National Park Entrance Fees: Priciest to Totally Free

The Short Answer

National park entrance fees range from completely free at parks like Great Basin and Congaree to $35 per vehicle for a 7-day pass at marquee parks including Yellowstone, Zion, and Grand Teton (Park Crowd Calendar data). Nineteen National Park Service units charge no entrance fee at all, and the single most-visited park in the country, Great Smoky Mountains, skips an entrance fee entirely in favor of a required parking tag instead.

• $35 is the highest 7-day vehicle fee, charged at nine parks including Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Zion, and Yosemite.
• Nineteen NPS units — mostly remote Alaska parks plus a handful of others like Congaree and Mammoth Cave — charge no entrance fee at all, every day of the year.
• Great Smoky Mountains, the most-visited national park in the country, has no entrance fee; visitors instead buy a parking tag ($5/day, $15/week, $40/year).
• Some "fees" aren't entrance fees at all — Gateway Arch's $19 charge is actually a tram-ride ticket, and Carlsbad Caverns' $1 entry pass requires a separate timed cave reservation on top of it.
• A handful of parks charge per person instead of per vehicle, including Dry Tortugas, Guadalupe Mountains, and Isle Royale.

Which National Parks Charge the Most? ($35 and $30 Entry Fees)

Nine parks sit at the top of the fee scale, each charging $35 per vehicle for a standard 7-day pass:

• Yellowstone — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Bryce Canyon — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Grand Canyon — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Grand Teton — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Everglades — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Acadia — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Glacier — $35 in summer, dropping to $25 for the winter rate (November 1–April 30)
• Yosemite — $35, 7-day vehicle pass
• Zion — $35, 7-day vehicle pass

A larger group of parks charges $30 per vehicle, though several attach a seasonal or timed-entry wrinkle worth knowing before you plan around the number alone. Shenandoah, Big Bend, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Death Valley, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes, Joshua Tree, Lassen Volcanic, Mesa Verde, Mount Rainier, Pinnacles, Olympic, Theodore Roosevelt, and Badlands all charge a flat $30 for 7 days. Three are exceptions to watch for: Arches charges $30 but also runs timed-entry reservations from April through October on top of the fee; Crater Lake's $30 rate only applies in summer, roughly mid-May through October; and Rocky Mountain charges $30 for a single day rather than 7, and layers its own peak-season timed-entry system on top. Canyonlands, at the same $30 tier, has no such wrinkle. Timed-entry reservations are a separate system from the entrance fee itself — the full mechanics of both passes and fees are covered in our guide to national park passes and fees, and the timed-entry side specifically is covered in our timed-entry reservations guide.

Which National Parks Are Completely Free to Enter?

Nineteen National Park Service units charge no entrance fee whatsoever, on any day of the year (Park Crowd Calendar data):

• Cuyahoga Valley
• Congaree
• Glacier Bay
• Gates of the Arctic
• Great Basin
• Hot Springs
• Wind Cave
• Katmai
• Kobuk Valley
• Lake Clark
• Mammoth Cave
• Biscayne
• New River Gorge
• Kenai Fjords
• North Cascades
• Virgin Islands
• Voyageurs
• Channel Islands
• Wrangell-St. Elias

Great Smoky Mountains deserves a category of its own. It's the busiest unit in the entire National Park System, yet it has never charged a standard entrance fee — a condition tied to historic road agreements dating back to the park's founding. Since 2023 it has required a parking tag instead: $5 for a day, $15 for a week, or $40 for a year. It's a fee, functionally, but not an entrance fee, and it applies per vehicle parked for more than 15 minutes rather than per vehicle entering the park. If you're specifically hunting for free-admission days at parks that normally do charge, that's a different list than this one — see our guide to national park fee-free days.

The Fee Oddities Worth Knowing

Three fee structures on the list above aren't quite what their sticker price suggests:

1. Gateway Arch's $19 charge is not an entrance fee at all — the park itself, including its grounds and museum, is free to enter. The $19 buys a ticket for the tram ride to the top of the Arch, a separate, optional attraction.

