Annapurna Base Camp Trek Permits: Complete Guide in 2027

Annapurna Base Camp Trek Permits

Every trekker heading to Annapurna Base Camp in 2026 needs the Annapurna Conservation Area Permit (ACAP), currently NPR 3,000 (roughly USD 23) for foreign nationals, and a licensed guide booked through a registered Nepali trekking agency — solo, unguided trekking has been illegal across Annapurna region routes since April 2023.

A second document, the TIMS card, sits in a genuinely confusing spot as of 2026: some agencies and checkpoints still issue and check it, others report it's no longer enforced on standard Annapurna routes, and official guidance itself has been inconsistent.

This guide walks through exactly what you need, what it costs, where to get it, how enforcement actually works on the trail, and how to avoid the confusion that trips up a surprising number of first-time trekkers.

ABC trek permits at a glance

Why Permits Exist on the ABC Trek

The Annapurna Base Camp trek runs entirely within the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal's largest protected area, covering roughly 7,629 square kilometers across the Annapurna massif and surrounding valleys. The ACAP permit isn't simply a revenue mechanism — it's the entry mechanism for a conservation area established specifically to balance tourism, biodiversity protection, and the livelihoods of the roughly 100,000 people living within its boundaries across more than a dozen ethnic communities.

Permit revenue is managed by the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and funds conservation projects, community development, and trail infrastructure throughout the region, including the ABC route itself.

The guide requirement, introduced more recently, serves a different but related purpose: trekker safety and search-and-rescue traceability. Nepal moved to mandate licensed guides across Annapurna region routes following a series of solo-trekker accidents and disappearances in remote sections of the conservation area, where unguided trekkers who ran into trouble — illness, injury, disorientation in poor weather — were sometimes not located or reported missing for days.

A licensed guide, working through a registered agency, creates a documented itinerary, emergency contact chain, and daily check-in structure that dramatically improves response time if something goes wrong.

The ACAP Permit: What It Actually Covers

The Annapurna Conservation Area Permit is the core, non-negotiable document required to enter the conservation area at all. As of 2026, it costs NPR 3,000 for foreign nationals (roughly USD 23, though the exact USD equivalent shifts slightly with exchange rates), a figure that increased from NPR 2,000 in September 2024. SAARC nationals — citizens of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — pay a reduced rate of NPR 1,000, and children under 10 years old are exempt from the fee entirely, though their details must still be registered at the permit office.

The ACAP fee is flat and fixed regardless of trek duration — a trekker doing a compressed 6-day ABC itinerary pays the same NPR 3,000 as someone taking a leisurely 10 to 12-day route through the Annapurna Sanctuary, and the fee doesn't vary by season either, meaning trekking during the quieter monsoon or winter months offers no permit discount, even though other trip costs (teahouse rates, transport) often do drop during those periods.

• What the ACAP permit is checked for: Entry into the conservation area itself, verified at multiple checkpoints along the standard ABC route, most notably at Birethanti (the main entry checkpoint near the trailhead) and again at Chhomrong, roughly the midpoint of the route and a natural checkpoint given its position as the last major village before the trail narrows into the upper Modi Khola valley toward Base Camp.

• Where the ACAP permit is issued: The Nepal Tourism Board offices in both Kathmandu and Pokhara issue ACAP permits directly, and the permit can also be applied for online through official portals using scanned passport details, a passport-style photo, and (where applicable) travel insurance documentation.

In practice, the overwhelming majority of trekkers in 2026 have their ACAP arranged by their trekking agency as part of a booked package — a registered agency like Adventure Life Nepal handles the paperwork, submits the required documents, and hands over the physical permit before departure, removing the need for trekkers to personally visit a permit office or navigate the online portal themselves.

The TIMS Card: A Genuinely Confusing Situation in 2026

If there's one area of real inconsistency in current Annapurna permit requirements, it's the TIMS card (Trekkers' Information Management System), and it's worth being upfront about that confusion rather than pretending there's a single clean answer.

