Entry is priced in four bands — a foreign adult pays 100, 200, 300 or 500 baht depending on the park — and a second instrument dated 19 September 2022 charges more than the band at specific gates and sites, which is why Khao Yai’s two main gates are 400 rather than the 200 its band says. The split is drawn by nationality, not residence, and we could not find any departmental rule granting a resident rate. Book overnight stays through the department’s own system and pay within two working days or the booking lapses.
The fee schedule: four bands, effective 7 June 2022
The Department of National Parks reset entry fees with a schedule that took effect on 7 June 2022. It does not set one price; it sorts parks into four bands and prints a Thai rate and a foreign rate for each. As published, the bands cover 133 parks — 67 in band 1, 55 in band 2, 9 in band 3 and 2 in band 4.
| Band | Parks | Thai child / adult | Foreign child / adult | Named examples, with province |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 67 | 10 / 20 | 50 / 100 | Khao Kho (Phetchabun); Doi Suthep–Pui (Chiang Mai); Khao Lak–Lam Ru (Phang Nga) |
| 2 | 55 | 20 / 40 | 100 / 200 | Khao Yai (Nakhon Ratchasima and three neighbours); Kui Buri (Prachuap Khiri Khan); Khao Sok (Surat Thani) |
| 3 | 9 | 30 / 60 | 150 / 300 | Doi Inthanon (Chiang Mai); Kaeng Krachan (Phetchaburi); Ao Phang Nga (Phang Nga) |
| 4 | 2 | 50 / 100 | 250 / 500 | Only two parks in the country: Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Surin, both Phang Nga |
Band 4 is worth stating plainly: the two most expensive national parks in Thailand are both Andaman marine parks in the same province, and both are closed for roughly five months a year. Khao Yai’s own fee page confirms the Thai side of band 2 — children 20, adults 40, and elderly and disabled Thai visitors free — and defines a child as under 14, an adult as 14 to 60 and elderly as over 60, with a disabled visitor needing a Disabled Person’s card alongside a national ID.
The band is a floor, not the price — what the 19 September 2022 instrument did
Guides that say “national parks are 200 baht for foreigners” are quoting band 2 and stopping there. A second instrument raises the figure at named gates and named sites. Khao Yai’s own page states the band 2 rate of 200/100 effective 7 June 2022 and then states that the Noen Hom and Pak Chong entrances charge 400 for adults and 200 for children from 19 September 2022. Those are the two main gates.
Four other parks went up in the same round, reported at the end of September 2022:
- Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi (Krabi) and Mu Ko Lanta (Krabi) — 400 for a foreign adult.
- Khao Laem Ya–Mu Ko Samet (Rayong) and Mu Ko Ang Thong (Surat Thani) — 300 for a foreign adult.
The same 19 September 2022 announcement also prices individual sites above their park’s band, which is why a pinnacle dive costs more than a reef one: Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, with Koh Rok, Koh Ha and Koh Ngai, are 400 rather than the 200 the rest of Mu Ko Lanta charges, and Koh Wua Talap and Koh Mae Koh sit at 300. That detail and its sourcing are set out in our scuba diving and snorkelling guide, which also covers the April 2025 diving rules that now bind the diver as well as the boat.
Vehicles are charged separately and are not in the band. Khao Yai publishes 20 baht for a motorcycle, 30 for a four-wheel vehicle, 100 for a six-wheeler and 200 for a seven-to-ten-wheeler, and bars anything over six wheels, double-deckers above 3.50 metres and towed RVs. It also states that one ticket covers entry and exit on a single day only — leave and come back tomorrow and you buy again. Payment is by the department’s QueQ e-ticket app or in cash at the gate.
Dual pricing: what the rule says, and what we could not find
Thailand’s park fee is a two-tier schedule and the department publishes it as one. The distinction it draws is nationality. Three separate departmental artefacts point the same way:
- The fee schedule itself prints a Thai column and a foreign column, not a resident column.
- The department’s booking system asks you to register as one of four types, with individual travellers split into Thai tourist and foreign tourist.
- The department’s free-entry days are announced for Thai persons. Its news listing carries an exemption of the entry fee for Thai persons nationwide on 3 June 2026, and an exemption for Thai persons and their vehicles on 14 April 2026.
This page previously told residents that a Thai driving licence “gets the local price at most parks”. We could not find any Department of National Parks instrument that creates a resident rate at all. Gates are reported to accept a work permit, a Thai driving licence or a pink ID card and charge the Thai rate; other gates, including Khao Yai, are reported to refuse the same documents. Treat it as discretion at the booth, not an entitlement: budget for the foreigner rate and carry the documents anyway. Our guide to dual pricing in Thailand covers where else this appears.
