is whether the thing we hold is the instrument itself or somebody's account of it, and in both cases it is the instrument. That is as good as these two get, and saying so is more useful than listing them as incomplete.
And one state that does it properly: Missouri
Missouri belongs on this page for the opposite reason. Its code does not have a gap. Its code points at the policy on purpose, and names metal detecting while doing it.
10 CSR 90-2.030(27):
"(A) State parks and historic sites provide opportunities for our visitors to engage in varied recreational activities. However, the division maintains the right to prohibit or otherwise restrict recreational activities that are not in keeping with the mission and objectives of the Department of Natural Resources, that may damage property, that require special safety measures, or that conflict with other uses of an area. Such prohibitions or restrictions shall be determined by the director, who may establish policy or procedures to regulate conduct. (B) Specific recreational activities that are restricted by policy include using metal detectors, caving, rock climbing and rappelling, diving, and conducting special events and activities."
That is a regulation telling you, in terms, that the detector rule lives in policy and who sets it. So the designated areas, the hours and the tool limits on the Missouri page are Division policy under (27)(B), not regulation text, and the page says so.
This is the transparent version of the same arrangement, and it is worth seeing once: delegation to policy is not itself a defect. What makes the other six states hard is not that policy governs. It is that nothing in the code tells you so.
How to read these pages differently
They carry a date instead of a citation, and the date is doing real work.
A quoted regulation changes through rulemaking. There is a proposal, a comment period, a register entry, an effective date. You can check whether what we quoted is still current, and so can we.
A policy changes when somebody decides to change it. There is no register that would announce it. If SCPRT revises its property list, or Virginia DCR adds a seventh beach, or Alaska's division softens its FAQ, this directory is wrong until a human goes and looks. That is not a flaw we can engineer away; it is a property of the thing being described.
So on these seven pages:
- Check the date. It is on the page. The older it is, the more weight the next step carries.
- Ask the agency, and ask about your specific park. These are the states where a phone call to the park office beats any amount of research, because the park office is where the rule actually lives.
- Do not treat the absence of a code provision as permission. It is the signal that there is nothing to read, not the signal that there is nothing to obey.
| State | Shape | What governs |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska | Code read in full; it speaks and does not reach a modern find | Division FAQ, resting on its authority over the land |
| New Jersey (WMAs) | N.J.A.C. 7:25 read in full; no occurrence of "detect" | DEP's WMA regulations page |
| Virginia (forests) | 4VAC10-30 has no detector provision | Department of Forestry visitor page |
| Virginia (parks) | 4VAC5-30 has no detector provision | DCR policy: six named beaches, special use permit |
| Florida (parks) | 62D-2.013 has no detector provision | Division policy: the prohibition and the beach allowance |
| South Carolina | Not codified at all | SCPRT Metal Detection Policy, seventeen named properties |
| Arkansas | Not published anywhere | Park Directive 3225, supplied by the division in writing |
| Missouri | Code expressly delegates and names detecting | Division of State Parks policy under 10 CSR 90-2.030(27)(B) |
Where these quotations come from
The Alaska code sections on this page were read for this project from the Alaska Administrative Code published by the Alaska State Legislature at akleg.gov on 4 October 2026, as stated above. Every other quotation is reproduced from the state entry it belongs to, and each of those entries records what it was read from and on what date. Follow the state link.
The agency positions are a different kind of claim and are dated separately, because that is the whole point of this page. Alaska's FAQ was read on 4 October 2026. Virginia's DCR policy was read on 19 September 2026 and has not been re-read. Virginia's Department of Forestry page, New Jersey's DEP wildlife management area page and Florida's park service policy were read during the September and October 2026 passes, and each state page carries its own date. South Carolina's policy document was recovered on 20 September 2026; Arkansas's directive was supplied by the division on 23 September 2026.
None of those dates is a guarantee of currency. A policy can change the day after it is read, and nothing announces it.