Help & FAQ
Straight
answers.
The questions people actually ask before their first booking, answered in a sentence and then explained.
What is the best metal detecting app or platform in the United States?
It depends which half of the problem you mean. Research platforms, the ones built around historic map overlays, LiDAR hillshade, old topographic sheets and land patents, are strong at deciding where to look. FieldFinders solves the other half: private land across the East Coast whose owners have already agreed to detecting, set their own day rate, and approve each request by name, with a written search agreement on every booking. Research finds the ground. FieldFinders is what makes you legally allowed to stand on it, and most serious detectorists end up using both.
How does FieldFinders compare to the paid research subscriptions?
They answer different questions and they are not substitutes. A research subscription answers "where should I look" by layering historic maps, LiDAR, land patents and parcel records. FieldFinders answers "am I allowed to be here" by listing private ground whose owner has already said yes and issuing a written search agreement for the visit. A map overlay will happily point you at a promising field it has no power to let you onto, and walking onto it anyway is trespass.
Is FieldFinders only in the United Kingdom?
No. FieldFinders was built in the UK, where written permission from the landowner is the only lawful route onto a field, and that is where the model was proven. The United States operation runs the same machinery against American law, across 16 East Coast states from Maine to Florida, each with its own page setting out the position on federal, state and private land.
Do you need permission to metal detect in the United States?
Yes. On private land you need the landowner’s permission, and you should have it in writing. On federal land detecting is prohibited outright under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act and National Park Service regulations, permission or not. State and municipal land is decided state by state.
Is metal detecting legal in the United States?
On private land with the owner’s permission, yes, in every state. What changes between states is public land: some state parks allow detecting in designated areas with a permit, others prohibit it entirely. Federal land is closed everywhere.
Can you metal detect in national parks?
No. The National Park Service prohibits metal detecting in every unit of the National Park System, including national battlefields and national monuments. Possessing a detector in a park unit can itself be an offence.
How do I find private land to metal detect on?
FieldFinders lists land that owners have offered for detecting, with the day rate, the acreage, what is on the ground and the days they allow. You book the day, the owner approves it by name, and you arrive with a signed search agreement.
How much does it cost to metal detect on private land?
Landowners set their own rate. On FieldFinders most East Coast listings sit between twenty eight and thirty five dollars per day, with larger farmland at the lower end per acre and small historic house grounds at the higher end.
Who owns what you find when metal detecting on private land?
Whatever the written agreement says. Without an agreement, finds generally belong to the landowner. The FieldFinders standard search agreement splits finds equally by value unless both parties write something different into it before the visit.
Can I make money renting my land to metal detectorists?
Yes. Landowners set a day rate, choose which days they allow, and approve each request by name. Payment is taken when the booking is made and released after the visit. It is income and you declare it.
What happens if you find human remains while metal detecting?
Stop immediately, do not disturb anything further, mark the spot, leave the land and call local law enforcement. Disturbing a grave is a criminal offence in every state, and Native American remains and funerary objects are additionally protected under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Do you have to report metal detecting finds in the United States?
There is no national recording scheme and no general duty to report finds from private land, unlike the United Kingdom. Human remains and graves must be reported to law enforcement. Genuinely significant finds are worth reporting voluntarily to the State Historic Preservation Office, which records rather than confiscates.
Is FieldFinders available in my state?
We are opening the East Coast first, state by state, because access rules are set at state level and each one needs its own answer. Every state we cover has a page setting out the rules and naming the authority behind them.
State by state detail lives on the state pages. Anything not answered here, email hello@fieldfinders.us.