On state park land
Permission needed
A permit from the state historic preservation officer, and Vermont is unusual in opening those to amateurs as well as professionals.
This state also reaches city and county land - see below
1. The rule, in full
Vermont – 22 V.S.A. chapter 14
SWEEP FINDING, 8 Oct 2026: no parks REGULATION, and two agency documents that disagree with the statute
Vermont is the one state in this sweep group where the parks agency appears to have no administrative rule of its own on the subject. What exists is policy, from two different agencies, and it is more permissive than the statute reads. Both documents are quoted below as policy with their own dates.
1. The Division for Historic Preservation's position paper.
Read from 22 V.S.A. 762 and 764 as quoted in, and from, the Division for Historic Preservation's own paper: "Metal Detecting on State-owned Lands in Vermont: What is not permitted and what opportunities exist", Agency of Commerce and Community Development, dated 10 February 2021, read at source 8 Oct 2026. The statutory text of 22 V.S.A. 701(4) and 791 was read separately from the chapter at legislature.vermont.gov, as the Read-from sentence at the head of this entry records.
"Per Vermont Statute 22 V.S.A. 762, metal detecting is generally not permitted on State-owned lands or in State waters." "Per Vermont Statute 22 V.S.A. 762, the State reserves to itself the exclusive right of field investigations of sites owned or controlled by it." "Per Vermont Statute 22 V.S.A. 764, the State may provide a permit for archaeologists to conduct those field investigations on its behalf. Permits are rarely granted, and only in the context of an educational activity conducted in partnership with a professional archaeologist(s). … Artifacts derived from field investigations on State land or State waters are never given to private individuals."
2. The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation's own published conditions, which are the operative answer for a visitor and which contradict the paragraph above in direction if not in law.
Read from vtstateparks.com, "Other Activities", read at source 8 Oct 2026.
"Metal detecting is only allowed in places already disturbed by park development (beaches, roads, parking lots, campsites)." "Other areas need approval from the Commissioner of Forests and Parks and the Division for Historic Preservation." "Tell park staff before you start detecting." "Restore any disturbed area to how it looked before. If you find historic artifacts, they belong to the State and must be handed in right away, with location details." "Probing is allowed only in permitted areas, with a hand tool, to a maximum depth of 3 inches." "Detecting is not allowed in obviously historic areas like stonewalls or cellar holes." "You must pick up and properly throw away everything you find, including trash (bottle caps, pull-tabs)."
The tension, stated rather than resolved
The statute and the parks page point different ways, and a reader needs both.
22 V.S.A. 762 reserves to the State "the exclusive right of field investigations" on land it owns, and 22 V.S.A. 701(4) defines field investigations to include "going on a site with that intent". Read literally, sweeping a Vermont state park beach with intent to find and recover objects is within the statutory definition and is reserved to the State.
The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation nonetheless publishes a permitted recreational activity, with six conditions, in named classes of already-disturbed ground.
This is the policy-not-in-code shape running the permissive direction – the same structure as South Dakota, where the code is near-silent and the agency's document carries the real regime. A reader who read only 22 V.S.A. 762 would conclude detecting is prohibited on all Vermont state land. A reader who read only the parks page would not know that the statute reserves field investigations to the State at all. Both belong on the page, labelled by what they are: a statute, and an agency's published conditions.
What to do differently in Vermont: work in already-disturbed ground only – beaches, roads, parking lots, campsites – tell park staff before you start, probe by hand to no more than three inches, stay away from stonewalls and cellar holes, and understand that a historic artifact is not yours: the page says it belongs to the State and must be handed in immediately with its location. The location matters as much as the object, which is the one thing both documents agree on.
Not established: whether FPR's conditions rest on any rule, directive or delegated authority, or are published practice only. No administrative rule answering to them was located. Recorded as policy with its date, and the question left open rather than answered by inference.
A lead that did not survive. A search summary attributed the three-inch probe limit and the notify-staff condition to a statute. They are not in 22 V.S.A. 762 or 764, and they are not in the Historic Preservation paper either. They are on the parks page, which is where they are now cited from.