The economics behind the schedule are not hidden. The head of Mu Ko Similan National Park, Siriwat Suebsai, told the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning that the park earned more than 215 million baht in the 2026 season, up from 197 million in 2025, from over 400,000 visitors of whom more than 90% were foreign. A band 4 park with a five-month operating year is being funded by foreign visitors almost entirely, and the department says so itself.
Closures come in two kinds, and only one of them is on a calendar
Annual closures are written into the park’s own year and you can plan around them.
| Park | Province | Closed | What actually closes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phu Kradueng | Loei | 1 June – 30 September, every year (open 1 Oct – 31 May) | The summit and all overnight stays — the park announcement closes the mountaintop attractions and camping, not necessarily the whole park at the foot |
| Mu Ko Similan | Phang Nga | About five months over the southwest monsoon — dates disputed, see below | Tourism and overnight stays; the liveaboard exception is a separate written rule |
| Mu Ko Surin | Phang Nga | Same window as Similan | Tourism and overnight stays |
- The Government Public Relations Department (Region 1) published the 2026 closure as 15 May – 15 October, five months, citing Surasak Anuson of Conservation Area Management Office 5, Nakhon Si Thammarat.
- ONEP published the Mu Ko Similan park chief describing the annual closure as 16 May – 14 October.
- Park-side posts for the 2026 season circulated 16 May – 15 October.
We are not printing one of these as the answer, because the disagreement is between Thai government sources rather than between a government source and a blog. If you are booking against either edge of the window, confirm with the park.
Unscheduled closures are the ones that ruin a drive, and they are more common than most guides admit. Real examples from the 2026 season:
- Erawan (Kanchanaburi) closed tourism and overnight stays on 21 April 2026 from 13:00 after wildfire and haze pushed the 24-hour PM2.5 average to 42.9 micrograms per cubic metre, above the standard. It reopened on 22 April once the readings fell back. That is a one-day closure you would only have known about from the park’s own channel — see our air quality guide for the burning season this sits inside.
- Phu Laen Kha (Chaiyaphum) reopened on 1 May 2026 after a rest-and-recovery closure.
- Inside an open marine park, individual dive and snorkel sites can be closed on their own — Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi closed a set of sites for bleaching in May 2024 and reopened ten of them, but not all, in April 2025.
The practical rule: an annual closure is worth planning a trip around, an unscheduled one is worth a phone call the morning you leave. Both are more likely in the shoulder months covered in our weather and seasons guide and the flooding and monsoon guide.
Booking a bungalow, a camp house or a tent
Park accommodation is booked through the department’s own system at nps.dnp.go.th, which runs around the clock and covers bungalows, camp houses and tent pitches. The parts people get caught by:
- You register before you can book, and registration is split into four types, with individual travellers separated into Thai and foreign tourists.
- Payment is due within two working days of the booking date, or by the date the system specifies. Miss it and the booking lapses — this is the single most common way a park reservation quietly disappears.
- Payment goes through departmental offices or the bank channels named on the printed payment notice, not through a card form on the booking page.
- Facilities are deliberately basic: shared bathrooms, limited power, kitchens that close early. Bring a torch and cash.
Weekends, Thai public holidays and the whole cool season go first. If your dates are fixed, book the moment the window opens; if they are flexible, a Tuesday in a park is a different country from a Saturday in the same park. Our Thai holidays guide shows which weekends to avoid.
The two rules that carry a real penalty
A departmental announcement bans foam containers and five single-use plastic items from national parks. The Ministry of Justice’s Office of Justice Affairs lists them as: carrier bags thinner than 36 microns, thin single-use plastic cups, plastic food boxes, plastic straws and plastic cutlery, and states the penalty as a fine of up to 100,000 baht. Bring a hard bottle and a reusable box; several parks check bags at the gate.
Flying inside a park is not a grey area: you apply to the park in advance. The Krabi Tourist Police publish the requirement for Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi as a letter to the park chief with the park’s application form, a signed copy of your ID, your drone operator registration, the flight details and liability cover, submitted at least five days ahead. Assume a similar list elsewhere and ask the park you are visiting. Registration of the aircraft itself is separate — see our drone laws and registration guide.
The rest is the ordinary etiquette of a protected area and rangers do enforce it: stay on marked trails, take rubbish out with you, do not feed or handle wildlife, keep open fire to designated spots, and treat a flash-flood sign at a waterfall as an instruction rather than a suggestion.
Choosing a park from where you actually live
Band, season and drive time matter more than a “best parks” list. From the three bases most people pick:
- Bangkok — Khao Yai is the default weekend, with the caveat that the two main gates charge 400 rather than 200; Erawan in Kanchanaburi is the waterfall day, with the burning-season caveat above. Both are covered in our weekend trips from Bangkok guide.
- Chiang Mai — Doi Inthanon is band 3 at 300 for a foreign adult and sits an hour and a half out; Doi Suthep–Pui is band 1 at 100 and is effectively in the city. See best areas to live in Chiang Mai.