Historically, TIMS functioned as a secondary safety-tracking document, recording a trekker's passport details, planned route, emergency contacts, and guide information in a centralized database accessible to search-and-rescue coordination teams — a genuinely useful function distinct from ACAP's conservation-area entry purpose.

TIMS was priced at NPR 2,000 for individual foreign trekkers and NPR 1,000 for those trekking as part of an organized group or through an agency, with SAARC nationals paying reduced rates in both categories.

As of 2026, sources genuinely disagree on its current status. Some current guidance indicates TIMS remains part of the standard permit package that registered agencies arrange alongside ACAP, checked primarily at the Birethanti entry point and at Chhomrong. Other current sources report that the individually-issued "green" TIMS card was formally abolished in 2023, that enforcement on standard Annapurna routes (ABC, the Annapurna Circuit, Poon Hill, Mardi Himal) has effectively lapsed, and that checkpoints in 2026 verify the ACAP permit only.

A middle position, reflected in some April 2026 operator updates, describes TIMS enforcement as genuinely inconsistent trail-to-trail — some checkpoints still ask for it, others don't — while noting that official Nepal Tourism Board guidance continues to list it as a requirement even where ground-level enforcement has become patchy.

The practical takeaway: because this genuinely varies and appears to be shifting even within 2026 itself, the safest approach is to let your registered trekking agency handle it entirely.

A reputable operator will register you for whatever documentation is currently required or expected at the time of your trek, meaning you don't need to personally track which version of the requirement is currently in force — this is precisely the kind of regulatory gray area a good agency exists to navigate on your behalf.

The Mandatory Guide Rule

Since April 2023, trekking without a licensed guide has been illegal across all Annapurna Conservation Area routes, including the ABC trek, the Annapurna Circuit, Poon Hill, and Mardi Himal. This is a legal requirement enforced at checkpoints, not a suggestion or a recommended best practice — trekkers arriving at Birethanti or Chhomrong without a guide risk being turned back or fined, regardless of experience level or how many times they may have trekked in Nepal before.

It's worth noting that Nepal eased its solo-trekking rules for restricted areas — such as Upper Mustang — in March 2026, removing the previous minimum-group-size requirement for those specific restricted zones. This change does not affect the ABC trek or other standard Annapurna Conservation Area routes, which remain fully guide-mandatory regardless of group size.

The two rule sets are separate: restricted-area permits (like Upper Mustang's) govern a different, more remote category of trekking, while the conservation-area guide mandate applies broadly across all of Annapurna's popular standard routes, ABC included.

A licensed guide for the ABC trek typically costs between $20 and $35 per day when hired independently, though the overwhelming majority of trekkers book a guide as part of a bundled package price rather than paying separately, which is generally the more cost-effective and logistically simpler approach given that permits, guide arrangement, and teahouse coordination now function as an interconnected system rather than separate line items.

Documents You Need to Obtain Permits

Whether permits are arranged personally or through an agency, the following documents are required to process both ACAP and any current TIMS registration:

Indian nationals applying under the SAARC rate can present either a valid passport or a government-issued voter ID card as proof of nationality — a notable exception to the passport-only rule that applies to most other nationalities, and one that permit office staff in both Kathmandu and Pokhara are well accustomed to processing.

Where to Get Your Permits

• Kathmandu. The Nepal Tourism Board office in Kathmandu issues ACAP permits (and, where applicable, TIMS registration) directly, though most independent international trekkers arriving in Kathmandu first tend to arrange this through a trekking agency rather than visiting the office in person, given the additional travel time to Pokhara that most ABC itineraries require regardless.

• Pokhara. Since Pokhara functions as the standard gateway city for the ABC trek — the trailhead sits a short drive away at Nayapul or Samrung — the Pokhara Tourism Office is, in practice, the more commonly used permit location for trekkers heading directly into the Annapurna region without an extended Kathmandu stay beforehand.

