paratroopers enforce curfew in
Tel Aviv after
King David Hotel bombing, July 1946. Photographer: Haim Fine, Russian Emmanuel collection, from collections of the
National Library of Israel.
Australia On 17 August 2011, a nighttime curfew was imposed on children who had run amok in the streets of Victoria after repeating youth offenses. On 2 August 2020, following the surge of
COVID-19 cases in
Victoria, especially in Melbourne,
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews declared a state of disaster across the state and imposed stage 4 lockdown in Metropolitan
Melbourne. The new measures included nighttime curfew, which was implemented across Melbourne from 20:00 to 05:00 (
AEST). The restrictions came into effect at 18:00 (6 pm) and lasted until 28 September 2020 (5 am). On 16 August 2021, following a surge of
COVID-19 cases and a drop in compliance in restrictions in
Victoria, especially in Melbourne, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews reinstated the curfew in Melbourne, this time from 21:00 to 05:00 (
AEST) effective midnight 17 August 2021 until at least 2 September 2021. On 20 August 2021, as
COVID-19 cases continued to surge in
New South Wales,
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian imposed a curfew in the local government areas of Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Liverpool, Parramatta, Strathfield, and parts of Penrith, from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am (AEST) beginning from 23 August.
Belgium On 17 October 2020, due to surge of
COVID-19 cases and deaths in
Belgium, Prime Minister
Alexander De Croo announced a nationwide curfew from midnight to 05:00 am local time. The curfew was imposed on 19 October 2020 and was to last for four weeks. The government also announced the closure of cafes, bars and restaurants for one month and alcohol sales were banned after 8:00 pm local time.
Bangladesh On 19 July 2024,
Sheikh Hasina-led
Awami League government declared a national curfew and announced plans to deploy the
army to tackle the public unrest in Bangladesh. The government announced the imposition of a curfew after days of clashes at
protests against government job quotas across the country. On 4 August, government declared a curfew again following the deadliest day of the mass uprising on the
non-cooperation movement.
Canada store window indicating that the store would close early due to curfew (2021). On 6 January 2021, due to a surge of
COVID-19 cases and deaths in the
province of Quebec, a curfew was ordered by the premier of Quebec
François Legault. The curfew was adjusted for different areas of the province depending on the number of cases, amongst other criteria. The more populous areas, such as the urban areas of Montréal and Quebec City qualified as "red zones" and were placed under a curfew from 8 pm to 5 am while the less urban areas were either "orange zones" with a curfew from 9:30 pm to 5 am. This curfew was expected to be in effect from 9 January up to and including 8 February 2021. "Yellow zones" did not have curfew. However, the curfew did not end in February. It ended on May 28, 2021. On December 30, 2021, Quebec reinstated the nightly curfew this time starting at 10:00 pm to 5:00 am. Following the reinstatement of the curfew, studies came out doubting its effectiveness in lowering the transmission of COVID-19.
Egypt On 28 January 2011, during the
Egyptian Revolution and following the collapse of the police system, President
Hosni Mubarak declared a country-wide military enforced curfew. However, it was ignored by demonstrators who continued their sit-in in Tahrir Square. Concerned residents formed neighborhood vigilante groups to defend their communities against looters and the newly escaped prisoners. On the second anniversary of the revolution, in January 2013, a wave of demonstrations swept the country against President
Mohamed Morsi who declared a curfew in
Port Said,
Ismaïlia, and
Suez, three cities where deadly street clashes had occurred. In defiance, the locals took to the streets during the curfew, organizing football tournaments and street festivals, prohibiting police and military forces from enforcing the curfew.
Fiji On 27 March 2020, Prime Minister
Frank Bainimarama announced a nationwide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. that would take effect on 30 March. The times have been adjusted forward and backward on several occasions, but as of January 2022, this curfew is still in effect. The government of Fiji maintains that this curfew will stay in effect for the foreseeable future.
France On 14 October 2020, following the surge of COVID-19 cases and deaths in France that threatened to overwhelm hospitals, French President
Emmanuel Macron declared a national
state of public health emergency for the second time and imposed a nighttime curfew in the
Île-de-France region that includes Paris, as well as
Grenoble,
Lille,
Lyon,
Marseille,
Montpellier,
Rouen,
Saint-Etienne, and
Toulouse. The curfew ran from 09:00 pm to 06:00 am local time (
CEST) (08:00 pm to 05:00 am
CET) and was implemented from 17 October 2020 to last four weeks. Under the rules, people in those cities could only leave their homes for essential reasons, and anyone who violated the curfew would face a fine of 135 euros ($158.64) for the first offence. A second offence would bring a far steeper fine of 1,500 euros, or around $1,762. On 23 October, the curfew was expanded to 38
departments and
French Polynesia. In total, 54 departments and one overseas collectivity were affected by new restrictions, comprising 46 million people, or two-thirds of the French population.
