Whether you can park a van overnight in a city is set by local ordinance, and the answer changes at the city line. There is no national rule for municipal streets and usually no state rule either. Two towns 40 minutes apart can have a permissive 72-hour parking cap and a flat overnight ban, and neither one is unusual.
So the honest answer to “can I park here” is: look it up for that specific city, and then read the sign at the curb, because the posted sign and the officer standing next to it beat this page every time.
This page covers the ordinance patterns you will actually run into, real examples from city codes, and how to check a city before you drive there. It does not cover how to avoid being noticed. That is a separate thing, we do not publish it, and the reason is practical as much as anything: most of these ordinances are enforced by time and location rather than by whether anyone can tell you are inside.
The four ordinance patterns
Nearly every municipal rule that affects you is one of four types. A city can run several at once, and they stack.
1. Duration caps
The most common. You may park, but not indefinitely in one place.
San Diego’s parking rules page states it plainly: no vehicle may be parked continuously at one location on any public roadway for more than 72 hours. Alexandria, Virginia runs the same idea under City Code Section 10-4-8, which the city calls the “72-hour rule” and describes as prohibiting vehicles from parking within the public right-of-way for more than 72 contiguous hours. Alexandria’s page also describes the enforcement mechanic: an officer marks the vehicle, returns three days later, and issues a $25 citation if it has not moved.
For one night, a 72-hour cap is not your problem. For a week in one spot, it is the whole problem.
2. Oversize and recreational vehicle restrictions
These target the vehicle rather than the activity, and a van conversion can land on either side of the line depending on how the city defines its terms.
San Diego is the clearest published example. Its permit page states that section 86.0139 of the San Diego Municipal Code prohibits oversized, non-motorized and recreational vehicles from parking on public streets between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m., and prohibits parking any such vehicle within 50 feet of an intersection at any time.
Note what that ordinance does. It does not care whether you are asleep. It makes the vehicle itself illegal to leave at that curb during those hours.
3. Blanket overnight parking bans
Some cities close their streets to parking at night, for reasons that have nothing to do with camping.
Flagstaff, Arizona is a snow-removal example that catches a lot of travelers: the city prohibits parking on city streets or alleyways from midnight to 7:00 a.m. from November 1 to April 1, under Flagstaff City Code section 9-01-001-0003 E 7. The city’s page adds the part people get wrong, that the restriction is enforced whether it is snowing or not. Some downtown blocks run a shorter 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. window instead, and a handful of streets are exempt entirely.
That is five months of the year in a town at the edge of a lot of public land. It is a good illustration of why “I checked in July” is not the same as “I checked.”
4. Camping and vehicle habitation prohibitions
These target the activity. The wording varies a lot: camping on public property, using a vehicle for human habitation, using a recreational vehicle as a dwelling.
Moab, Utah lists two of them side by side on its code compliance page: “Camping in undesignated area” under Moab Municipal Code 8.20.010, and “Using a recreational vehicle as a dwelling” under MMC 15.36.010. Both appear in the city’s own published list of what it cites people for.
Ordinances in this family are also the most legally contested and the most frequently amended, which matters for you in a specific way: an ordinance summary you find in a forum post or a blog roundup may describe a version that no longer exists. Read the city’s current code or the city’s current page, not a summary of either.
The fifth thing: permit districts
Not a prohibition, an exception. Some cities that restrict overnight parking sell permits around it. San Diego’s Temporary Overnight Recreational Vehicle Permit lets a resident park an RV overnight on their own block despite section 86.0139. As listed on the city’s permit page and checked on 2026-07-18, it runs $1.50 per 24-hour period, limited to three consecutive periods per request and 72 permits per address per year.
That one is for residents and their visitors, not for travelers passing through. But permit-parking districts in general are worth knowing about, because a block that looks unrestricted at 9 p.m. can be permit-only at 2 a.m.
How to check a city before you go
In order, because the early steps are faster:
- Search the city’s own site for “parking” or “code compliance.” Many cities explain their own ordinances in plain English on a .gov page, and that page is authoritative enough for planning. All five examples above came from city-published pages.
- Find the municipal code itself. Most cities publish their code through a code-hosting service. Search it for parking, camping, habitation, oversize, recreational vehicle, and overnight.
- Call and ask. The parking division or the police non-emergency number. Ask what the overnight parking rule is on public streets. It is an ordinary question.
- Read the sign when you arrive. This is not a formality. Signed restrictions are the version that gets enforced, they change block to block, and they override whatever the code said when you read it.
A caution on step 2: several of the big municipal code libraries block automated access, so an AI summary of a city ordinance may be assembled from something other than the ordinance. Open the code page in a browser yourself and read the section number.
What happens when someone knocks
Usually not much. A knock is most often an officer or a security guard telling you to move, and moving ends it. What you should not do is assume that a conversation means you were legal, or that no conversation means the same thing.
We have a longer page on how that interaction tends to go and what is reasonable to expect: the knock on the window.
Where this fits
City streets are the hardest legal ground you can choose to sleep on, and they are also the least necessary. If you are in an urban area for a reason, where car camping is legal covers the broader legality picture, and store parking and truck stops cover the private-property options where somebody can actually give you permission. If you are out of town, rest area rules by state and free camping by state are the verified starting points.