6 Beach Parking Rules Rhode Islanders Know That Tourists Get Fined For

Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management charges an out-of-state plate $30 to park at Misquamicut on a summer weekend, twice what a Rhode Island plate pays.

A camera reads the plate before anyone reads a sign.

That’s the state’s rule. But every town on the shore layered more rules on top of it, and the fines climb from there.

These are the beach parking rules Rhode Islanders know that tourists get fined for.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Beach parking rules, fees, and residency requirements vary by town and are subject to change.

1. Narragansett’s Village Parking Clock

Narragansett puts a literal clock on parking in the beach village, not just at the Town Beach lot.

Boon Street’s east side limits parking to the hours between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. from May 15 through September 15, and the west side, from Central Street to Perkins Avenue, caps a car at three hours in the same stretch.

Nobody posts a warning countdown.

Enforcement runs the whole stretch, and attendants have ticketed drivers soon after the three-hour limit runs out, with little room for a lingering lunch.

A tourist who doesn’t know to watch the clock finds out the same way locals already have: A $50 ticket lands on the windshield instead of a warning.

2. Narragansett’s New Parking Permit

Narragansett moved to create its first residential-only parking permit for 2026, aimed squarely at the cars beachgoers leave on neighborhood streets once the town’s lots fill up.

The permit covers homeowners and year-round leaseholders only, not summer renters or short-term vacationers passing through for a week.

Visiting doesn’t count.

Misuse of the permit, including a car displaying a sticker it wasn’t issued, carries a fine of up to $500 per day under the ordinance.

A visitor driving a relative’s car that still carries the resident sticker is displaying a permit that was never issued to that car.

That’s exactly the misuse the fine targets.

Narragansett’s beach lots are a separate system entirely, so the new permit doesn’t buy anyone a parking pass at Narragansett Town Beach.

3. Charlestown’s Limited Tourist Parking

Charlestown’s beach ordinance settles who gets a parking pass at the Charlestown Town Beach before a visitor ever reaches the gate.

Only residents and taxpayers qualify for a Town Beach pass under the town code.

Charlestown redirects everyone else toward Blue Shutters Beach a short drive away, the only spot where it sells a non-resident pass.

Both lots close at 5 p.m., and any car still sitting there by 9 p.m. faces ticketing and towing at the owner’s expense.

The penalty section of Charlestown’s town code caps the fine at $500, or up to 30 days in jail.

4. Moonstone Beach Road’s Paid Parking

South Kingstown treats the roadside pull-offs along Moonstone Beach Road like a parking lot, not an ordinary shoulder.

A car parked there between May 1 and September 15 needs a season sticker, a transferable pass, a day pass, or a payment through the ParkMobile app.

No free spot exists.

South Kingstown police monitor the road directly, and the whole area gates shut at 9 p.m., so a car left past that hour is locked in for the night.

A citation for parking there without the required pass runs $75, the town’s standing fine for a parking violation.

5. Westerly’s Two Different Beaches

Westerly runs two very different beaches under one town name, and mixing them up is an easy mistake.

Misquamicut, a state-run beach that happens to sit inside Westerly, takes anyone who pays the non-resident rate at the gate.

Westerly Town Beach runs on a different set of rules.

The town describes Westerly Town Beach as run for residents, taxpayers, and property owners, with no daily rate listed for anyone else.

It’s one town running two different rulebooks.

A driver who parks in a restricted spot nearby to dodge that structure faces Westerly’s standard parking fine.

The ticket runs $50, payable to the Westerly Municipal Court Clerk within 30 days.

6. Mackerel Cove’s Two Lots

Jamestown treats its Mackerel Cove lot as two separate pools of parking, not one shared lot.

A Jamestown resident sticker, or a lease of 30 days or longer, buys a spot on the resident side for free.

Everyone else pays $20 a day, first come, first served, through the mobile-pay signs posted at the lot.

The two sides aren’t interchangeable.

Park in the resident-only side even after buying day parking, and Jamestown’s beach page warns that a driver will be ticketed regardless.

Middletown’s Resident-Only Third Beach

Middletown draws a hard line between its two big beaches once the season starts.

No exceptions.

Second Beach’s main lot and the gravel overflow across the street still take a non-resident pass or a daily ticket, per the town’s posted rates.

Third Beach draws a harder line.

Both the Boat Ramp lot and the Town Beach lot at Third Beach are open only to a Middletown resident seasonal sticker, with no daily rate offered at any price.

The same restriction covers the Surfer’s End lot at Second Beach, so a visitor who circles back there after being turned away at Third Beach hits the identical wall.

Walking in is always free, just not driving in.

One Sticker, One Car

Rhode Island registers every beach parking pass, whether it comes from the state or a single town, to one vehicle.

It’s not a household.

State beach passes are non-transferable under Rhode Island State Parks policy.

Each pass is tied to the plate on file the moment someone buys it, not to whoever happens to be driving that day.

Borrowing a relative’s car doesn’t transfer the pass; the plate on file has to match the car at the gate.

Narragansett enforces the same policy, and gate staff turn away any pass whose registration number doesn’t match the car it’s on.

A sticker only works for the car it was issued to, nothing else.

Rhode Island’s Hidden Shore Access Points

Rhode Island’s eight state-run beaches already settle a visitor’s price before anyone reaches the booth.

Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management charges an out-of-state plate $30 against $15 for a Rhode Island plate at Misquamicut on a summer weekend.

Plate-based pricing isn’t the state’s only rule about who gets to the water.

The same state protects 230 rights-of-way designated by the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), part of nearly 400 coastal access points statewide.

Many of them sit unmarked, easy to drive straight past.

These CRMC-designated rights-of-way are narrow public easements, sometimes only a few feet wide between two private yards, that lead straight down to the shoreline.

Locals know which to use.

A 2025 Rhode Island law now makes it illegal for a town or a private group to cut parking near one of these rights-of-way without public notice.