Fargo, ND Noise Ordinances: Quiet Hours (2026)

Fargo Municipal Code § 11-0203(F) is tied to location. It applies within the Downtown Business District and within all residential zoning districts, and it lists specific noises that are prohibited there overnight.

The hours depend on the night. From Sunday evening through Friday morning, the restricted hours are 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. From Friday evening through Sunday morning, the restricted hours are 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. In practice the Friday night and Saturday night windows in Fargo start an hour later and end an hour later than the windows on the other nights of the week.

During those hours the subsection names the following noises.

Radios, tape players or other sound amplifiers, whether portable or installed in vehicles, at a level which can be heard by a person more than 10 feet away. A car stereo on a residential Fargo street and a portable speaker carried through the Downtown Business District are treated the same way.

Any horn, bell or other noise-making device. Alarms are outside this item.

Shouting or yelling where the voice is clearly audible at a distance of more than 10 feet.

The 10 foot distance is the working test for the amplifier and shouting items. For amplified sound, the question is whether a person more than 10 feet away can hear it. For a voice, the question is whether it is clearly audible beyond that same distance. The quoted subsection measures by what a person can hear at a set distance.

Subsection (F) sits inside Fargo's broader unlawful-noise standard, which police use citywide. The overnight list adds specific prohibitions for downtown and the residential districts, and it is not the only noise rule in the Fargo code.