Report: National Parks' New Admissions Tiers Lead to Delays

"At the end of 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior made an announcement about admissions charges for the nation's national parks. The biggest one involved dramatically raising the price for non-U.S. residents buying an annual park pass. And while there's some precedent for charging people more or less to enter a specific destination based on where they're coming from, the disparity between what non-residents and residents would pay was shockingly large."

"The new policy went into effect this year, and you might wonder how it's going. The answer, according to The Washington Post's Jake Spring, is about as well as you might expect - which is to say that the headline alludes to "chaos" at some national parks.What does "chaos" mean in this case? For starters, it means that entering the parks with a higher admission cost for non-residents - there are 11 of those - is taking longer, given that visitors are now asked whether or not they are residents of the U.S."

"One Parks Service employee who spoke with the Post expressed frustration with this policy, saying, "We don't want to make visitors feel unwelcome." The Post also notes another reason for longer wait times to enter national parks: thousands of jobs have been cut in that department since the second Trump administration began last year. It isn't rocket science to realize that asking fewer employees to do more work could backfire. Whether or not that leads to the Department of the Interior to revise this policy, though, remains to be seen."

The U.S. Department of the Interior raised admissions charges and sharply increased the annual park-pass price for non-U.S. residents. The policy affects 11 parks where staff now ask visitors about residency, which has lengthened entry times. Park Service employees report frustration and worry about making visitors feel unwelcome when residency is checked. Thousands of National Park Service positions were cut since the second Trump administration began, reducing staff available to handle increased processing. Reduced staffing combined with the new residency checks has produced longer waits and operational strain. It remains unclear whether the Department will revise the policy.

Read at InsideHook