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.

North Carolina Sidewalk Snow Removal: No City Sets a Clock

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

The rules collected here are sidewalk rules, and the great majority of North Carolina 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 North Carolina 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

None

Cities publishing an hour count

against 150 nationally

0 of 4

Cities with an ordinance

read on one day

September 23, 2026

Read

municipal code and city pages

The short answer

No North Carolina city read here sets a deadline for clearing a sidewalk

North Carolina has no sidewalk clearing statute at all. Nor did any of the four North Carolina cities read for this publish a deadline for clearing a sidewalk: what their winter pages and their codes set out instead is where snow may be put once it has been moved. 10 states came back that way, and the answer in them is the same as the answer everywhere else, which is that the city that issues the ordinance is the one that would have to have issued this one.

The city named on each line below is the one that publishes the rule and the one that answers questions about it. 53 cities nationally also publish a page for reporting a walk that has not been cleared.

Nothing at state level0 of 4 cities with an ordinancenone counting in hours

What North Carolina itself did

North Carolina has written nothing on this

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

That is the national pattern rather than a North Carolina 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 North Carolina statute was found on this

has no sidewalk clearing statute at all

Where nothing was found

4 North Carolina cities read publish no clearing ordinance

No North Carolina city read here publishes a sidewalk clearing deadline, and the snow pages of the four largest read instead describe which roads crews plow first.

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.

Asheville
No ordinance found
No sidewalk clearing ordinance was found for this city.
- Published by Asheville Public Works Street Services
Snow, The City of Asheville, read September 23, 2026
Charlotte
No ordinance found
No sidewalk clearing ordinance was found for this city.
- Published by Charlotte Emergency Management
Winter Weather Storm Response Info Center, City of Charlotte, read September 23, 2026
Durham
No ordinance found
No sidewalk clearing ordinance was found for this city.
- Published by Durham Street Maintenance Division
Snow Removal, City of Durham, read September 23, 2026
Winston-Salem
No ordinance found
No sidewalk clearing ordinance was found for this city.
- Published by Winston-Salem Streets Division
Snow & Ice Control, City of Winston-Salem, NC, read September 23, 2026

How North Carolina 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

North Carolina sidewalk snow removal questions

How long do you have to shovel your sidewalk in North Carolina?

North Carolina has no sidewalk clearing statute at all. Nor did any of the four North Carolina cities read for this publish a deadline for clearing a sidewalk: what their winter pages and their codes set out instead is where snow may be put once it has been moved. 10 states came back that way, and the answer in them is the same as the answer everywhere else, which is that the city that issues the ordinance is the one that would have to have issued this one.

Does North Carolina have a state law about clearing sidewalks?

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

Which cities in the country give you the least time?

How current is this?

Sidewalk snow removal rules in every state

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

North Carolina read September 23, 2026: the municipal code and the city published pages of the 4 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.