Iceland Under
Iceland's Child Protection Act (no. 80/2002 Art. 92), minors aged 12 and under may not be outdoors after 20:00 (8:00 pm) unless accompanied by an adult. Minors aged 13 to 16 may not be outdoors after 22:00 (10:00 pm), unless on their way home from a recognized event organized by a school, sports organization or youth club. During the period 1 May to 1 September, children may be outdoors for two hours longer. Children and teenagers that break curfew are taken to the local police station and police officers tell their parents to come and get them. The age limits are based upon year of birth, not date of birth. If a parent cannot be reached, the child or teenager is taken to a shelter.
Ireland Several medieval towns in Ireland had a curfew after the English model. In
Galway a curfew bell was rung every night before the town gates were locked. In
Kilkenny the
night watchmen stood guard over the market stalls "from curfew to
cockcrow." During the 1916
Easter Rising, Dublin was under curfew between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 am. During the
Irish War of Independence curfews were regularly imposed, including in 1920 in Dublin between midnight and 5 am. Curfew between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. was imposed on
Cork City in July 1920 after the shooting of
Gerald Smyth; in August it was extended to many parts of
Munster. In 1921
Limerick was under a curfew. In 1921, Dublin's curfew began at 10 pm, moved to 9 p.m on 4 March. In the
Republic of Ireland, a restriction on movement order may be placed on an offender, which may include a curfew element.
Italy In Italy a curfew went into effect from October 2020 to limit the spread of COVID-19. Between 22 and 26 October 2020
Lombardy, Campania,
Lazio, Sicily,
Calabria and
Piedmont imposed a curfew between 11.00 pm and 5.00 am, so any movement was prohibited. With the ministerial decree of 3 November 2020, corrected with the DPCM of 3 December 2020, and 14 January 2021, the Italian Regions are grouped into three types of different epidemiological scenarios. A curfew is instituted nationwide from 10 pm to 5 am, shopping centers are ordered to close on weekends, and the use of distance learning for high schools. There have been many protests and riots against the curfew nationwide since it came into effect. However, the curfew has not been lifted by the government.
Jersey During the
German occupation of the Channel Islands, curfews were imposed.
Morocco On 21 December 2020, the government of Morocco first announced a nationwide nighttime curfew as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to come into effect on 23 December. Initially implemented for a three-week period from 9:00 pm–6:00 am, it was extended throughout 2021 alongside the state of health emergency, with hours altered during
Ramadan (8:00 pm–6:00 am), and from May to early August (11:00 pm–4:30 am). The curfew was lifted on 10 November 2021.
Netherlands , announcing a curfew between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. In the
Netherlands, a curfew from 9:00 pm to 4:30 am local time went into effect on 23 January 2021 to limit the spread of COVID-19. Across the first two nights, 5,765 people were given the 95 euro fine for disobeying the curfew. Nationwide
anti-curfew riots occurred from 23 until 26 January, resulting in the arrests of over 575 people. On 8 February, the government announced an extension of the curfew until 2 March. The curfew was lifted on April 28, 2021 and has not been reinstated since then.
Philippines In 1565, the Spanish conquistador
Miguel López de Legazpi arrived in
Cebu to
colonize the islands that would later be known as the Philippines. Legazpi constructed a fort and instituted a curfew for those entering it at night, citing concerns that "women prostituted themselves in the camp." During the
American colonial period in the Philippines at the turn of the 19th century,
Manila was under a "Curfew Order" requiring them not to go out of their houses after 7:00 pm, and later the restriction changed to 8:30 pm, then to 10:00 pm, then to 11:00 pm, and finally revoked in 1901. On September 22, 1972, the day after then
President Ferdinand Marcos declared
martial law, he issued General Order No. 4, mandating a curfew from midnight to 4:00 a.m., and anyone who violated this curfew would be arrested and taken into custody. In December 1972, Marcos conditionally lifted the curfew, and in 1977, he announced the complete removal of the curfew as part of efforts to ease restrictions imposed during martial law. The primary goal of the curfew was to reduce crime, among other reasons. On May 23, 2017, then President
Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed
martial law in the entire
Mindanao island group as a response to the
siege of Marawi, and the proclamation involved curfews. 129 areas in Mindanao had curfews in 2017. After winning the
2016 presidential elections and before starting his term, Duterte proposed a nationwide curfew for minors. There have been local ordinances regarding curfew for minors in some cities and municipalities but no nationwide law. Article 129 of the Presidential Decree 603 in 1974 permits city or municipal councils to implement "curfew hours for children as may be warranted by local conditions." In 2022, a proposed bill was introduced in the
House of Representatives to implement a nationwide curfew. However, the bill has been pending with the Committee on the Welfare of Children since July 2022. The curfew for minors in the Philippines is a debatable topic. Those in favor argue that curfews will promote the children's safety and welfare, while those against state that curfews infringe on children's right to travel in their vicinity and their parents' right to nurture them. In 2017, the
Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled on the constitutionality of some of these local ordinances after a group filed a case. The high court upheld the curfew for minors in Quezon City but did not support the curfews implemented in
Manila and
Navotas.
