What Permits Actually Cost
Permit prices in Nepal have moved. The Nepal Tourism Board revised its permit structures, and several conservation areas raised entry fees in 2024, so the numbers below reflect 2026 rates rather than anything you might have read from a 2019 trip report.
Start with the two permits most trekkers need. The TIMS card runs around $10. A national park or conservation area permit runs around $30. In the Langtang region, that means the Langtang National Park permit at about $30 plus the TIMS card at around $10 — roughly $40 before you have paid for a bus, a jeep, or a night in a teahouse.
In the Everest region the equivalent is the Sagarmatha National Park entry permit, also approximately $30. For ACAP or Shivapuri National Park, permits sit in a range of $10 to $30 depending on which one you need. Individual trekker permits are typically around $20.
Those figures cover the paperwork. They do not cover the small extras. Entering a monastery, a gompa, or joining some other activity along the route generally costs $2 to $5 each time.
Daily Costs On The Trail
Food and lodging together run $15 to $25 per person per day in the teahouse villages. That is the base rate. It assumes you eat what is cooked where you sleep and you do not order much beyond dal bhat and tea.
Once you add a guide and permits to that food and lodging figure, a budget teahouse trek lands at roughly $40 to $70 per person per day all-in. The spread depends on the region and how remote you go.
On the trail itself, expect $25 to $40 per day. A 12-day Everest Base Camp trek run on this basis, excluding flights to Nepal, comes to around $700 to $1,000. That total includes permits, the Lukla flights, and a porter.
Trip totals scale with length and altitude. Short treks like Poon Hill come to $350 to $450. Everest Base Camp on a budget totals $1,200 to $1,700. Luxury trips and remote restricted-area treks cost considerably more, and restricted areas require separate permits on top of the standard ones.
Armenia, Briefly, For Contrast
Not every permit system works the way Nepal’s does. In Armenia, a rental car — a Subaru Forester, in the case of one quote — runs €737 for nine days at 24 hours each. That converts to about $796. Per person per day, with third-party liability insurance up to $1 million included, the figure is €41, or roughly $44. The Armenia entry permit itself is €90, about $97.
The lesson is not that one country is cheaper. It is that permits sit inside a bigger cost structure, and the structure varies wildly. In Nepal the permits are small and the daily costs are small. In Armenia the permit is nearly $100 and the vehicle is the main expense.
Timing And Paperwork
Permits take time to arrange. In Kathmandu, you usually need at least one to two days before you trek to sort them out. Build that into your arrival, not your first day of walking.
The trek itself can begin on whatever date suits you, since trips are generally customized to travel dates. That flexibility does not extend to the permit queue.
Choosing An Operator
If you hire a company rather than trekking independently, verify two registrations: TAAN, the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal, and NMA, the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Both matter for restricted areas in particular.
Confirm that guide and porter wages meet the 2026 TAAN minimums. This is a real line item, not a formality, and it is the difference between a trip that pays people properly and one that does not.
Ask for an itemized cost breakdown with permit fees shown separately from agency service fees. A single lump sum hides which part is government paperwork and which part is the company’s margin. When the permit line is visible, you can check it against the $10 TIMS card and the $30 park permit and see what you are actually being charged for.
None of this is complicated. It is just arithmetic that most quotes do not show you.
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