Every deadline, width and penalty here was read on September 23, 2026, off the city's own page or the municipal code that city hosts, and each one is quoted and linked beside the line it supports. Cities amend these ordinances between winters and several publish the deadline on a seasonal page that changes in autumn, so the link beside a line is what governs on the day.

Idaho Sidewalk Snow Removal: 24 Hours

Q: How wide does a cleared path have to be in Idaho?

One Idaho city sets a width, and Idaho Falls sets the entire length and breadth of every Sidewalk. 57 cities nationally publish one; the rest describe the walk rather than measure it, and the city named on each line is the one that reads the result.

Q: Does snow have to be cleared from the sidewalk or the street in Idaho?

The rules collected here are sidewalk rules, and the great majority of Idaho cities publish a second one about where the snow may go once it has been moved, most often forbidding it on the travelled part of the road. Both come off the same city pages linked below, and the Idaho cities that publish only the second are listed as such rather than folded in with the rest.

Q: Which cities in the country give you the least time?

St. Louis, Santa Fe, Sheridan, where the ordinance allows no hours at all. Above them, 57 of the 150 cities that count in hours give twelve hours or less, 74 give exactly a day, and 18 give more than a day. The widest gap inside a single state is Maine, from four hours to three days.

Nothing

What state law sets

37 states are in the same position

24h

What its cities allow

in the one city that counts in hours

2 of 3

Cities with an ordinance

1 clear it themselves and bill

September 23, 2026

Read

1 publish a penalty

The short answer

Idaho Falls gives a day, and Idaho sets nothing above it

Idaho has no sidewalk clearing statute at all. The clock is a city's instead, and one Idaho city counts in hours. Nationally the deadlines run from no hours at all to three days across 150 cities, and no state legislature anywhere has put a number on it.

Every Idaho city below publishes somewhere to report a walk that has not been cleared, linked on its own line. The city that publishes the rule is the city that answers questions about it.

Nothing at state level2 of 3 cities with an ordinance1 counting in hours1 clear it themselves

City by city, in each city’s own words

The 2 Idaho cities that publish an ordinance

One Idaho city publishes a count of hours, and each one below is quoted from the ordinance or the city page it was read from. A day is the commonest figure in Idaho as it is nationally: 74 of the 150 cities that count in hours land on exactly that.

Each card below carries what that city published and nothing else: the deadline in its own sentence, the sentence it was read from, and the width, the penalty and the wording about ice where the city printed them. The chip is a band derived from the wording for sorting, not a restatement of it.

Idaho Falls
13h to 24h
within the twenty four (24) hour period immediately following the cessation of a Precipitation Event
Unless otherwise provided in this Section, it shall be unlawful for an owner, agent or lessee of real property to fail to remove or fail to cause to be removed hail, snow, sleet, and/or ice, from the entire length and breadth of every Sidewalk in the City within the twenty four (24) hour period immediately following the cessation of a Precipitation Event.
Whose duty it is, as the ordinance puts it
an owner, agent or lessee of real property
What it says about ice
The ordinance covers hail, snow, sleet and ice together, defined as a Precipitation Event determined by the National Weather Service Station at the Idaho Falls Regional Airport.
- Width the entire length and breadth of every Sidewalk
- Penalty an infraction in an amount set from time to time by City Council
- If it is not done the city may clear it and charge the property
- Section Title 8, Chapter 10, Section 8-10-8 Sidewalk, Hail, Snow, Sleet and/or Ice Removal Required; penalties at 8-10-10 (Ord. No. 3145)
- Published by City of Idaho Falls Public Works Department
The duty does not extend to snow that City equipment later pushes back onto the walk: "The duty imposed in this subsection (B)(1) shall not include snow placed onto Sidewalks by snow removal equipment of the City or its designee after it has been removed following a Precipitation Event."
Sidewalk Snow Removal Ordinance (Title 8, Chapter 10), City of Idaho Falls, read September 23, 2026 Where the city takes reports
Moscow
No clock
The ordinance requires the walk cleared and names no time by which.
Sec. 9-3 Owner to Remove - It shall be the duty of every owner of any land, building, or lot within the City to remove snow and/or ice from adjacent sidewalks to permit the safe pedestrian passage upon said sidewalks bordering said property and to abate the nuisance set forth in this Chapter. This duty applies to natural snowfall; it does not extend to snow displaced onto sidewalks by City snowplows after an owner has removed natural snowfall.
Whose duty it is, as the ordinance puts it
every owner of any land, building, or lot within the City
What it says about ice
The duty covers snow and/or ice together and is framed as abating a nuisance.
- Section Moscow City Code Title 5 Public Ways and Property, Sec. 9-3 Owner to Remove
- Published by City of Moscow Public Works Department, Streets Division
The city page reproduces the code section but prints no time limit and no fine.
Snow Removal & Winter Weather, City of Moscow, ID, read September 23, 2026 Where the city takes reports