Poland A strict nationwide curfew was imposed in December 1981 following the introduction of
Martial law in Poland.
Slovenia In
Slovenia, a curfew was implemented in February 1942 in the
area occupied by Italy during World War II. More recently, it was imposed in October 2020 during the
COVID-19 epidemic to limit the spread of the virus. The curfew, which was referred to as the "epidemiological curfew," was enforced from 20 October 2020 to 12 April 2021, from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am local time, for a total of 174 days. The measure was recommended by the government's COVID-19 expert group and enforced under the Infectious Diseases Act. The curfew was criticized by some experts as unnecessary and was challenged for its potential violation of
human rights. In April 2023, the
Constitutional Court declined to assess the curfew regulations as no longer valid, although a concern has been raised that similar measures may be implemented in the future.
South Korea In South Korea, a curfew was imposed following the
American military occupation and end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945. It remained in place throughout the
Korean War and decades thereafter until it was lifted on 4 January 1982 under the presidency of
Chun Doo-hwan, a few months after the capital Seoul was awarded host of the
1988 Summer Olympics.
Spain In Spain, a curfew was imposed from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am local time on 25 October 2020 to limit the spread of COVID-19, in addition to some
Autonomous Communities starting the curfew at 10:00 pm.
Sri Lanka In
Sri Lanka, the
Sri Lanka Police are empowered to declare and enforce a
Police Curfew in any
police area for any particular period to maintain the peace, law and order under the
Police Ordinance. Under the
emergency regulations of the
Public Security Ordinance, the President may declare a curfew over the whole or over any part of the country. Travel is restricted, during a curfew, to authorised persons such as police, armed forces personal and public officers. Civilians may gain a
Curfew Pass from a police station to travel during a curfew. , 1969
Ukraine During the ongoing
Russian invasion of Ukraine, curfews are imposed in all
oblasts of Ukraine except
Zakarpattia, usually lasting from 12 am to 5 am, although may differ depending on specific oblast.
United Kingdom The
United Kingdom's 2003 Anti-Social Behaviour Act created zones that allowed police from 9 pm to 6 am to hold and escort home unaccompanied minors under the age of 16, whether badly behaved or not. This has since been repealed by paragraph 1 of schedule 28 the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Although hailed as a success, the
High Court ruled in one particular case that the law did not give the police a power of arrest, and officers could not force someone to come with them. On appeal the court of appeal held that the act gave police powers to escort minors home only if they are involved in, or at risk from, actual or imminently anticipated bad behaviour. In a few towns in the United Kingdom, the
curfew bell is still rung as a continuation of the medieval tradition where the bell used to be rung from the
parish church to guide travelers safely towards a town or village as darkness fell, or when bad weather made it difficult to follow trackways and for the villagers to extinguish their lights and fires as a safety measure to combat accidental fires. Until 1100 it was against the law to burn any lights after the ringing of the curfew bell. In Morpeth, the curfew is rung each night at 8 pm from
Morpeth Clock Tower. In
Chertsey, it is rung at 8 pm, from
Michaelmas to
Lady Day. A short story concerning the Chertsey curfew, set in 1471, and entitled "
Blanche Heriot. A legend of old
Chertsey Church" was published by Albert Richard Smith in 1843, and formed a basis for the poem "
Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight". At Castleton in the Peak District, the curfew is rung from Michaelmas to Shrove Tuesday. At Wallingford in Oxfordshire, the curfew bell continues to be rung at 9 pm rather than 8 pm which is a one-hour extension granted by
William the Conqueror as the Lord of the town was a Norman sympathiser. However, none of these curfew bells serves its original function.
Northern Ireland During
the Troubles in
Northern Ireland, the
British Army made an attempt to search for illegal items secretly held by
Official IRA (OIRA) and the
Provisional IRA (IRA) in
Falls Road, Belfast, a predominantly
Catholic neighbourhood. The operation, which became known as the
Falls Curfew, took place from 3 to 5 July 1970, with British troops carrying out searches. As it ended, local youths attacked the soldiers, who responded by deploying
riot control tactics; the confrontation quickly developed into a series of gunfights between the British Army and the IRA. After four hours, the Army sealed off the area and imposed a 36-hour curfew, carrying out more searches and recovering 96 weapons before the operation ended. Ultimately, 4 civilians were killed, 78 wounded and 337 arrested. 18 soldiers were also wounded. The curfew was later found to be illegal and no further attempts to impose curfews were made during the Troubles. During the
2020–21 coronavirus pandemic, a curfew was imposed between Christmas 2020 and New Years 2021, 8 p.m. to 6 am, to reduce contagion. and even by county or municipality. American military curfews are a tool used by commanders at various installations to shape the behavior of soldiers.
