Khao Yai sits in band 2 of the national fee schedule — 200 baht for a foreign adult, 100 for a foreign child, 40 and 20 for Thai visitors. But a second instrument dated 19 September 2022 charges 400 and 200 in the stretch between the Noen Hom and Chao Pho Khao Yai Shrine checkpoints, which is the road most people take. Add 30 baht for a car. Two gates: Pak Chong (205 km from Bangkok) and Noen Hom (190 km). Hours are 06:00 to 18:00. Government bungalows run 800 to 9,000 baht a night and are published by name in the Royal Gazette.
What it costs, and why there are two prices
Thailand does not have one national park entry fee. Schedule 1 of the Department of National Parks regulation B.E. 2564 — published in the Royal Gazette on 9 December 2021, in force 180 days later on 7 June 2022 — sorts parks into four bands, and Khao Yai is in band 2. That is the 200-baht number you will see quoted everywhere.
The second number comes from clause 7 paragraph three of the same regulation, which lets the Director-General designate individual sites as carrying a special charge, with the National Parks Committee’s approval. That power was used in an announcement dated 19 September 2022, approved at the committee’s meeting 2/2565 on 9 September 2022, naming five parks. Khao Yai is the first of them, and the designated area is described not as a gate but as a zone: from the Noen Hom fee checkpoint to the Chao Pho Khao Yai Shrine fee checkpoint. Those two checkpoints sit at opposite ends of the main road across the park, so the zone is, in effect, the park.
| Who or what | Rate | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign adult, standard band 2 rate | 200 baht | Schedule 1, DNP regulation B.E. 2564 |
| Foreign child (3-14, or under 140 cm) | 100 baht | Schedule 1, DNP regulation B.E. 2564 |
| Foreign adult, special-rate zone | 400 baht | DNP announcement of 19 September 2022 |
| Foreign child, special-rate zone | 200 baht | DNP announcement of 19 September 2022 |
| Thai adult | 40 baht | Schedule 1, DNP regulation B.E. 2564 |
| Thai child | 20 baht | Schedule 1, DNP regulation B.E. 2564 |
| Motorcycle | 20 baht | Schedule 2, same regulation, one rate nationwide |
| Car (4 wheels) | 30 baht | Schedule 2, same regulation |
| Six-wheel vehicle | 100 baht | Schedule 2, same regulation |
| More than 6 and up to 10 wheels | 200 baht | Schedule 2, same regulation |
A few rules that are in the regulation and rarely stated anywhere else. A child is a person aged three to fourteen complete, or not more than 140 cm tall. A foreigner is a person without Thai nationality — there is no residency test and no resident rate. Thai students and Thai group study parties pay the child rate. Scheduled public buses and passenger boats pay no vehicle fee at all. And under clause 6, if you do not stay overnight, a part-day is not charged as an extra day.
The park’s own fee page adds one practical detail the regulation does not: one ticket covers entry and exit within a single day. The 19 September announcement, for its part, states that a person rate covers a stay of up to five days in that park.
Who gets in free
Clause 16(1) of the regulation exempts four categories from the person fee, the vehicle fee and the department’s activity charges:
- monks, novices and clergy of other religions residing in Thailand;
- Thai persons aged sixty years complete and over;
- disabled persons;
- children under three.
Read as written, the age exemption is qualified by nationality and the disability and under-three exemptions are not. Khao Yai’s own fee page reads it differently, putting foreign “elderly and disabled” visitors inside the 200-baht adult rate while giving Thai elderly and disabled visitors free entry. We are pointing at the gap rather than resolving it: at the gate, the park’s reading is the one that applies, so carry documentation and expect to pay.
Clause 16(2) also lets the department waive the fee for Thai visitors on national days — royal birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Children’s Day, Family Day. Those waivers are announced for Thai persons specifically and are not open to foreign visitors.
The two gates, and how to get there without a car
The park publishes two entrances. Pak Chong, in Nakhon Ratchasima, is entered through the Chao Por Khao Yai Shrine visitor centre and is 205 km from Bangkok; the park recommends the Bang Pa-in to Nakhon Ratchasima motorway over Highway 2. Noen Hom, in Prachinburi, is 190 km from Bangkok on Highways 1 and 33. Opening hours are 06:00 to 18:00, with visitor information staffed 08:30 to 16:30. The headquarters line is answered around the clock.