• Online. Both ACAP and, where still applicable, TIMS can be applied for online through official Nepal government portals, using scanned copies of the documents listed above. Online payment via Visa or Mastercard typically carries an additional processing charge of around 2.9%, while in-person cash payment at a permit office carries no such surcharge — a small but real cost difference worth factoring in if applying independently rather than through an agency.

• Through your trekking agency. By far the most common path in 2026, and effectively the default given the mandatory guide requirement: a registered agency like Adventure Life Nepal handles ACAP (and any current TIMS registration) as a standard part of the booking process, typically for a modest service fee if not already folded into the overall package price, and hands trekkers a ready-to-go permit before departure — no queuing, no independent portal navigation, and no risk of arriving at a checkpoint with incomplete paperwork.

Checkpoints Along the Route

Permits aren't just paperwork arranged before departure — they're actively checked at specific points along the trail, and understanding where those checkpoints sit helps explain why carrying your original permit (not just a photo of it) throughout the trek matters.

ACAP enforcement is described as consistent across all major checkpoints in the conservation area — this is the permit trekkers should treat as absolutely non-negotiable to carry. TIMS enforcement, reflecting the broader confusion already discussed, is concentrated primarily at Birethanti and Chhomrong where it is checked at all, with several trail segments between checkpoints reportedly not verifying it independently even where it's technically still part of the documentation package.

What Happens If You Arrive Without a Permit

Trekking within the Annapurna Conservation Area without a valid ACAP permit is not a minor oversight — it's treated as a genuine violation with real consequences. Trekkers who arrive at a checkpoint without a pre-issued permit typically face a doubled fee on the spot: a foreign national who would otherwise have paid NPR 3,000 in advance instead pays NPR 6,000 at the checkpoint itself, in addition to the inconvenience and potential delay of processing an on-the-spot application at a trailside checkpoint rather than a proper permit office.

In more serious cases — repeated attempts to bypass checkpoints, or trekking in a genuinely restricted zone without authorization — consequences can extend to fines, forced return to Pokhara, or outright denial of further entry into the conservation area.

The lesson here is straightforward: the modest savings some trekkers imagine from skipping permits (often estimated, inaccurately, at NPR 5,000–7,000) don't materialize in practice, since checkpoints are specifically positioned to catch unpermitted trekkers, and the doubled on-the-spot fee alone erases any theoretical savings before even accounting for the risk of being turned back entirely.

Annapurna Base Camp Trek Permits Costs Compared Across Popular Annapurna Region Treks

A useful piece of context: the ACAP permit isn't unique to the ABC trek — it covers the entire Annapurna Conservation Area, meaning the same permit (and cost) applies whether trekking to Base Camp itself or taking one of several other popular routes through the same protected region.

Upper Mustang stands apart from the rest of this list specifically because it requires an additional Restricted Area Permit on top of the standard ACAP, reflecting its classification as a genuinely restricted zone due to its sensitive location near the Chinese border — a category the standard ABC route, Annapurna Circuit, Poon Hill, and Mardi Himal treks do not fall into, since none of them approach an international border in the way Upper Mustang does.

How a Guided Package Simplifies the Permit Process

For trekkers booking through a registered agency, permits function less like a separate task and more like a background detail handled automatically as part of the overall trip.

A typical package from an operator like Adventure Life Nepal includes ACAP, the mandatory licensed guide, and any current TIMS registration as standard inclusions, with trekkers only needing to provide an original passport and passport-sized photos before departure — the agency prepares the forms, submits the applications, pays the associated fees (already built into the package price), and hands over both physical permits ready for the trail, with no independent office visits or online portal navigation required.

Given that TIMS requirements have shifted meaningfully even within the current year, and that the mandatory guide rule effectively requires agency involvement regardless, booking through a registered operator has become less a matter of convenience and more the practical default path most trekkers now follow to reach Annapurna Base Camp with full, correct documentation in hand.

