You cannot sleep at a Maryland rest area, and the rule that says so is seven words long. COMAR 11.04.07.11, Camping and Overnight Parking, reads in full: “Camping and overnight parking are prohibited.” No hours, no exceptions, no carve-out for a driver who is too tired to keep going. Read August 27, 2026.
Plenty of states prohibit camping and stop there, which leaves you room to argue that sleeping in a seat is not camping. Maryland closed that door by prohibiting overnight parking in the same sentence.
Three hours, then a tow
The prohibition is not the whole picture, and the rest of the chapter is stricter than people expect.
COMAR 11.04.07.07, Length of Time for Use, says “Visitors may not use an area for more than 3 hours without a permit from the caretaker or the Maryland State Police.” Note the wording: not three hours of parking, three hours of using the area.
COMAR 11.04.07.09 puts a consequence behind it. Vehicles left unattended for more than 3 hours, without permission of the Maryland State Police or the caretaker, “will be towed away at the expense and risk of the owner.” The regulation names the tow itself, rather than leaving enforcement to a sign and a trooper’s judgment.
Add COMAR 11.04.07.03, which permits parking only in designated areas, and you have a facility with a hard ceiling and no gray edges to work with.
What the chapter does not settle
Two honest gaps.
First, this chapter sits under Subtitle 04, State Highway Administration. It governs SHA rest areas. We did not verify whether the same rules apply at Maryland facilities run by a different agency, so do not carry this answer onto a toll road service plaza and assume it holds.
Second, the chapter has age on it. The chapter index gives an effective date of February 4, 1976, and lists amendments in 1995 and 2010 for other regulations in the chapter. The three-hour rule and the overnight parking prohibition are not among the amended ones. Old text is still current text, and this is what is on the books today, but it does mean the wording predates the way people travel now.
If you are running I-95
Plan Maryland as a bathroom stop, not a night. For most people crossing the state the three-hour ceiling is not the binding constraint anyway. The constraint is that there is no legal way to sleep in the system, and the rule provides for towing your vehicle rather than knocking on the window.
That means your rest stop and your sleep stop are two different decisions in this state. Sort out the sleep one before you cross the line, not at 1 a.m. in a lot with a posted sign.
And the sign at the specific site, plus whatever the caretaker or a trooper tells you there, beats any website including this one. Our per-state summary and the source behind it is at Maryland rest area rules, and the general distinction Maryland refuses to make is worked through in our camping versus overnight parking guide.