2. Carlsbad Caverns charges just $1 for its entry pass, but that dollar only gets you in the door. Visiting the actual cave requires a separate, required timed-entry cave reservation booked on top of the $1 pass — the low headline number can be misleading if you don't account for the second step.

3. Great Smoky Mountains' parking tag, described above, functions like a fee without technically being an entrance fee — worth knowing if you're comparing costs across a multi-park itinerary.

A separate set of parks charges per person rather than per vehicle, which changes the math for solo travelers versus families. White Sands, Saguaro, Petrified Forest, and Great Sand Dunes charge $25 per vehicle, while Indiana Dunes and Capitol Reef charge $20. Denali charges $15 per person (with visitors under 16 admitted free), and Dry Tortugas charges the same $15 per person, also with free admission under 16. Guadalupe Mountains charges $10 per person, and Isle Royale charges $7 per person, per day — though visitors under 16 are free there too, and the mainland headquarters in Houghton, Michigan, is free to visit even without a permit. Haleakalā's $25 fee covers 3 days and admits up to two motorcycles per pass, an unusual structure worth double-checking if you're arriving by bike.

Is "Free" Actually a Deal? Practical Advice for Road-Trippers

Look closely at that free-entry list and a pattern jumps out: Gates of the Arctic, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Katmai, Wrangell-St. Elias, and Glacier Bay are all Alaska bush parks with no roads connecting them to the outside world. Reaching any of them typically means a bush plane or a boat, often costing several hundred dollars each way — so a waived $35 entrance fee isn't really a savings for a typical traveler; the cost of just getting there dwarfs it many times over. If your trip is a standard road-trip itinerary, the entrance-fee waiver at those six parks is close to meaningless in practice.

The free parks that actually save a typical road-tripper money are the drive-up ones: Cuyahoga Valley, Mammoth Cave, New River Gorge, Congaree, and Hot Springs are all reachable by car with no special access required, making their fee-free status a genuine perk rather than a technicality.

For travelers planning to hit several $30–$35 parks in one trip or one year, it's worth knowing the America the Beautiful Annual Pass exists — an $80 pass that covers entrance fees at all federal recreation sites, including every NPS unit that charges one. It pays for itself in roughly three visits to a $35 park. The full mechanics of that pass, along with how per-vehicle and per-person fees work more broadly, are covered in our national park passes and fees guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which national park costs the most to enter?

No single park stands alone at the top — nine parks share the highest tier at $35 per vehicle for a 7-day pass: Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Everglades, Acadia, Glacier (in summer), Yosemite, and Zion (Park Crowd Calendar data).

Are any national parks completely free to enter?

Yes — nineteen National Park Service units charge no entrance fee at all, on any day of the year, including Congaree, Mammoth Cave, New River Gorge, Cuyahoga Valley, and several remote Alaska parks like Gates of the Arctic and Katmai.

Is Great Smoky Mountains really free to visit?

There's no traditional entrance fee, but since 2023 the park has required a parking tag for any vehicle parked over 15 minutes: $5 per day, $15 per week, or $40 per year. It functions like a fee even though it isn't technically an entrance charge.

Does the Gateway Arch have an entrance fee?

No — Gateway Arch National Park itself is free to enter. The $19 fee often associated with it is a ticket for the separate tram ride to the top of the Arch, not an entrance fee to the park or its grounds.

What is the America the Beautiful Pass and is it worth it?

It's an $80 annual pass covering entrance fees at all federal recreation sites, including every fee-charging national park. For anyone visiting three or more $30–$35 parks in a year, it typically costs less than paying each entrance fee separately.

Do national park entrance fees change by season?

Some do. Glacier's fee drops from $35 to $25 between November 1 and April 30, and Crater Lake's $30 fee only applies during its summer season, roughly mid-May through October — outside that window it isn't charged the same way.