Hotels In Parks / Park fees
Kenya park fees: four instruments, one boundary
Every stay in or around a Kenyan protected area is priced by up to four separate instruments: a national park entry fee paid to KWS, a national reserve entry fee paid to a county, a conservancy fee paid towards landowner leases, and levies and extras such as vehicle and camping charges. Which ones you pay depends entirely on which side of the boundary you sleep. This page carries the current values with the date each was checked; every other page on this site points here instead of printing numbers.
The four instruments
National park entry
PAID TO KWSPER PERSON · PER 24 HOURS
SET BY NATIONAL REGULATIONS
CASHLESS VIA ECITIZEN
National reserve entry
PAID TO A COUNTYPER PERSON · PER DAY TICKET
SET BY COUNTY GOVERNMENT
MARA: CASHLESS VIA KAPS
Conservancy fee
PAID TOWARDS LANDOWNER LEASESPER PERSON · PER NIGHT
SET BY EACH CONSERVANCY
USUALLY INSIDE YOUR CAMP RATE
Levies & extras
VEHICLE ENTRY BY SEAT COUNTPUBLIC CAMPING PER NIGHT
RANGER HIRE WHERE REQUIRED
COUNTY BED LEVIES IN SOME AREAS
The reason quotes for the same park vary so much is that operators bundle these instruments differently. A conservancy camp rate usually contains the conservancy fee; a reserve lodge rate usually excludes the reserve entry you pay at the gate; a gate-zone camp charges you nothing to sleep and everything happens at the gate. When you compare two quotes, first establish which instruments each one contains.
KWS national park entry fees
CHECKED 18 AUG 2026National parks — Amboseli, Lake Nakuru, Nairobi, Tsavo East and West, Meru and others — are managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The current schedule comes from the Wildlife Conservation and Management (Access and Conservation) (Fees) Regulations 2025, the first major revision in nearly two decades, and prices visitors in four tiers: East African citizens, Kenyan residents, African citizens of other countries, and non-residents. Tickets run per 24 hours and payment is cashless through the eCitizen KWSPay platform.
| Park tier | EA citizen | Kenya resident | African citizen | Non-resident |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium: Amboseli, Lake Nakuru | KES 1,500 | KES 2,025 | USD 50 | USD 90 |
| Nairobi National Park | KES 1,000 | KES 1,350 | USD 40 | USD 80 |
| Tsavo East / Tsavo West | See eCitizen | See eCitizen | See eCitizen | USD 80 |
| Meru | See eCitizen | See eCitizen | See eCitizen | USD 70 |
Premium-park children pay roughly half the adult rate (KES 750 EA citizen, KES 1,050 resident, USD 25 African citizen, USD 45 non-resident). The 2025 regulations faced a court challenge after publication; the values above are those charged on eCitizen on the checking date. If a ruling changes the schedule, this table changes with it.
Masai Mara National Reserve entry fees
CHECKED 18 AUG 2026The Mara is not a KWS park. It is a national reserve run by the Narok County Government, which sets its own schedule and splits the year into a low season from January to June and a high season from July to December. The Mara Triangle west of the river charges the same reserve fee under Mara Conservancy management. Payment is cashless through the county’s KAPS platform; carry the identity document that matches your tier, because gates charge the non-resident rate to anyone who cannot prove a cheaper one.
| Visitor category | Jan – Jun | Jul – Dec |
|---|---|---|
| Non-resident adult | USD 100 | USD 200 |
| Non-resident child (9–17) | USD 50 | USD 50 |
| Kenyan citizen adult | KES 1,500 | KES 3,000 |
| Kenyan citizen child (9–17) | KES 300 | KES 500 |
| East African resident adult | KES 2,500 | KES 5,000 |
| East African resident child (9–17) | KES 1,000 | KES 2,000 |
| Narok County resident adult | KES 1,000 | KES 2,000 |
| Narok County resident child | KES 200 | KES 500 |
Children aged 8 and under enter free. Ticket validity: current guidance describes a 12-hour daylight window, with day visitors based outside the boundary required to exit by gate closing; some camps inside the reserve describe longer validity arrangements. Confirm the validity rule with your camp when you book — it decides whether a dawn drive and an evening drive fit on one ticket.
Sleeping in a gate zone — Sekenani, Talek or Oloolaimutia — costs nothing in reserve fees on days you do not enter. Sleeping inside means a ticket for every day of your stay. That arithmetic is the core of the where-to-stay decision in the Mara.
Conservancy fees
CHECKED 18 AUG 2026The conservancies that ring the Mara — Olare Motorogi, Mara North, Naboisho, Ol Kinyei, Siana, Olderkesi and their neighbours — are private land leased from Maasai landowners by their member camps. Each conservancy sets a conservation fee per person per night, currently in the region of USD 80 to 150 across the major Mara conservancies, and in nearly all cases it is already inside the nightly rate your camp quotes. You do not pay it at any gate.