A Note on Permit Fee Increases and Why They Happen

The ACAP fee increase from NPR 2,000 to NPR 3,000 in September 2024 reflects a broader pattern across Nepal's trekking permit system in recent years — permit and royalty fees across multiple regions, including Everest's climbing royalty and various restricted-area permits, have seen upward revisions as Nepal works to fund conservation infrastructure, trail maintenance, and search-and-rescue capacity across increasingly popular trekking routes.

While NPR 3,000 remains a modest cost relative to the overall expense of a multi-day trek — typically representing well under 5% of a standard guided package's total price — it's a figure worth double-checking close to your departure date given the pattern of periodic increases, since permit pricing in Nepal has not historically remained static for long stretches.

Frequently Asked Questions about Annapurna Base Camp Trek Permits

1. What permits do I need for the Annapurna Base Camp trek in 2026?
   The Annapurna Conservation Area Permit (ACAP), currently NPR 3,000 for foreign nationals, plus a licensed guide booked through a registered agency. TIMS card requirements are inconsistently enforced as of 2026 — check current status with your operator.

2. How much do ABC trek permits cost in total?
   Budget roughly NPR 3,000–5,000 (approximately USD 23–38) for permit fees alone, depending on whether TIMS is currently required by your specific route and checkpoints.

3. Do I need a guide for the ABC trek?
   Yes, without exception. Solo, unguided trekking has been illegal across Annapurna Conservation Area routes, including ABC, since April 2023.

4. Is the TIMS card still required in 2026?
   This genuinely varies by source and checkpoint. Some agencies and checkpoints still issue and check it; others report it's no longer enforced on standard Annapurna routes. Confirm current status directly with your trekking agency before departure.

5. Where can I get my ACAP permit?
   At the Nepal Tourism Board offices in Kathmandu or Pokhara, through the official online portal, or — most commonly — arranged directly by your trekking agency as part of a booked package.

6. What happens if I arrive at a checkpoint without a permit?
   You'll typically be charged double the standard fee on the spot (NPR 6,000 instead of NPR 3,000 for foreign nationals), face processing delays, and in serious cases risk being turned back or denied further entry.

7. Do children need permits for the ABC trek?
   Children under 10 are exempt from the ACAP fee, though their details must still be registered.

8. Are permit fees different for Indian and other SAARC nationals?
   Yes. SAARC nationals pay a reduced ACAP rate of NPR 1,000 compared to NPR 3,000 for other foreign nationals, and Indian citizens can present a valid voter ID card as an alternative to a passport when applying.

9. Does the ABC trek require the same permits as the Annapurna Circuit?
   Yes — both routes fall within the same Annapurna Conservation Area and require the same ACAP permit (and any currently applicable TIMS registration), unlike Upper Mustang, which requires an additional Restricted Area Permit.

10. Is it cheaper to arrange permits myself instead of through an agency?
    Not meaningfully, and given the mandatory guide requirement, arranging permits independently doesn't remove the need for agency involvement anyway. Most trekkers find the modest agency service fee (roughly NPR 500–1,000, where charged separately) well worth the convenience and reduced risk of documentation errors.

Conclusion on Annapurna Base Camp Trek Permits

Permits for the Annapurna Base Camp trek are, at their core, simpler than the fragmented information online sometimes makes them look: one mandatory conservation area permit (ACAP, currently NPR 3,000), one mandatory licensed guide, and a TIMS card whose exact enforcement status is worth confirming closer to your travel date given how inconsistently it's currently being applied across different checkpoints and agencies.

What matters most for trekkers heading to Base Camp in 2026 isn't memorizing every regulatory nuance — it's working with a registered agency that stays current on exactly which documents are required at any given moment, handles the paperwork correctly the first time, and gets your original passport and permits into your hands before you ever reach Birethanti.

Adventure Life Nepal manages this process as standard practice for every ABC booking, which means the only thing you need to bring to the trailhead is your passport, your photos, and the readiness to start walking toward one of the most spectacular mountain amphitheaters in the world