Mayor Bowser restores D.C.’s curfew law through May 1

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser reinstated the city’s temporary curfew measures on Thursday after they had lapsed the previous day.

The general curfew applies to anyone under age 18 across the District of Columbia from 11 p.m. each night until 6 a.m. the next morning, which took effect Thursday night. Metropolitan Police Department interim Chief Jeffery Carroll can also declare curfew zones.

The mayoral order lets the general curfew and zones expire at 11:59 p.m. May 1. The citywide curfew each day and the zones were previously authorized by the Juvenile Curfew Emergency Amendment Act of 2025. 

Late last month, the D.C. Council passed a resolution by Chairman Phil Mendelson to delay a vote that would have extended the curfew act. The vote was delayed until next Tuesday, and the curfew authorization subsequently expired Wednesday.

Ms. Bowser wants the curfew to be permanent.

“I think the council should stop playing games with this,” she said on March 30. “This is a tool that we need. We’re going to keep coming back every 90 days. … We need it. … Move to permanent.”

Ms. Bowser and 11 of the members of the D.C. Council are Democrats. At-large Council members Christina Henderson and Doni Crawford are independents.

So far in 2026, there have been 14 curfew zones implemented with only seven violations recorded, Ms. Bowser’s office said Thursday.

A zone has been set up in the Navy Yard area five times this year, and the police have not declared any curfew zones without including the Navy Yard, per the Metropolitan Police Department website.

In addition, curfew zones were declared in the U Street corridor four times, Chinatown and the Waterfront/Wharf area had the zones declared two times each, and a zone was declared near the old location for Benjamin Banneker Academic High School and Howard University once.

The time limits and exact boundaries within the curfew zones vary between each instance that they are declared by police, but the hours start no earlier than 8 p.m. Within the zones, minors are forbidden from gathering in groups of nine or more.

Minors are exempt from curfew zone rules if they are:

• With a parent or guardian.
• Running an errand for a parent or guardian without stopping.
• Working or returning home from work without stopping.
• Riding in a vehicle engaged in interstate travel.
• Involved or becoming involved in an emergency.
• Standing on a sidewalk connecting their residence to that of a neighbor so long as the neighbor did not file a complaint.
• Attending a religious, school, civic organization-run or city-sponsored recreational activity so long as the group takes responsibility for minors and their transportation.
• Engaging in First Amendment activities.