Without a car, the northeastern rail line runs Bangkok to Pak Chong in three to four hours with several departures a day, and the park says local buses cover Pak Chong to Khao Yai every 30 minutes between 06:00 and 17:00 for 15 baht. That gets you to the park boundary, not around it. Distances inside Khao Yai are measured in tens of kilometres, so almost everyone arriving by train ends up hiring a car or a motorbike in Pak Chong, or joining a tour.
If you are choosing a base rather than a day trip: Nakhon Ratchasima covers the Pak Chong side, Prachinburi the Noen Hom side, and Bangkok is close enough that most people never move.
Sleeping inside: the government's own rates
Thailand publishes its park accommodation prices in the Royal Gazette, house by house, which makes this one of the few things about a Thai national park you can check rather than guess. These are the Khao Yai entries from the annex to Schedule 4.
| Unit | Zone | Sleeps | Baht / night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Khao Yai 101-106 (Kong Kaeo 1-6) | Kong Kaeo, by the visitor centre | 8 | 2,400 |
| Khao Yai 107 (Chaiyaphruek) | Kong Kaeo | 28 | 9,000 |
| Khao Yai 108 (Dong Tiu) | Kong Kaeo | 4 | 1,200 |
| Khao Yai 109 (Phanasan) | Kong Kaeo | 20 | 7,500 |
| Khao Yai 201-203 (Oraphim 1-3) | Viewpoint zone | 8 | 2,400 |
| Khao Yai 204-206 (Thiwathat 1-3) | Viewpoint zone | 6 | 2,000 |
| Khao Yai 301/1-301/10 | Suraswadee camp | 2 | 800 |
| Khao Yai 911 (youth camp) | Kong Kaeo, shared bathrooms | 35 | 1,750 |
| Khao Yai 912 (youth camp) | Kong Kaeo, shared bathrooms | 50 | 2,500 |
Camping is cheaper than anyone expects. Pitching your own tent on a land site is 30 baht per person per night under Schedule 4. A park dome tent for three, without bedding, is 225. Bedding is charged separately and trivially: a pillow is 10 baht a night, a sleeping bag 30, a sleeping mat 20. A campervan pitch is 300 a night, or 600 if it is a towed caravan.
Clause 14(1)(a) gives a flat 30 per cent discount on accommodation from Monday to Thursday when the day is not a public holiday or a cabinet-declared special holiday. On a 2,400-baht house that is 720 baht for shifting a night off the weekend.
The World Heritage listing, stated accurately
Khao Yai is not itself a World Heritage site. It is one of five components of the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, inscribed in 2005 under criterion (x) — the biodiversity criterion — covering 615,500 hectares. The other four are Thap Lan, Pang Sida and Ta Phraya national parks and Dong Yai Wildlife Sanctuary, and the complex runs about 230 km from the Cambodian border in the east to Khao Yai in the west.
UNESCO records more than 800 species of fauna in the property: 112 mammals, 392 birds and 200 reptiles and amphibians, including two gibbon species. Those are figures for the whole complex, not for Khao Yai alone, and a page that attaches them to the single park is quietly overstating it. Khao Yai is also, by its own account, Thailand’s first national park.
What we could not confirm
- Whether the 400-baht zone is charged at the Pak Chong gate as well. The DNP announcement describes an area bounded by the Noen Hom and Chao Pho Khao Yai Shrine checkpoints. The park’s own English fee page instead names the Noen Hom and Pak Chong entrances. The shrine checkpoint sits on the Pak Chong approach, so the two probably describe the same thing, but they are not the same words and we are not going to smooth it over. Budget 400.
- Any seasonal closure. Nothing we could reach announces an annual rest closure at Khao Yai. Individual roads, trails and campsites close at short notice, and in April 2026 the department closed Erawan on a PM2.5 reading, so a same-week check is worth doing. We could not make that check today: nps.dnp.go.th and portal.dnp.go.th were unreachable from two networks on 7 September 2026.
- The park’s own area figure. The DNP news service lists Khao Yai under Nakhon Ratchasima alone, though the park spans four provinces. We could not read the department’s park page for the gazetted area, so we are not printing one.