What Idaho itself did

Idaho has written nothing on this

Nothing in the Idaho statutes was found setting a sidewalk clearing deadline, which leaves the question to the cities below.

That is the national pattern rather than a Idaho quirk. 13 of the 50 legislatures have a statute that touches sidewalk snow at all, 10 of those do nothing but let a city decide, and not one of them sets a deadline. The clock is a municipal ordinance everywhere in the country.

Nothing at state level

No Idaho statute was found on this

has no sidewalk clearing statute at all

What happens if it is not done

A bill or a penalty, depending on the Idaho city

One Idaho city publishes a rule letting the city clear the walk and put the cost on the property. That is the commoner enforcement route nationally: 102 of the 187 cities with an ordinance carry one, against 105 that publish a penalty.

One Idaho city prints a penalty beside the rule, each as the class of offence the ordinance creates rather than as an amount. Each is reproduced below in the words its own ordinance used.

Both routes are printed on the cards above in the sentence each was read from, because a penalty clause paraphrased is a different statement than the one the city made. Where a city publishes a page for reporting a walk that has not been cleared, that link is on its card too.

Where nothing was found

One Idaho city read publishes no clearing ordinance

Idaho has no statewide shovelling law, Idaho Falls is the one city here that puts a clock on it at twenty four hours with an infraction behind it, Moscow makes it an owner's duty with no hour attached, and Nampa asks rather than requires.

Where a city publishes no clearing ordinance, there is no municipal deadline to count against and no municipal penalty behind it, and what stands is the state's own position set out above. Each card below links to the chapter of the code it was read from. Nationally 80 of the 267 cities read are in the same position.

Nampa
No ordinance found
No sidewalk clearing ordinance was found for this city.
- Published by City of Nampa Street Division
Nampa's snow pages phrase sidewalk clearing as a request with no deadline, no code section and no penalty: "Remove snow from driveways, sidewalks, and pedestrian ramps after plow passes. Property owners are requested not to shovel snow into the street as the plows will likely plow the same snow back onto owner's property." Read across the Snow and Ice Control Plan, How the public can help, and Snow & Ice pages; none cites an ordinance.
How the public can help, Snow and Ice Control Plan, City of Nampa, ID, read September 23, 2026 Where the city takes reports

How Idaho compares

The same question in the other forty nine

150 cities nationally count in hours, and the counts run from no hours at all to 72. 74 land on exactly a day, 57 give twelve hours or less, and 18 give more than a day. A further 22 set a time of day or a depth of snow rather than a count of hours at all.

The bar splits those 150 cities by how long they allow, and the table beneath it orders the states by how tight their tightest city is, which is a different ranking from how much snow a state gets.

3 of 150No hours allowed
23 of 150Six hours or less
31 of 150Within twelve hours
75 of 150Within a day
18 of 150More than a day

