Acadia entrance fees, and the two that catch people out

Acadia’s entrance fee is simple. The two things attached to it are not, and both of them cost real money at the gate.

Tickets, passes and the one reservation

• There are no timed tickets to enter Acadia. What you buy is an entrance pass, at any hour and on any day, and the standard pass is good for seven days.
• For a car, it is the $35 vehicle pass, which covers everyone in it. On foot or by bike it is $20 a person, 16 and over.
• For a second week in the same year, the $70 Acadia annual pass pays for itself. Is it worth it? is below.
• Non-US residents aged 16 and over add a $100 nonresident fee each, unless they hold an annual pass.
• The only reservation in the park is Cadillac’s: $6 per vehicle to drive the summit road in season, booked separately on recreation.gov.

Acadia passes and what they cost

A pass is required year-round, not just in season. That surprises people who arrive in November expecting the booth to be empty and the park to be free. Acadia in winter has where to buy one once the visitor centers close.

The vehicle pass: what $35 covers

The Park Service’s fees page sets it out:

• Seven days, one vehicle, everyone in it. It admits a private, non-commercial vehicle with room for 15 passengers or fewer, and all its occupants. Rental cars, RVs and vans with fewer than 16 passengers count; your passengers need no pass of their own.
• It goes on the dashboard, not to a booth. Every vehicle in the park must show a pass through the windshield. With one in hand you can drive straight to a trailhead or parking area and leave it on display.
• Print it before you come if you buy online. The Park Service says passes bought online must be printed before you arrive, so they can go on the dashboard, and that cell service in the park is extremely limited.
• Where to buy one in person: the entrance station on the Park Loop Road at Schooner Head Road, open all year; Hulls Cove Visitor Center, the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton and the three campgrounds, while each is open for the season; and automated machines, by credit card, 24 hours a day all year, in the Hulls Cove Visitor Center lot, outside the Acadia Gateway Center and inside the gatehouse at the Schoodic Institute. The Jordan Pond Gift Shop, in its season, and the local chambers of commerce sell Acadia passes too.

A non-commercial group of 16 or more in a bus or van pays $20 for each person 16 and over instead, and a commercial tour is a different arrangement again (the tours comparison).

Is the Acadia annual pass worth it?

Yes, if you will spend a second week in Acadia within the year. Two seven-day vehicle passes cost $70, which is the annual pass’s price, so the second visit pays for it and a third is free. For a single week it is $35 wasted.

What the $70 Acadia annual gets you: entry to Acadia only, for the pass holder and passengers in a non-commercial vehicle, for 12 months from the month of purchase. It is sold to US citizens and residents only, online or in person at the park’s visitor centers and campgrounds, and at the Acadia Regional Chamber at Thompson Island and the Bar Harbor, Ellsworth and Southwest Harbor chambers of commerce.

When a different pass is the better buy:

• Any other national park or federal fee site in the next 12 months: the $80 America the Beautiful annual covers them all, Acadia included, for $10 more.
• Anyone in the car aged 62 or over who is a US citizen or resident: the senior annual at $20 costs less than one week’s vehicle pass, and the senior lifetime is $80.
• Free, for those who qualify: current US military and their dependents (annual), veterans and Gold Star families (lifetime), US citizens and residents with a permanent disability (the Access pass), US fourth graders, and volunteers with 250 service hours at federal sites.
• Not a US resident: the $250 non-resident annual, and the arithmetic in the $100 section below.

An America the Beautiful pass bought on recreation.gov is a digital pass you can use at once; one ordered by mail from the USGS store is a physical card that can take up to three weeks to arrive. Either way the holder must be there and show photo ID with it.

The park takes no cash

Acadia stopped accepting cash on 15 April 2025, by the Park Service’s news release that March. Not “prefers card” — its park sales outlets take cards and mobile payments only.

Buy online through recreation.gov before you arrive, or use one of the automated fee machines, which run 24/7, or a visitor center in hours. If your plan was to hand someone $35 at a booth, that plan does not work here any more.

If you only have cash, the Park Service names nine outside vendors that sell park passes for it:

• the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce, 2 Cottage Street, Bar Harbor;
• the Gouldsboro Town Office, 59 Main Street, Prospect Harbor;
• the Jordan Pond Gift Shop, on the Park Loop Road (seasonal);
• the Mount Desert Town Office, 21 Sea Street, Northeast Harbor;
• the Mount Desert Chamber of Commerce, 42 Harbor Drive, Northeast Harbor (seasonal);
• the Schoodic Institute Welcome Center, 1 Atterbury Circle, Winter Harbor (seasonal);
• the Southwest Harbor & Tremont Chamber of Commerce, 329 Main Street, Southwest Harbor (seasonal);
• the Tremont Town Office, 20 Harbor Drive, Bass Harbor;
• the Winter Harbor Town Office, 20 School Street, Winter Harbor.

The Park Service’s own fees page is not consistent on this: beside some passes it still lists “Cash or Credit/Debit” at park locations, while its notice at the top says “This park does not accept cash.” Plan on a card, and treat the list above as the cash route.

The $100 non-resident fee international visitors do not see coming

The Park Service’s fees page states that non-US residents aged 16 and over pay an additional $100 per person, unless they hold an Acadia Annual pass or an America the Beautiful pass.

Read that arithmetic carefully, because it inverts the usual advice:

• A couple visiting from overseas, paying at the gate: $35 for the vehicle, plus $100 each — $235.
• The same couple holding the $250 non-resident annual: $250.

So the pass is not automatically cheaper, and the tier matters. The $80 America the Beautiful and the $70 Acadia Annual are both sold only to US citizens and residents; a non-US resident buys the $250 version. For Acadia alone that loses by $15. It wins the moment a second surcharge park is on the itinerary, because the $100 is waived each time.

Riding with a pass holder costs nothing extra. The Park Service’s nonresident fee FAQ says all valid America the Beautiful passes and park annual passes “will cover entrance fees and nonresident fees for the pass holder and passengers in a private vehicle”. A non-US visitor in a car with anyone holding a valid pass owes no $100. That is the cheapest answer of all, if you are traveling with someone who has one.

On a tour the rule is narrower. The $100 applies to non-US residents on commercial tours too, and the pass that waives it there is the $250 non-resident annual, covering the holder and three more non-US adults in the group. The tours comparison works through what that does to a tour’s real price.

The surcharge is not service-wide. It applies to eleven named parks: Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion. Everywhere else a non-US resident pays the ordinary entrance fee and nothing on top.

Cadillac is a separate transaction

The Cadillac Summit Road vehicle reservation is $6 per vehicle and is required from 20 May to 25 October. It is timed entry, and the Park Service notes the reservation does not carry a departure time — the road closes to vehicles at 9 p.m.

That $6 is on top of your entrance pass, it is booked separately, and it is the single most common thing people arrive without. We have a whole page on how the release windows work, because that is where the real difficulty is.

Fee-free days do not make it free. The Park Service’s fee-free notice covers entrance only: “other fees, including timed entry or reservation fees, may apply”. Budget the $6 whatever the date.

Fee-free days in 2026

16 February · 25 May · 14 June · 3–5 July · 25 August · 17 September · 27 October · 11 November

They are not free for everyone. From 2026 the Park Service limits fee-free entrance to US citizens and residents. Non-residents pay the regular entrance fee and any applicable nonresident fee, so for an international visitor a fee-free day is the crowd without the saving.

Worth knowing, and worth avoiding. A free-entry day at Acadia in July is a parking problem, not a bargain — and it does not make the Cadillac reservation free or easier to get.