Florida's rest area rule bans camping outright, separately from the three hour limit

Florida’s rest area rule prohibits camping as its own line item, and it does that on top of the three hour parking limit everyone quotes. The two are separate. You can be inside your three hours and still be breaking the rule.

The text is Rule 14-28.002 of the Florida Administrative Code, effective December 5, 2018. We read it on flrules.org on September 17, 2026. Subsection (2) is four words: “Camping is prohibited.” Subsection (4) is the clock: parking “is limited to a period of up to three hours,” with exceptions for commercial drivers and permitted solicitors.

The rule never defines camping, which means the distinction gets drawn by whoever is standing there at 2 a.m. Reclined in the driver’s seat is parking. Awning out, chairs on the grass, stove going, is not, and you do not want to be the test case. If you want the general version of that line, we wrote it up in camping versus overnight parking.

What else is in there that nobody mentions

Reading the actual rule turns up three things worth knowing before you pull in:

• (14) No hook-ups. “No person shall hook up his or her vehicle to electrical and water outlets.” FDOT’s own questions and answers page confirms there is nothing to hook up to anyway: no RV hook-ups and no dump stations at any Florida rest area, statewide.
• (11) Fires are prohibited except where grills are provided, and you own putting it out before you leave.
• (5) Commercial drivers get ten hours, not three, if they are subject to federal or state hours of service rules. If you are in a van beside a line of sleeping semis, they are legally parked and you may not be. We covered that split in rest area time limits for truckers versus everyone else.

The trap: FDOT hosts an outdated copy of its own rule

This is the part that matters beyond Florida. FDOT’s maintenance site serves a PDF of Chapter 14-28.002. We downloaded it September 17, 2026. Its history line ends at “Amended 10-25-89, 8-28-91, 7-6-93, 11-19-07.” That is the 2007 version.

The current rule was amended again on December 5, 2018. The differences are not cosmetic. The 2007 copy says flatly that “Parking for periods greater than three hours is prohibited” with no commercial vehicle exception at all, and its title does not include truck comfort stations or wayside parks. Anyone reading the agency’s own PDF would conclude Florida gives truckers three hours. The code says ten.

We are not going to guess why the stale file is still up. The lesson is the general one: an agency’s PDF of a regulation is a copy, and the code portal is the regulation. When the two disagree, the code wins.

What to do

If Florida is on your route south this fall, plan rest areas as a three hour break and nothing more. Sixty-five of them, per FDOT, and all are open 24 hours except the Taylor County rest area on US-19 and US-27, which runs 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Then read the sign where you park. A posted notice at the site and an officer’s current instruction beat the code portal and beat this page. Our Florida rest area page carries the state’s verified rule values and their source.