Summer
Where can I take my dog to the beach in July?
Yes — five of them. Dewey Beach never closes, Slaughter Beach allows dogs year-round, the non-guarded and surf-fishing beaches in Delaware State Parks are open all summer, Assateague National Seashore takes dogs year-round, and Lewes has an early-and-late window.
Why everyone tells you no
Because they're describing the town beaches, and about the town beaches they're right — Rehoboth, Bethany and Fenwick are all shut to dogs through the summer. But "the Delaware beaches" is not one jurisdiction. It's five towns plus a state park system plus the bay, and the rule is different in every one of them. Three of those places never close at all.
The most useful of them is the one nearest to where you probably already are. Dewey Beach is ten minutes from Rehoboth and it is open every day of the year. It just isn't open in the middle of the day.
The five
- 01
Town beach · Sussex
Dewey Beach
Ocean beach, ten minutes from Rehoboth, open every day of the year.
Open, at certain hours10 minutes from RehobothDogs are legal all summer — just not in the middle of the day. Before 9:30am and after 5:30pm from Memorial Day weekend through the Sunday after Labor Day, all day the rest of the year. This is the nearest legal summer ocean beach to Rehoboth by a wide margin, and almost nothing published tells you it exists.
Conditions
- Leashed during the summer window
- Town dog license required, visitors included
What will hurt the dog
- Hot sand between 10am and 4pm — if you would not walk it barefoot, neither should the dog
No beach fee. The dog license is the cost — 3-day, 8-day and lifetime terms.
- 02
State park · Sussex
Non-guarded and surf-fishing beaches, Delaware State Parks
The year-round exception hiding inside the statewide ban.
Open all summer5–25 minutes from RehobothDelaware prohibits dogs on lifeguarded swimming beaches from May 1 to September 30. It does not prohibit them on the rest of the sand. The non-guarded stretches and the drive-on surf-fishing beaches at Cape Henlopen, Delaware Seashore and Fenwick Island State Park are open to leashed dogs all year, including July. This single distinction is the answer to the most-asked unanswered question on this coast.
Conditions
- Leashed at all times
- Off the guarded swimming beaches between May 1 and September 30
- Proof of rabies vaccination is required in state parks
- Beach Plum Island is closed to pets year-round
- Shorebird nesting areas and surfboarding beaches are closed to pets
What will hurt the dog
- Discarded fishhooks and cut monofilament line — this is the tradeoff. The beaches where a dog is legal in summer are the beaches people fish from.
- Saltwater ingestion from dogs chasing balls into surf
- Hot sand
Park entry applies March 1 – November 30. From 2026 the beach parks are $10 for a Delaware-registered vehicle and $20 out-of-state. Annual passes are $50 and $100.
- 03
Town beach · Sussex
Slaughter Beach
Bay beach, dogs every day of the year, and almost nobody there.
Open all summer40 minutes from RehobothLeashed dogs are welcome year-round. It is a quiet Delaware Bay beach about forty minutes north of Rehoboth, and it appears in most aggregator lists as one bullet among twelve, if at all. Calm shallow water rather than surf, which suits an older or nervous dog better than the ocean does.
Conditions
- Leash under 6 feet
- Dogs off the dunes
- Clean up after your dog
What will hurt the dog
- Horseshoe crabs. This is a designated sanctuary and in May and June the beach is carpeted with spawning crabs and their molts. Dogs eat the molts. Disturbing spawning crabs or the shorebirds feeding on their eggs is also a genuine conservation problem.
- Biting flies in high summer
Free.
- 04
National seashore · Worcester County, Maryland
Assateague Island National Seashore
Ocean beach, dogs year-round — but only the National Seashore.
Open all summerAbout 1 hour 15 minutes from RehobothPets are welcome year-round in most of the Maryland portion of the National Seashore, including the beaches and the water, on a leash no longer than six feet. The catch is the name: Assateague State Park sits immediately alongside it and bans dogs entirely, as does the whole Virginia portion. People get this wrong constantly, and the two entrances are minutes apart.
Conditions
- Leash no longer than 6 feet at all times
- Maryland portion only — pets are banned in the Virginia portion entirely
- The National Seashore, NOT Assateague State Park next door
- Off the lifeguard-protected beach in season
- Not on nature trails, in backcountry campsites, or north to the Ocean City Inlet
- Never left unattended, including in a vehicle
What will hurt the dog
- Wild horses. They bite and kick, they are genuinely wild, and a dog will provoke one.
- Ticks in the dune scrub
- Hot sand
National Seashore entrance fee applies. Confirm the current rate with the park.
- 05
Town beach · Sussex
Lewes Beach
Bay beach with an early-morning and evening window.
Open, at certain hours20 minutes from RehobothLeashed dogs before 8am and after 6:30pm from May 1 to September 30. Calm bay water, walkable from town. Treat this one as provisional: a city committee met in December 2025 to consider banning dogs outright at the guarded beaches in summer, and we have found no record of the outcome.
Conditions
- Leashed at all times
- Only outside the posted hours in season
What will hurt the dog
- Rule may have changed — confirm with the city before making the trip
Beach parking fees apply in season.
The hooks, and why they matter here
Worth saying plainly, because it follows directly from the answer above: the Delaware beaches where a dog is legal in summer are, by definition, the ones without lifeguards — which means the ones people drive onto and fish from. Discarded hooks and cut monofilament line are the real hazard on a summer dog walk here, more than the water and more than the crowds. Check the sand in front of you, and keep the dog out of the tackle line.
What is not on this list
- Rehoboth, Bethany and Fenwick town beaches — shut to dogs through the summer, no early-morning exception at any of them.
- Ocean City, Maryland — banned from the beach and boardwalk May 1 – September 30, same as here but with more paperwork. Maryland is not the escape hatch people assume it is.
- Assateague State Park — no dogs, ever. It shares a road with the National Seashore, which does allow them. This is the single most common mix-up in the region.
- Broadkill and Bowers Beach — bay beaches, but both run an October-to-April dog season rather than year-round.