If you stay on a conservancy and never cross into the National Reserve, you pay no reserve entry at all. The day you drive in for the river crossings, a normal reserve ticket applies for that day.
Where it flows: the conservancy fee is the instrument that pays the monthly landowner leases. It is the direct financial reason the land is unfenced, grazed lightly and open to wildlife rather than subdivided. When a conservancy camp is full, its landowners are paid; that is the whole model.
Levies and extras
Vehicle entry. Parks and the reserve charge each vehicle by seating capacity, separately from the people inside it. On an organised safari this sits in the operator’s quote; self-drivers pay it at the gate alongside their tickets.
Public campsite fees. Camping inside the Mara at public sites is charged per person per night on top of reserve entry — budget in the region of USD 30 to 40, plus mandatory ranger hire at some sites. KWS parks charge their own campsite tariffs through eCitizen.
Balloon and activity add-ons. Balloon safaris, guided walks and other activities carry their own operator pricing and, in some areas, a per-activity conservation charge collected with the booking.
Some counties levy a bed-night charge on properties themselves, which reaches you inside the room rate rather than at any gate. Status varies by county and is under periodic revision; treat any line-item “levy” on a quote as a question worth asking the operator.
A worked example: two adults, three nights, high season
Take two non-resident adults spending three nights in the Mara ecosystem in August. The accommodation cost is whatever their chosen camp charges — this site deliberately does not publish rates — but the fee layer underneath is predictable:
| Base | Reserve entry | Conservancy fee | Fee total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lodge inside the reserve | 2 × USD 200 × 3 = USD 1,200 | — | USD 1,200 |
| Gate-zone camp, 2 drive days | 2 × USD 200 × 2 = USD 800 | — | USD 800 |
| Conservancy camp, 1 reserve day | 2 × USD 200 × 1 = USD 400 | Inside camp rate (typ. USD 80–150 pp/night) | USD 400 + bundled |
None of these is the cheap option or the expensive option in isolation; the gate-zone camp saves fees and spends morning minutes, the reserve lodge does the reverse, and the conservancy shifts money from the county instrument to the landowner instrument. The right answer depends on what your mornings and evenings are for.
How the fees are actually paid
KWS parks: cashless, in advance, through KWSPay on the eCitizen portal. Generate payment before you travel; network coverage at remote gates is not something to bet a morning on.
Masai Mara: cashless through the KAPS platform, by card or M-Pesa, in advance or at the gate. Carry a digital and a printed confirmation, plus the original identity document for your fee tier — national ID for citizens, passport with permit for residents.
On an organised safari: reputable operators include the fee instruments in writing. The single most useful question before paying a deposit is: “which fees does this quote contain, and which will I pay at a gate?”
Fee questions
Why do I pay in USD in some places and KES in others?
Non-resident tariffs are published in US dollars and citizen and resident tariffs in Kenyan shillings, in both the KWS schedule and county schedules. Cashless platforms convert at prevailing rates, so the currency on the fee board is the currency of record, not necessarily the currency that leaves your card.
Is the Masai Mara fee the same as a KWS park fee?
No. The Mara is a national reserve funded to the Narok County Government under its own schedule and platform, while national parks such as Amboseli and Lake Nakuru are priced by KWS under national regulations. They change at different times for different reasons, which is why this page dates each table separately.
Do I pay a conservancy fee and a reserve fee?
Only on days you use both. The conservancy fee sits inside your conservancy camp rate for every night you sleep there; a reserve ticket is added only for a day you cross the boundary into the National Reserve. Stay on the conservancy the whole time and no reserve fee arises.
Are children free?
In the Masai Mara, children aged 8 and under enter free and children aged 9 to 17 pay a reduced rate. KWS parks price children at roughly half the adult rate in each tier. Carry proof of age for children near a boundary age.
Do the fees ever change mid-year?
Yes. The Mara moves between its published low and high season rates every 1 July, and both KWS and county schedules are revised by regulation from time to time — the current KWS schedule was the first major revision in almost two decades. This page shows the date each value was last checked, and is corrected when a schedule moves.
Where does the money go?
KWS park fees fund national conservation operations including ranger patrols and habitat management. Reserve fees fund county management of the reserve. Conservancy fees pay the landowner leases that keep private land unfenced and in wildlife. The instruments are different because the custodians are different — and all three are the working budget of the landscape you came to see.
Ask us what your trip will owe, before you book it
Tell us your dates, party and shortlist and we will lay out the fee instruments for each option side by side — the same table you saw above, filled in for your actual trip. No rates invented, no instruments hidden.