International visitors now have to pay more at America’s most visited national parks

International visitors to 11 U.S. national parks, including Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, and Sequoia, now have to pay more to get in. As in, up to a $100 a head more.

One nonprofit that advocated for the price increases was the Property and Environment Research Center. 

“People are really getting out and enjoying the marvelous places that we conserve through our national parks,” said PERC research fellow Tate Watkins. “But it comes with very real impacts and costs to maintain these places.” 

The National Park Service keeps a list of the maintenance needs at the parks: a sewer at Yellowstone needs repairs, and a museum at Sequoia has structural deficiencies. Add it all together, and the backlog runs to more than $22 billion.

Watkins said increased fees will help the parks tackle those improvements. 

Here’s how it works: International visitors who are 16 or older have to pay $100, on top of existing entrance fees. International travelers planning to visit more than one park or traveling as a group can buy an annual pass for $250, which covers the passholder plus others in the vehicle, or three adults. U.S. residents can purchase the same annual pass for $80.

(Things get a little more complicated for tour buses, where some tourists are U.S. residents and some are not.)

PERC estimated that if every international visitor to Yellowstone had to pay that $100 fee, it would keep a few of them away. But even so, Watkins said, the added charge “would potentially triple or quadruple current entry fee revenues at the park.”

Watkins pointed to other countries, which choose to charge international visitors to their national parks more than domestic ones.

And he said all kinds of experiences are priced in similar ways, too. Out-of-state students (and international students) pay higher tuition, and licenses cost more for out-of-state hunters. 

“Certain cohorts are not part of the local tax base and do not contribute in that way, and then so maybe are asked to contribute in different ways to help the system as a whole,” Watkins explained. 

Some other park and conservation groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, told Marketplace that they, too, recognize the maintenance needs and aren’t necessarily against considering fees to help meet them.

But these organizations worry this fee increase, in particular, was adopted too quickly and without taking potential problems into account.

Checking who is a U.S. resident and who isn’t and needs to pay up, for example, may discourage some potential visitors — even ones who are residents, said Emily Douce at the National Parks Conservation Association. Verification could make long lines even longer for all visitors, especially during peak season.

“It's going to cause further delays at entrance gates going into parks. It's going to diminish the visitor experience, and it's going to be a burden on park staff, who are already short-staffed,” said Emily Thompson with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Thompson and Douce said they worry about the fees’ potential impact on visitor numbers and how any downturn could hit “gateway communities” near the parks. 

Visitors spent $29 billion at gateway businesses in 2024, according to a National Park Service report. 

Lance Syrett manages Ruby’s Inn, right outside of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. He said visitors from outside the U.S. are already staying away. 

“Our business is 5% down overall,” he explained. “International is probably down 10 or 15%.”

Syrett said he gets the need for a fee, but this one may be too much, too soon, especially given that many international visitors book tours and buses, which in turn book well in advance.

“If the implementation was delayed a little bit, if there was a small incremental increase,” Syrett said, “I think in three or four years, you could build that up to $100 without any pain in the industry.”

As Syrett prepares for any potential impacts on peak season — which he said at Ruby’s runs from April to October — he said he’s spending more on regional advertising, “so that if the international visitors do stay home, we’ve at least got somebody to come visit.”

He’s also dropping prices in hopes of bringing in more early bookings.