- The Andaman coast and the islands — Khao Sok in Surat Thani is band 2, Ao Phang Nga is band 3, and the Similans and Surins are band 4 and shut for five months. Mu Ko Ang Thong is the day trip from Samui at 300; see best areas to live in Koh Samui and island living in Thailand.
None of this changes what housing costs. It changes how often you go, which is the part people underestimate when they pick a base — compare the options in our city comparison, or browse residences and building profiles near the coast and the mountains.
What we could not confirm
- Updated 7 September 2026 — the underlying instrument has since been read. The fee bands on this page no longer rest on secondary reporting: the regulation itself, published in the Royal Gazette on 9 December 2021 and in force 180 days later on 7 June 2022, is now cited in the sources below, and its Schedule 1 confirms the four bands and their rates park by park. The department’s public sites remain unreliable to automated retrieval — on 7 September 2026 nps.dnp.go.th and portal.dnp.go.th were unreachable entirely, the first timing out at the TCP level, while news.dnp.go.th still presents a self-signed certificate.
- How many national parks Thailand has. The fee schedule covers 133; figures of 155 and 156 are widely repeated; no DNP page stating a current total was reachable. No count is printed on this page as fact.
- The Similan and Surin closure dates, for the reason set out in section 04 — three government sources, three answers.
- Whether any instrument grants a resident rate. None was found. The absence of a rule is not proof that no gate honours a work permit, and we do not claim it is.
- The exact wording of the 2026 free-entry announcements. The department’s news listing carries the 3 June and 14 April 2026 exemptions for Thai persons, but the article pages themselves could not be opened, so the wording above is taken from the listing rather than read in full.
- A current consolidated fee table for every park. There is no single reachable schedule; a park’s band and any site-level surcharge have to be checked park by park.
- Drone requirements outside Krabi. Only one park’s document list was locatable on a government site; the requirement to get written permission is general, the exact list is not confirmed to be uniform.
- No tour operator, lodge or transport company is named on this page, and that is deliberate rather than a gap.
Frequently asked
There is no single national rate. A Department of National Parks schedule that took effect on 7 June 2022 sorts parks into four bands. Band 1 is 100 baht for a foreign adult and 50 for a foreign child, against 20 and 10 for Thai visitors. Band 2 is 200/100 against 40/20. Band 3 is 300/150 against 60/30. Band 4 is 500/250 against 100/50, and only two parks sit in it — Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Surin, both in Phang Nga. The bands as published cover 133 parks: 67 in band 1, 55 in band 2, 9 in band 3 and 2 in band 4. Vehicles are charged separately, and a second instrument dated 19 September 2022 charges more than the band at certain named gates and sites, so the band is a floor rather than the final number.
Because two instruments apply to it. Khao Yai's own published fee page shows the band 2 rate — foreign adult 200, foreign child 100 — effective 7 June 2022, and then states that different rates apply at the Noen Hom and Pak Chong entrances from 19 September 2022, at 400 for adults and 200 for children. Those are the two main gates, so most visitors pay the higher figure. Khao Laem Ya–Mu Ko Samet in Rayong and Mu Ko Ang Thong in Surat Thani went to 300 for a foreign adult in the same round, and Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi and Mu Ko Lanta, both in Krabi, went to 400. Check the specific gate you are driving to, not the park's band.
We could not find any Department of National Parks instrument that creates a resident rate. The published schedule distinguishes Thai visitors from foreign visitors by nationality, the department's own booking system asks you to register as a Thai tourist or a foreign tourist, and the department's free-entry days are announced for Thai persons specifically. Some gates are reported to accept a work permit, a Thai driving licence or a pink ID card and charge the Thai rate; others are reported to refuse the same documents. Treat it as gate discretion rather than an entitlement, budget for the foreigner rate, and carry your documents in case the gate you reach does honour them.
Two different things get called a closure. The first is an annual seasonal closure written into the park's own calendar: Phu Kradueng in Loei closes its summit and all overnight stays from 1 June to 30 September every year and is open 1 October to 31 May, per the department's own park page, and Mu Ko Similan and Mu Ko Surin close for roughly five months over the Andaman monsoon. The second is unscheduled and can happen any week: Erawan in Kanchanaburi shut on 21 April 2026 at 13:00 because wildfire smoke pushed the 24-hour PM2.5 average to 42.9 micrograms per cubic metre, and reopened the following day. Individual dive and snorkel sites inside an open marine park can also be closed on their own. Check the specific park before you drive.
Three Thai government sources give three answers for the 2026 season and we are not going to pick one for you. The Government Public Relations Department's regional office published the closure as 15 May to 15 October 2026, five months, quoting Surasak Anuson of Conservation Area Management Office 5. The Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning published the Mu Ko Similan park chief, Siriwat Suebsai, describing the annual closure as 16 May to 14 October. Park-side social posts circulated 16 May to 15 October. Because the discrepancy sits between government sources, confirm with the park or your operator before booking travel around either edge of the window.
