Non-U.S. residents will face a steep price hike to visit some of the country’s most popular national parks, starting in the new year.
In late November, the Trump Administration announced a new fee structure “that puts American families first.”
Non-U.S. residents will have to pay an extra $100 per person on top of regular entrance fees at 11 parks, including Rocky Mountain, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Glacier, Grand Teton and Yellowstone.
Currently, many parks charge between $30 and $35 per vehicle for a week, regardless of nationality.
For U.S. residents, the annual pass remains at $80, while nonresidents will have to shell out $250.
The Department of the Interior also listed eight free entry days at parks for residents only, including Flag Day – President Trump’s birthday – while removing Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth.
“These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Concern in gateway towns
In Estes Park, Colo., which sits at the base of Rocky Mountain National Park, Mayor Gary Hall said the fees send the wrong message to potential visitors.
“I felt that it was the exact opposite of what we should be doing,” Hall said. “‘We don’t really like you, but if you want to come, you can pay a whole bunch of extra money,’ – I mean, that’s what it feels like,” he said.
The town thrives on park visitors. Beyond the alpine vistas and resident elk herds, Estes Park is home to the iconic Stanley Hotel and charming streets lined with old businesses like the 90-year-old Taffy Shop. Hall worries that higher fees will discourage visits, slowing hotel occupancy, restaurant dining and sales tax revenue.
International market
Roughly 14 million international visitors toured national parks and monuments in 2018, according to a report from U.S. Travel Council. The U.K., China and Germany were the top sources of these parkgoers. At Yellowstone, about 15% of visitors in 2024 came from outside the U.S. Rocky Mountain National Park likely sees a smaller share, with 41% of visitors from Colorado itself.
However, overseas tourists are Colorado’s “highest value visitors,” spending five times more per trip than their domestic counterparts, according to the state’s economic development office.
“It's perplexing that they would put up a barrier to international visitors,” said McKenzie McMillan, a travel advisor for The Travel Group in Vancouver, Canada, referring to the park surcharges.
Yet McMillan said the higher park fees aren’t top of mind for many of his clients, partly because interest in traveling to the U.S. has already dropped sharply, starting, he said, after President Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state. In October, the U.S. Travel Council projected a 6.3% decline in international travel to the U.S. by year’s end.
Helping parks
But Tate Watkins said the new policy could make visiting national parks a better experience overall.
He works for the Property and Environment Research Center, which aims to find market-based solutions for conservation. Organization leaders had met with Secretary Burgum over the summer to discuss a surcharge for international visitors. Watkins called the Department of the Interior’s announcement a “win.”
As he sees it, the fees are a way “to help parks help themselves.”
“It means that parks have more resources to help serve those people, serve them better and essentially cope with the additional strains that more people inevitably bring,” he said.
Watkins published a report on the concept earlier this year. Using Yellowstone as a case study, he found the fees could raise $55 million a year, and projected they would only decrease visitation by 1.3%. Charging these visitors more would be in line with other countries like Ecuador and South Africa, and the added revenue could chip away at the more than $20 billion in park maintenance backlogs, he said.
On-the-road perspectives
At the Taffy Shop in Estes Park, owner Mark Igel packs up holiday orders of pink cinnamon, green peppermint, and red and white candy cane taffy to send all over the country.
“It’s a tradition for so many families that used to come when they were kids, and now they come with their kids and their grandkids,” he said.
Repeat customers who come to the store and order to their homes are his core, he said. So, he’s not sure about the impact of the new international fees. He said they could be just one more hurdle for visitors to navigate.
“Scheduling a visit to the park, timed entry, construction in Estes Park – that every visitor has to deal with in order to come in and spend $20 on a box of taffy,” he said.
Igel doesn’t expect a dramatic impact, but he said he’ll be watching to see how these “America-first” fees will play out on main streets like this.
Thomas Pemberton is similarly unsure how the new policy will work in practice and how it'll be enforced. A couple of weeks before the new year, the National Park Service told the Mountain West News Bureau it was still working on getting the details out.
Yet Pemberton, owner of Estes Park Tour Guides, doesn’t anticipate an impact on his business. The company takes tourists hiking, snowshoeing and fly fishing, often inside Rocky Mountain National Park, with about one in five of his customers coming from overseas.
“If you can afford a vacation in the states for three weeks, this is a minor little blip,” Pemberton said.
Day-trippers may scale back, but families on longer vacations are less likely to, he thinks.
Still, Mike Darby anticipates those families spending less in the gateway towns they’re passing through. He’s the co-owner of the Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyo., built by Buffalo Bill in 1902. The main dining area features a 40-foot long cherry wood bar, gifted by Queen Victoria.
“They're going to cut back in some way, I really have to think that,” he said, whether it be booking a hotel further away from the park or withgoing souvenirs.
Guests come to the Irma from all over the world on their way to see bison, waterfalls and geysers in Yellowstone National Park. In the busy season, Darby said, Cody is abuzz with multiple languages.
“It's always good to see our town and our mountains, our vistas through fresh eyes. People that have never seen anything like this. It's always a joy to see that,” he said.
Darby won’t know exactly how the new surcharges will affect business for a couple of months, when booking season gets underway. In the meantime, he said, he’s printing out restaurant menus in multiple languages, so guests feel welcome.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