Fifty states and 267 cities, read September 23, 2026.
State	What the legislature did	What its cities do	With an ordinance	Tightest city
Missouri	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	ImmediatelySt. Louis
Wyoming	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	3 of 3	ImmediatelySheridan
New Mexico	A cross reference	Cities count in hours	1 of 4	ImmediatelySanta Fe
Michigan	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	2hMarquette
Maryland	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	8 of 8	3hAnnapolis
Massachusetts	A city may	Cities count in hours	8 of 8	3hBoston
Pennsylvania	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	3hErie
Virginia	A city may	Cities count in hours	6 of 7	3hRoanoke
Connecticut	A city may	Cities count in hours	8 of 8	4hDanbury
Ohio	A city may	Cities count in hours	8 of 8	4hAthens
New York	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	4hNew York City
Maine	A city may	Cities count in hours	4 of 8	4hWaterville
Vermont	A city may	Cities count in hours	1 of 6	4hWinooski
Rhode Island	A city may	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	5hNewport
Indiana	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	6hWest Lafayette
Nebraska	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	8hFremont
New Jersey	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	8hJersey City
Utah	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	5 of 5	8hPark City
Iowa	Owner duty, no clock	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	10hAmes
Kansas	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	12hSalina
Delaware	Nothing found	Cities count in hours	5 of 5	12hMilford
Washington	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	3 of 4	12hSeattle
California	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	1 of 2	12hSouth Lake Tahoe
North Dakota	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	24hBismarck
Wisconsin	The city clears it	Cities count in hours	7 of 7	24hGreen Bay
Colorado	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	24hAurora
Illinois	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	24hChampaign
Minnesota	A city may	Cities count in hours	6 of 6	24hDuluth
Montana	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	5 of 5	24hBillings
South Dakota	A city may	Cities count in hours	5 of 5	24hWatertown
Oklahoma	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	3 of 7	24hTulsa
West Virginia	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	3 of 4	24hMorgantown
Alaska	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	2 of 3	24hSeward
Idaho	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	2 of 3	24hIdaho Falls
Texas	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	2 of 7	24hAmarillo
Arizona	Nothing at state level	Cities count in hours	1 of 5	24hFlagstaff
Oregon	Nothing at state level	Required, no time named	2 of 3	None published
Arkansas	Nothing at state level	Set by the clock or a depth	1 of 7	None published
Kentucky	Nothing at state level	Set by the clock or a depth	1 of 3	None published
Tennessee	Nothing at state level	Required, no time named	1 of 4	None published
Alabama	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published
Florida	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published
Georgia	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published
Hawaii	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 2	None published
Louisiana	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 6	None published
Mississippi	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published
Nevada	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published
New Hampshire	A city may	No city rule found	0 of 7	None published
North Carolina	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 4	None published
South Carolina	Nothing at state level	No city rule found	0 of 3	None published

Idaho sidewalk snow removal questions

How long do you have to shovel your sidewalk in Idaho?

Idaho has no sidewalk clearing statute at all. The clock is a city's instead, and one Idaho city counts in hours. Nationally the deadlines run from no hours at all to three days across 150 cities, and no state legislature anywhere has put a number on it. One Idaho city publishes a count of hours, and each one below is quoted from the ordinance or the city page it was read from. A day is the commonest figure in Idaho as it is nationally: 74 of the 150 cities that count in hours land on exactly that.

Does Idaho have a state law about clearing sidewalks?

Will the city clear my sidewalk in Idaho?

One Idaho city publishes a rule letting the city clear the walk and put the cost on the property. That is the commoner enforcement route nationally: 102 of the 187 cities with an ordinance carry one, against 105 that publish a penalty. Idaho Falls sets it out this way: “In the event any property owner fails to install or maintain the sidewalk and curb and gutter adjacent to his or her property within twenty (20) days after a notice is mailed to him in accordance with the preceding Section, the City Council may cause the work to be accomplished and charge the reasonable cost therefor against the owner of such property.”

What is the fine for not shovelling a sidewalk in Idaho?

One Idaho city prints a penalty beside the rule, each as the class of offence the ordinance creates rather than as an amount. Each is reproduced below in the words its own ordinance used. Idaho Falls prints an infraction in an amount set from time to time by City Council: “Any person who violates Sections 8-10-8 of this Chapter is guilty of an infraction in an amount set from time to time by City Council.”

How wide does a cleared path have to be in Idaho?

Does snow have to be cleared from the sidewalk or the street in Idaho?

Which cities in the country give you the least time?

How current is this?

Sidewalk snow removal rules in every state

Idaho ice damsWhat builds at the eaves while the walk is being cleared, and the conditions that put it there.Idaho ground snow loadThe other winter number a city sets and the state usually does not, and who publishes it where.Idaho snowpackWhat is actually on the ground this winter, measured daily, against the years behind it.Idaho frozen pipesThe other thing a long cold spell does to a building, and the temperatures it starts at.

Idaho read September 23, 2026: the municipal code and the city published pages of the 3 cities above. Every deadline, width, penalty and duty above links to the document it was published in and is reproduced in that document’s own wording. An hour count on this site is a sorting key derived from a city’s sentence and never a replacement for it. Councils amend ordinances on their own schedule, so the section linked beside a line is what governs on the day. What a particular property owes, and to whom, is a question for the city that published the ordinance.