The Price to Climb Mount Everest Will Rise to $15,000 This Year

Every year, hundreds of mountaineers try to reach the top of Mount Everest, the 29,032-foot-tall peak on the border of Nepal and Tibet. But before embarking on the challenging trek in Nepal, climbers must receive a permit from the government and pay a fee.

Now, for the first time in nearly a decade, Nepal is raising its Mount Everest permit fees for foreign climbers, reports Reuters’ Gopal Sharma. The new rates will take effect starting in September.

Permit fees vary depending on the season, and Nepal is increasing them by 36 percent across the board. The fee for April and May—the most popular months to try making the trek—will jump from $11,000 to $15,000. For September through November, the rate will increase to $7,500. For December through February, it will go up to $3,750.

“The [permit fees] had not been reviewed for a long time. We have updated them now,” Narayan Prasad Regmi, director general of Nepal’s tourism department, tells Reuters.

The more expensive permit fees did not come as a surprise. In 2023, government officials in Nepal announced their intention to raise rates starting in 2025, per the Kathmandu Post’s Sangam Prasain. At the time, authorities said the price increase would help them update Everest facilities and boost the salaries of porters, workers and guides.

Each year, Nepali troops also undertake a massive cleanup effort on Everest and nearby mountains. Last year, they removed an estimated ten metric tons of garbage from Mount Everest, Mount Lhotse and Mount Nuptse; they also recovered five dead bodies.

Permit fees, along with other spending by international mountaineers, are important contributors to Nepal’s economy, according to Reuters.

The fee hikes likely won’t deter many foreign climbers, who already spend tens of thousands of dollars to attempt the bucket-list summit, as Alan Arnette, a mountaineer and climbing coach who runs a blog about Everest, reported for Climbing magazine in 2022. In addition to the permit fees, climbers must also pay for travel expenses, insurance, gear, supplies and professional guides, known as sherpas. The guide service alone can cost more than $40,000, according to Arnette.

“In the grand scheme of the cost to climb Everest, it won’t impact most foreign climbers,” Kenton Cool, a British mountaineer who has summited Everest 18 times, tells BBC News’ Gavin Butler. “Hopefully, the extra revenue will be put to good use.”

Recently, authorities in Nepal have enacted several new rules to help cut down on overcrowding and pollution on Everest. Climbers must now remove their own human waste from the slopes in special bags and carry them down to Everest Base Camp for disposal. They must also wear tracking chips, which are intended to make it easier for search and rescue teams to find them in the event of an emergency.

During the busy spring climbing season last year, nine climbers died or went missing on Everest, according to Outside magazine’s Ben Ayers. For context, Nepal issued 421 permits to foreign mountaineers during the spring 2024 season, and roughly 600 people—including climbers, guides and workers—reached the summit.

The first recorded summit of Mount Everest occurred in May 1953, when New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepali-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay successfully climbed the peak together. Since then, more than 7,200 individuals have made it to the top of Everest—including more than 1,600 climbers who have completed multiple summits, according to statistics compiled by Arnette.