Nepal trekking permits — TIMS, park fees and restricted areas

Understand these as separate systems, not steps in one process.

This trips up everybody. Sagarmatha National Park entry is commonly quoted both as Rs 3,000 and as Rs 3,400 — because the base fee is Rs 3,000 and 13% VAT brings it to Rs 3,390, which sources round. The same arithmetic explains the Rs 3,000 versus Rs 3,390 confusion around the Annapurna Conservation Area permit.

Separately, some fees have genuinely risen. The Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality fee has been reported at both Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000, and at a higher rate beyond the first four weeks. Where sources disagree, we say so rather than pretending to a precision that does not exist.

Budget the higher figure and be pleasantly surprised. The difference is a few hundred rupees on a trip costing hundreds of dollars.

The common combinations for the routes covered in this series:

TIMS and the main conservation-area permits are issued at the Nepal Tourism Board office in Kathmandu (Bhrikutimandap) and at the Nepal Tourism Board / ACAP office in Pokhara. Both are straightforward walk-in offices.

Some park entry permits can also be bought at the park entry checkpost itself — Monjo for Sagarmatha, Dhampus Phedi or Birethanti area checkposts for ACAP — but buying in the city avoids a queue at a checkpost on your first walking day.

Restricted-area permits cannot be bought by an individual at all. They are issued to a registered trekking agency, which submits your passport and photos to the Department of Immigration on your behalf. Allow a few working days.

Permits are checked, and not casually. Every protected area has staffed checkposts on the trail — Monjo, Jagat, Dharapani, Birethanti, Ghasa, Dhunche — where your permit is inspected and your details recorded. This is also, genuinely, the safety net: if you go missing, that log is how a search starts.

Trekking without a required permit means being turned back at the checkpost, and fines are applied — commonly at a multiple of the permit fee. In restricted areas the consequences are more serious and can involve immigration penalties, because those permits are issued under immigration rules rather than tourism ones.

There is no meaningful money to be saved here. The permits cost a fraction of the flights, and they fund the parks you came to see.

Nepali citizens pay a much lower national-park entry fee, are not required to hold a TIMS card in the way foreign trekkers are, and are exempt from the licensed-guide requirement. Carry citizenship — checkposts ask for it.

SAARC nationals — India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan — pay a reduced rate on most permits, commonly around a third of the foreign-national fee. Carry your passport, and note that a reduced rate is not an exemption: you still need the permit, and Indian nationals still need the guide.