- Wildlife-watching charges. Schedule 3 of the regulation prices a departmental spotlighting tour at 20 baht per person per outing nationwide, but whether Khao Yai runs that service itself, and on what schedule, is not something we could confirm.
- Whether khaoyainationalpark.com is an official departmental site. It presents itself as the park’s own, carries the park’s postal address, its visitor-centre and 24-hour headquarters numbers and a khaoyai.np@gmail.com address, and its fee figures match the Gazette exactly. It carries no departmental attribution. We have used it for hours, gates and transport, and the Gazette for every fee.
Frequently asked questions
Two numbers, and which one you pay depends on which gate you drive through. Schedule 1 of the Department of National Parks regulation B.E. 2564, published in the Royal Gazette on 9 December 2021 and in force from 7 June 2022, puts Khao Yai in band 2: 200 baht for a foreign adult and 100 for a foreign child, against 40 and 20 for Thai visitors. A separate DNP announcement dated 19 September 2022, made under clause 7 paragraph three of that regulation, names five parks as carrying a special service charge, and for Khao Yai it applies to the area running from the Noen Hom fee checkpoint to the Chao Pho Khao Yai Shrine fee checkpoint - 400 baht for a foreign adult and 200 for a foreign child. Those two checkpoints bracket the main road through the park, so in practice most visitors pay 400. Vehicles are charged on top and at the same rate everywhere: 20 baht for a motorcycle, 30 for a car, 100 for a six-wheeler, 200 for anything larger up to ten wheels.
The regulation's own exemption clause, clause 16(1), exempts monks, novices and clergy of other religions residing in Thailand; Thai persons aged sixty and over; disabled persons; and children under three. Read literally, the age exemption is limited to Thai nationals while the disability and under-three exemptions are not, though the park's own fee page folds foreign elderly and disabled visitors into the 200-baht adult rate, so expect the park's reading at the gate. There is no resident rate. The regulation distinguishes Thai from foreign by nationality alone - 'foreigner' is defined as a person without Thai nationality - so a work permit, a pink ID card or a Thai driving licence is not an entitlement to the Thai price. Some gates are reported to accept them anyway. Budget for the foreigner rate and treat anything else as a courtesy. Thai students and Thai group study parties pay the child rate under clause 7 paragraph two.
Two gates. Pak Chong, on the Nakhon Ratchasima side, is reached through the Chao Por Khao Yai Shrine visitor centre and the park puts it at 205 km from Bangkok, usually driven on Highway 2 (Mittraphap) or the Bang Pa-in to Nakhon Ratchasima motorway, which the park recommends. Noen Hom, on the Prachinburi side, is 190 km from Bangkok on Highway 1 and Highway 33. The park states its opening hours as 06:00 to 18:00, with visitor information available 08:30 to 16:30. Without a car, take a Bangkok to Pak Chong train on the northeastern line, three to four hours, then the local Pak Chong to Khao Yai bus, which the park says runs every 30 minutes from 06:00 to 17:00 for 15 baht. That last leg is the reason most people end up renting a car or a motorbike in Pak Chong: the park's attractions are spread over tens of kilometres of internal road.
Yes, and the rates are public. The annex to Schedule 4 of the same DNP regulation lists every government bungalow by name and price. At Khao Yai the Kong Kaeo cluster near the visitor centre runs from Khao Yai 108 (Dong Tiu), four people at 1,200 baht a night, through the six Kong Kaeo houses at eight people and 2,400, up to Khao Yai 107 (Chaiyaphruek) at 28 people and 9,000. The Suraswadee camp offers two-person rooms at 800. Two youth camps take 35 and 50 people at 1,750 and 2,500. Pitching your own tent is 30 baht per person per night; a park dome tent for three without bedding is 225. Clause 14 gives a 30 per cent discount on accommodation from Monday to Thursday when that is not a public holiday. Book through the department's own reservation system rather than at the gate - park accommodation sells out for weekends and the cool season well ahead.