Juvenile curfews Local ordinances and state statutes may make it unlawful for minors below a certain age to be on public streets, unless they are accompanied by a parent or an adult or on lawful and necessary business on behalf of their parents or guardians. For example, a Michigan state law provides that "[n]o minor under the age of 12 years shall loiter, idle or congregate in or on any public street, highway, alley or park between the hours of 10 o'clock p.m. and 6 o'clock a.m., unless the minor is accompanied by a parent or guardian, or some adult delegated by the parent or guardian to accompany the child." MCLA § 722.751; MSA § 28.342(1). Curfew laws in other states and cities typically set forth different curfews for minors of different ages. The stated purpose of such laws is generally to deter disorderly behavior and crime, while others can include to protect youth from victimization and to strengthen parental responsibility, but their effectiveness is subject to debate. Generally, curfews attempt to address vandalism, shootings, and
property crimes, which are believed to happen mostly at night, but are less commonly used to address
underage drinking,
drunk driving, risky driving, and
teenage pregnancy. Parents can be fined,
charged or ordered to take parenting classes for willingly, or through insufficient control or supervision, permitting the child to violate the curfew. Many local curfew laws were enacted in the 1950s and 1960s to attack the "juvenile delinquent" problem of youth gangs. Most curfew exceptions include: • accompanied by a parent or an adult appointed by the parent; • going to or coming home from work, school, religious, or recreational activity; • engaging in a lawful employment activity or; • involved in an emergency; Some cities make it illegal for a business owner, operator, or any employee to knowingly allow a minor to remain in the establishment during curfew hours. A business owner, operator, or any employee may be also subject to fines. A 2011 UC-Berkeley study looked at the 54 larger U.S. cities that enacted youth curfews between 1985 and 2002 and found that arrests of youths affected by curfew restrictions dropped almost 15% in the first year and approximately 10% in following years. However, not all studies agree with the conclusion that youth curfew laws actually reduce crime, and many studies find no benefit or sometimes even the opposite. For example, one 2016 systematic review of 12 studies on the matter found that the effect on crime is close to zero, and can perhaps even backfire somewhat. There are also concerns about
racial profiling. In response to concerns about racial profiling,
Montgomery County, Maryland, passed a limited curfew, which would permit police officers to arrest juveniles in situations that appear threatening.
Mall curfews Many malls in the United States have policies that prohibit minors under a specified age from entering the mall after specified times, unless they are accompanied by a parent or another adult or are working at the mall during curfew times. Such policies are known as
mall curfews. For example, the
Mall of America's Youth Supervision Policy requires all minors visiting Mall after 4 p.m. to be accompanied by someone 21 or older. One adult can chaperone up to four minors. The policy is part of the mall's broader security program, which includes the addition of metal detectors, more patrols and a
K-9 unit. Malls that have policies prohibiting unaccompanied minors at any time are known as
parental escort policies. Curfews for adults States and municipalities in the United States have occasionally enacted curfews on the population at large, often as a result of severely
inclement weather or
civil disorder. Some such curfews require all citizens simply to refrain from driving. Others require all citizens to remain inside, with exceptions granted to those in important positions, such as
elected officials,
law enforcement personnel,
first responders, healthcare workers, and the mass media. However, unlike juvenile curfews, all-ages curfews have always been very limited in terms of both location and duration. That is, they are temporary and restricted to very specific areas, and generally only implemented during states of emergency, then subsequently lifted or allowed to sunset. In 1992, a curfew was imposed in
Los Angeles, California during the
Rodney King Riots. In 2015, the city of
Baltimore enacted a curfew on all citizens that lasted for five days and prohibited all citizens from going outdoors from 10 pm to 5 am with the exception of those traveling to or from work and those with medical emergencies. This was in response to the
2015 Baltimore protests. During the global
COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, local curfews were used (typically in combination with daytime
lockdown policies) in the attempt to slow down the spread of the
virus by limiting nonessential interactions between people from different households. Later in 2020, citywide curfews were enacted in major cities across the country due to
protests following the
murder of George Floyd in May.
Arizona enacted a statewide curfew. Countywide curfews were enacted for
Los Angeles County and
Alameda County in California. In spring 2021, the city of
Miami Beach, Florida enacted a citywide curfew due to public disorder associated with
spring break celebrations. A curfew was also imposed by
mayor Karen Bass during the
June 2025 Los Angeles protests. ==See also==