Businesses that rely on the Grand Canyon and 10 of the other most popular national parks say a new $100 fee imposed this year on foreign visitors has driven down tourism.
“We’re not seeing the international travelers anymore in the amount that we used to see,” said Chris Kelly, who co-owns Grand Canyon Journeys with his wife.
They typically book about 10 tours per year for German-speaking visitors, he said. But through October, they had only one such group, with none scheduled for the rest of 2026. Kelly sees a correlation between the sharp decline and the spike in nonresident fees.
“Germans are not happy coming here,” he said. “If they want to go to the Grand Canyon (and) it’s two people, they have to pay $200.”
That’s on top of the standard Grand Canyon entrance fee, which ranges from $20 for a pedestrian to $35 for everyone in a private vehicle, up to a 15-passenger van. The passes are good for seven days.
The surcharge for foreign visitors applies to 11 of the nation’s 63 national parks. Besides the Grand Canyon, those are Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion.
An Arizona tour company that has sued to block the surcharge called it “unprecedented and unlawful” in a Sept. 28 court filing.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in July 2025 directing the Department of the Interior to increase national park entrance fees and annual passes for non-U.S. residents. The National Park Service announced the exact amount in November 2025, and it took effect in January.
The White House cast the fee as a way to raise revenue and as a matter of fairness, because U.S. taxpayers already support the parks.
“Foreign tourists are paying higher entrance fees to help maintain our parks and improve visitor experiences,” the park service said in response to questions about the impact of the fees after 10 months.
As an alternative to the $100 surcharge for a single park, foreign visitors can buy an annual pass for $250. The cost for U.S. residents is $80. Annual passes cover the purchaser and everyone else in a private vehicle, up to a 15-passenger van.
The nonresident fee “is like a sign that says, ‘You are not welcome here,’” said Leon Zhang, a guide who leads private Chinese-language tours in Arizona, California and Nevada through his business, Travel with Leon.
Across Arizona Tours, which provides van tours of the Grand Canyon and other Arizona landmarks, filed a lawsuit in an Arizona federal court against the Interior Department and other agencies, arguing they lacked the authority to impose the surcharge and complaining that it pushed away clients.
“It’s Congress’s job to authorize such a fee, and they didn’t here,” said Jacob Haas, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation who represents Across Arizona Tours.
“We think there’s good reason that Congress wouldn’t have authorized a fee like this because of the impact on local businesses, because of the desire to bring people to the U.S. and encourage tourism,” he said.
The park service says it doesn’t track foreign visitors. It generally releases annual visitor counts in March, so precise figures aren’t available. But revenue from the surcharge is far below projections.
In June 2025, the Interior Department said it expected the surcharge would bring in more than $90 million annually. At the end of August, the department told Daily Signal the fee generated only about $22.5 million in the first half of 2026.
“We’re already seeing that it’s deterring people from coming to the parks,” Haas said. “That’s not surprising to see that other businesses are noticing it, too.”
Zhang said the surcharge hasn’t prompted any of his customers to cancel trips, but they do end up spending less on food, lodging and other expenses. And it impacts perceptions of whether they got their money’s worth.
“Penalizing foreign guests is counterproductive,” he said. “It weakens international tourism and harms our own economy.”
When Trump announced the surcharge on nonresidents, the White House defended it as a common practice globally. Foreign tourists pay $200 to enter Galápagos National Park compared to $30 for residents of Ecuador, for instance. At the Taj Mahal, the entrance fee for foreigners is 1,100 rupees and 50 rupees for residents of India – the difference between $11.62 and 53 cents.
Foreign visitors pay more than four times as much as South Africans per day at Kruger National Park, a renowned safari destination.
International tourism was already declining when the Trump administration imposed the new fee. Data from Tourism Economics, a travel industry forecasting company, showed overseas arrivals – not including visitors from Canada and Mexico – were down 5.8% from January to August compared to the same period in 2025.
In a Sept. 18 report highlighting the data, Tourism Economics projected the decline will continue in response to U.S. policies.
Lisa Simon, CEO of the International Inbound Travel Association, a trade group that represents travel agents who serve foreign visitors to the U.S., noted that national parks are a major draw.
But she said the surcharge is far too high compared to the basic entrance fee.
“There’s just so many unique, iconic things and parks that they’re familiar with,” she said. “It’s hurting overall visitation to the country. … It should not be that much.”
The implementation was too abrupt, she added, because by mid-2025 when it was announced, many travelers had already booked trips for 2026. That meant that in many cases, tour operators rather than their clients had to absorb the price hike.
“There was so much confusion at the beginning of the season because parks didn’t know what was going on,” Simon said. “The tour operators didn’t know how to handle it.”
Marco Jahn, the CEO of New World Travel in El Segundo, California, which helps overseas travel agents book trips to the U.S., said the political climate and Trump administration policies toward foreign visitors have pushed vacationers to other countries.
“Those destinations are seeing growth, while we don’t see growth,” Jahn said. “That has a big impact on us.”