Khao Yai is one component of the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, inscribed by UNESCO in 2005 under criterion (x), which is the biodiversity criterion. The property covers 615,500 hectares and five almost contiguous protected areas: Khao Yai, Thap Lan, Pang Sida and Ta Phraya national parks plus Dong Yai Wildlife Sanctuary, spanning about 230 km from Ta Phraya on the Cambodian border to Khao Yai in the west. UNESCO records more than 800 species of fauna in the property, including 112 mammals, 392 birds and 200 reptiles and amphibians, and singles out two gibbon species. So the listing is bigger than Khao Yai, and the wildlife numbers belong to the whole complex rather than to the one park.
For most people it is a weekend, and that is the honest answer. Pak Chong and Mu Si have grown a serious second-home market on the back of a two-hour drive from Bangkok, and the practical question is whether you would use it on a Tuesday. The park is a day trip from Bangkok on the motorway, an easy overnight from Nakhon Ratchasima and a short run from Prachinburi on the Noen Hom side, so the property decision usually comes down to which of those three bases suits your work and schooling rather than to the park itself. What a nearby base does change is behaviour: the wildlife is best at dawn and dusk, which is exactly when a day-tripper from Bangkok is on the road rather than in the park.
Related guides
- National parks in Thailand — the fee bands, the booking system and the rules that carry a fine.
- Erawan National Park — the band 3 park two hours the other way from Bangkok.
- Doi Inthanon National Park — the highest point in Thailand, and its five-month trail closure.
- Khao Sok National Park — the rainforest park with two different foreigner rates.
- Nakhon Ratchasima — Pak Chong, Mu Si and living on the Khorat side.
- Prachinburi — the Noen Hom side of the park.
- Trekking in Thailand — the protected areas and the guide rule.
- Explore Thailand — the section this guide sits in.
Two hours from the gate is a different life
Pak Chong and Mu Si on the Khorat side, Prachinburi on the other. If you want dawn in the park rather than a motorway at dawn, the base matters more than the ticket.
Sources & References
- Royal Gazette, vol. 138 special part 301 Ngor, 9 December 2021 - Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Regulation B.E. 2564 on charging, exempting and setting service fees. Schedule 1 places Khao Yai in band 2: Thai adult 40 / child 20, foreign adult 200 / child 100. Clause 2 brings the regulation into force 180 days after Gazette publication, which is 7 June 2022. Clause 3 defines a child as aged three to fourteen complete or not more than 140 cm tall
- Department of National Parks news service - the band lists in full, with 67 parks in band 1, 55 in band 2 (Khao Yai among them, listed under Nakhon Ratchasima), 9 in band 3 and 2 in band 4, and the vehicle rates, published 2 June 2022
- Tourism Authority of Thailand, reproducing the DNP announcement dated 19 September 2022 on tourist sites carrying a special service charge. It names five parks, and for Khao Yai the special-rate area runs from the Noen Hom fee checkpoint to the Chao Pho Khao Yai Shrine fee checkpoint at 400 baht for a foreign adult and 200 for a foreign child. The announcement is made under clause 7 paragraph three of the 2564 regulation with the approval of the National Parks Committee at its meeting 2/2565 of 9 September 2022, and records the exemptions and the five-day validity
- Khao Yai National Park - the park's own fee page: foreign adult 200 and child 100 from 7 June 2022; Thai adult 40 and child 20; the 400 / 200 rate at Noen Hom and Pak Chong from 19 September 2022; motorcycle 20, four-wheel 30, six-wheel 100, seven-to-ten-wheel 200; one ticket covers entry and exit on a single day
- Khao Yai National Park - the park's own getting-here page: two gates, Pak Chong (Chao Por Khao Yai Shrine visitor centre, Nakhon Ratchasima, 205 km from Bangkok) and Noen Hom (Prachinburi, 190 km); opening hours 06:00-18:00; Pak Chong to Khao Yai local buses every 30 minutes 06:00-17:00 at 15 baht
- Khao Yai National Park - the park's own contact details: PO 9 Pak Chong, Musi, Pak Chong, Nakhon Ratchasima 30130; visitor centre 086-092-6529, 08:30-16:30; headquarters 086-092-6527, 24 hours; khaoyai.np@gmail.com
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre - Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, inscribed 2005 under criterion (x), 615,500 hectares across five protected areas including Khao Yai, with more than 800 species of fauna recorded: 112 mammals, 392 birds and 200 reptiles and amphibians
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