Through the department's own reservation system at nps.dnp.go.th, which runs 24 hours and handles bungalows, camp houses and tent pitches. You register first, and the system splits registrations into four types, with individual travellers separated into Thai and foreign tourists. Once a booking is made you must pay within two working days of the booking date, or by whatever date the system specifies, or the reservation lapses. Payment goes through the department's own offices or the bank channels the payment notice names. Weekends, Thai public holidays and the cool season book out well ahead.
The rule with real money attached is the plastics one. A Department of National Parks announcement effective 6 April 2022 bans foam containers and five single-use plastic items from national parks — carrier bags under 36 microns thick, thin single-use plastic cups, plastic food boxes, plastic straws and plastic cutlery — and the Ministry of Justice's Office of Justice Affairs states the penalty as a fine of up to 100,000 baht. Bring a hard bottle and a reusable container. Drones are the other one: flying inside a park needs written permission from the park in advance, applied for with an application form, a copy of your ID, and your drone operator registration.
No. Park entry is priced by nationality at the gate; Thai rental and sale listings are not. A listed rent is the listed rent, utilities are billed on metered rates, and where a foreigner pays more on housing it is down to an extra middleman or a weaker negotiation rather than an official two-tier schedule — which a transparent listing and a written lease fix. What your base does change is how often you actually go: a Bangkok base puts Khao Yai and Erawan inside a weekend, Chiang Mai sits under Doi Inthanon, and the Andaman coast opens Khao Sok, Ao Phang Nga and the Similans.
Sources & References
- Khao Yai National Park — official park entry fees, person and vehicle rates, ticket validity and the 19 September 2022 Noen Hom / Pak Chong rates
- Department of National Parks — national park service fees by band, effective 7 June 2022 (news.dnp.go.th; returns a certificate error to automated retrieval)
- Royal Gazette, vol. 138 special part 301 Ngor, 9 December 2021 — the DNP Regulation B.E. 2564 itself. Schedule 1 sets the four fee bands park by park, Schedule 2 the vehicle and boat rates, Schedule 3 the activity rates and Schedule 4 the camping and accommodation rates; clause 2 brings it into force 180 days after publication, clause 3 defines child and foreigner, clause 7 authorises special-rate sites, clause 14 gives the Monday-to-Thursday accommodation discount and clause 16 lists the exemptions
- The Nation — full list of the four DNP fee categories, the per-band rates and the park counts, 7 June 2022
- Department of National Parks — Phu Kradueng park page, annual closure 1 June to 30 September and open season 1 October to 31 May
- Department of National Parks — booking system membership conditions, registration types and the two-working-day payment rule
- Department of National Parks — bungalow, camp house and tent reservation system
- Government Public Relations Department (PRD Region 1) — Mu Ko Surin and Mu Ko Similan closure, 15 May to 15 October 2026
- Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP) — Mu Ko Similan park chief on the 16 May to 14 October closure, 2026 season revenue and visitor mix
- Anti-Fake News Centre, Ministry of Digital Economy and Society — verification of the Similan and Surin five-month closure
- Office of Justice Affairs, Ministry of Justice — the five plastic containers banned from national parks and the 100,000 baht penalty
- Thai PBS — single-use plastic and foam ban in national parks in force from 6 April 2022
- Krabi Tourist Police — the documents and lead time required to fly a drone inside Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park
- Government news service (gcc.go.th) — Erawan National Park temporary closure of 21 April 2026 on a 42.9 microgram PM2.5 reading, and its reopening
- Thai PBS — Erawan National Park closes tourism and overnight stays on wildfire smoke and PM2.5, 21 April 2026
- Department of National Parks news listing — exemption of the entry fee for Thai persons nationwide on 3 June 2026
- Department of National Parks news listing — exemption of the entry fee for Thai persons and vehicles on 14 April 2026
- Department of National Parks news listing — Erawan National Park temporary closure, 21 April 2026
- Department of National Parks news listing — Phu Laen Kha reopening on 1 May 2026 after a rest closure
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.
Live a weekend from the wild
Mountains, waterfalls and island reefs are closer than you think — and the park you will actually use is the one you can reach before lunch. Find a residence near it, with transparent listings and one price for everyone.
General information only — not travel, legal or financial advice. BAANLYY does not operate, inspect or endorse any park, gate, lodge or tour named here. National park fees, the documents any individual gate will accept, seasonal and unscheduled closures, booking terms and park rules change over time and vary park by park; confirm current fees, opening status and reservations with the Department of National Parks before you travel. BAANLYY never takes paid placement.
Last verified 7 Sep 2026 against page facts re-read that day, as recorded in the explore-depth rotation log