Beaches of the East End
Five separate permit systems govern the beaches between Westhampton and Montauk, and none of them honor each other. Buying on the wrong side of a boundary line is how people end up owning a house near a beach they cannot park at.
Ocean Bay or Sound
Permit rules, prices, caps and lifeguard schedules are set each year by the villages and towns and change regularly. Confirm current details with the Village office or Town Clerk before relying on them.
This is the part almost nobody explains before a purchase. A permit from one authority is worthless at another's beach, and the rules differ on price, availability and who counts as a resident.
Main, Georgica, Egypt, Wiborg and Two Mile Hollow require a Village permit. Non-residents can buy a limited number of full-season permits, capped each year and sold online in February; monthly permits are also sold. Parking is open to everyone without a permit before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m. Lifeguards are on duty 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the protected beaches.
Havens Beach has its own village parking arrangement — village stickers for residents, app-based paid parking for everyone else in season. Windmill Beach needs no beach permit at all; you park in the village. Neither a Southampton Town nor an East Hampton Town permit applies here.
A Town permit is required to park at Town beaches. Resident permits are free; non-resident permits are sold in several categories. Indian Wells and the first paved lot at Ditch Plains are resident-permit only. Village permits do not work at Town beaches, and vice versa. Most Town beaches open weekends from Memorial Day, then daily from mid-June through Labor Day.
Town permits cover Foster Memorial, Sagg Main, Mecox, W. Scott Cameron, Flying Point, Ponquogue, Tiana and Pikes. Residents and seasonal renters can buy them; weekday day passes and app-based payment are available at several lots. Town permits do not work at Coopers Beach. Note the March 2026 change: Sag Harbor Village residents on the East Hampton Town side no longer get the resident rate at the ocean beaches, though Foster Memorial is unaffected.
Coopers Beach and the other Meadow Lane beaches run their own permit system. Free for year-round residents and renters, paid for others, with a lower rate for people inside the Southampton Fire or School Districts. Town permits are not valid here, and Coopers is the only Village beach with lifeguards.
The beaches on the map above are the ones with parking lots that most people actually drive to. The towns and villages maintain many more access points — landings, road ends and bay beaches that locals use and visitors rarely find.
Atlantic Avenue Beach, Barns Hole, Big Albert's Landing Beach, Fresh Pond, Indian Wells Beach, Lazy Point, Little Albert's Landing Beach, Napeague Lane Beach
Alewive Brook Landing, Mile Hill, Old House Landing Road, Sammy's Beach
Culloden Point, Ditch Plains Beach, East Lake Beach (Gin Beach), South Edison Beach, Fort Pond Bay, Hither Woods, Kirk Park Beach, South Lake Beach, West Lake Drive
Flaggy Hole, Gerard Drive Park, Louse Point, Maidstone Park Beach
Beach Lane, Town Line
Coopers Beach, Cryder, Dune Beach (village residents only), Fowler, Gin Lane, Halsey Neck Lane, Little Plains Road, Old Town, Road D, Road G, Wyandanch
Beach access is one of several things that change at a boundary you cannot see from the road. Taxes, building permits and school district lines are others.
Ask me about a specific address