Read from the Vermont Statutes Online full chapter at legislature.vermont.gov, parsed locally. Note that site's own disclaimer: it is "an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience." Re-verify against the official printed VSA before publishing.
Definition, 22 V.S.A. 701(4) – the same New England definition, intent clause included:
"'Field investigations' means the study of the traces of human culture at any land or water site by means of surveying, digging, sampling, excavating, or removing surface or subsurface objects or going on a site with that intent."
Operative prohibition, 22 V.S.A. 791 (Penalty):
"A person who conducts field investigation activities on or under any land owned or controlled by the State or within the boundaries of any designated State archaeological landmark, without first obtaining a permit therefor from the State Historic Preservation Officer, or any person who appropriates, defaces, destroys, or otherwise alters any archaeological site or specimen located on or under State lands or within the boundaries of a designated State archaeological landmark, except in the course of activities pursued under the authority of a permit … shall be fined not more than $1,000.00 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both, and in addition, shall forfeit to the State all specimens, objects, and materials collected or excavated, together with all photographs and records relating to that material."
Permits are open to amateurs, 22 V.S.A. 764 – worth carrying, because most states' permit routes are closed to hobbyists:
"The State Historic Preservation Officer … may issue permits for exploration and field investigations to be undertaken on State lands or within the boundaries of designated State archaeological landmarks to an amateur or professional whom the State Historic Preservation Officer deems properly qualified."
Why this is marked ambiguous rather than yes or no
The prohibition reaches "any designated State archaeological landmark", wherever it sits. The designation provision, 22 V.S.A. 763, contemplates only two kinds of owner:
"All State agencies administering State-owned lands containing State archaeological landmarks shall cooperate to ensure the protection of these landmarks. State archaeological landmarks located on privately owned land shall not be designated without the written consent of the owner."
Municipal land is in neither category. A city park is not State-owned land administered by a State agency, and it is not obviously "privately owned land" for the purpose of the consent proviso. So whether a Vermont municipal park can be designated – and therefore whether 791 can reach it – is not answered by the text.
Do not resolve this by inference in either direction. Either it is asked of the Division for Historic Preservation, or the Vermont entry says the reach on municipal land is unsettled and explains why in one sentence. The second is publishable; guessing is not.
By contrast 22 V.S.A. 762 is unambiguous and narrow: "The State reserves to itself the exclusive right of field investigation on sites owned or controlled by the State."
Source: legislature.vermont.gov Title 22 chapter 014, sections 701, 762, 763, 764, 766, 767 and 791. Checked 20 Sep 2026.
2. Cities in Vermont that publish a rule
Nothing to report for Vermont yet, for want of sources. We checked 4 cities and could not locate a page on any of their own sites to read, so this section is empty because the sources were not found rather than because the cities were searched and came back clean.
3. County rules
No county check has been run for Vermont. That is not a finding that Vermont’s counties publish no rules. It means the question was never asked here, and this directory does not assert an answer it has not looked for. The county sweep covered 21 states; Vermont was not one of them.
4. Cities checked - no published rule
4 cities in Vermont were checked and have no published rule on this page. Of those, 4 returned no rule, and 0 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.
| City | Outcome | Site checked |
|---|---|---|
| Burlington | No rule found | burlingtonvt.gov |
| Essex Junction | No rule found | no site recorded |
| Rutland | No rule found | rutland.govoffice.com |
| South Burlington | No rule found | southburlingtonvt.gov |
5. Clubs in Vermont
5 in our directory for Vermont - 3 verified against their own website or group, 2 we could not verify. Verified means we opened the link and read it. All Vermont clubs on the club directory, with meeting nights and contacts where we have them.
- Green Mountain Prospectors of Vermont (GMPV) - Facebook group · verified
- Metal Detecting Vermont - Facebook group · verified
- VERMONT Metal Detecting - Facebook group · verified
- Green Mountain Treasure Hunters - Whiting · could not verify
- Vermont Metal Detectorists’ Club - White River Junction · could not verify
6. Land this page does not cover
This page answers for Vermont 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.