Annapurna Base Camp Trek Cost & Permits (2026)

The advertised price of an Annapurna Base Camp trek and the money that actually leaves your account are two different numbers, and the gap is almost entirely food. A $91 package and a $464 package can both be honest — one includes meals and one does not — so the useful exercise is not comparing headline prices but adding up the same list of items for each.

Annapurna Base Camp trek cost breakdown — package price, permit, food and porter

The permit: one document, NPR 3,000

The Annapurna region runs on a single permit — the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) permit. In 2026 it costs NPR 3,000 for foreign nationals, roughly US$22–25, and NPR 1,000 for SAARC nationals. Children under 10 are exempt. The same permit covers Annapurna Base Camp, Poon Hill, Mardi Himal and the Annapurna Circuit — there is no separate ABC permit.

The TIMS card is the source of most of the confusion online. A great many older blog posts list it as compulsory; it is reported to no longer be checked at Annapurna checkpoints in 2026, though agencies often still issue a group TIMS as a matter of routine. Either way, this is not a decision you make: every guided package on this site includes the permit and the paperwork, arranged before you start walking.

The guide requirement is now a rule, not an upgrade

Since 1 April 2023 the Nepal Tourism Board has required foreign trekkers to be accompanied by a licensed guide, registered with the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal. Unaccompanied independent trekking in the conservation areas ended with that decision, and checkpoints verify guide credentials.

This changes the cost arithmetic from a few years ago. “Doing it yourself for the price of a permit and some dal bhat” is no longer an option, which is why the entry-level guided packages have become the practical floor for the trek rather than the premium tier.

What a guided package includes — and what it does not

Across the six treks on this site, the package price reliably covers the guide, the ACAP permit and paperwork, tea-house or guest-house accommodation, and ground transport to and from the road head. Beyond that, the differences are large:

Item	Usually included	Often excluded
Licensed guide	✓ every package	—
ACAP permit and paperwork	✓ every package	—
Tea-house accommodation	✓ every package	—
Transport to the trailhead	✓ every package	—
Meals	Only on all-inclusive / full-board options	Most base packages
Porter	Only on all-inclusive options	Most packages — hired separately
Sleeping bag, down jacket, poles	Some packages lend them	Others expect you to rent in Pokhara
Hot showers, Wi-Fi, charging	—	Always paid at the lodge
Drinks and snacks	—	Always extra
Travel insurance	—	Always yours to arrange
Tips	—	Expected at the end

The five-day route at $91 lends a down jacket, sleeping bag and trekking poles and includes permits, lodging and jeep transfer, with meals as a paid add-on. The nine-day route at $464 excludes sleeping bags and poles entirely but offers a full-board option that folds nine days of meals into the price. Neither is better value in the abstract — it depends what you already own and how long you are walking.

Daily costs on the trail

Food. The single biggest variable. Budget trekkers eating mainly dal bhat spend around $18–25 a day; most trekkers land at $20–35; anyone ordering Western dishes, coffee and treats runs $30–45. Prices climb with altitude because everything above the road head is carried up on a porter’s back or a mule: a plate of dal bhat costs a few dollars in the lower villages and up to around $12 at base camp. Dal bhat is also the only dish that comes with free refills, which is why guides eat it twice a day.

Extras at the lodge. Hot showers, device charging, Wi-Fi and bottled water are all charged individually, and all get more expensive higher up. Allow a few dollars a day and carry small notes.

Porter. Roughly $15–20 per day on the operators listed here — $15 on the seven-day route, $20 on the Jhinu route — with one porter typically carrying up to about 25 kg for two trekkers. Booked independently the going rate is $20–28 a day. Operators recommend one porter for every two trekkers on the longer itineraries.

Tips. Not included anywhere and genuinely expected at the end of the trek for guide and porter.

Cash. There are no ATMs above Pokhara. Draw everything you will need — food, extras, tips — before you leave, in Nepali rupees, in small denominations.

Putting a realistic number on it

Take the seven-day classic route as the worked example. The package is $205 and excludes food. Add seven days of meals at the mid-range $25–35 a day, which is $175–245. Add a porter at $15 a day for seven days, $105, shared between two people if you are a pair. Add lodge extras at perhaps $5 a day, $35. Add tips.

That lands somewhere around $520–620 per person all in, before flights to Nepal and any nights in Pokhara or Kathmandu at either end. It sits comfortably inside the $500–$1,200 range that most trekkers report spending on a guided ABC trek, and well below the equivalent Everest Base Camp budget, which starts around $1,072 largely because of the Lukla flight and the extra days on the mountain — a gap the ABC vs EBC comparison covers in full.

Where you can and cannot save

Genuine savings: eat dal bhat, share a porter, rent your sleeping bag and down jacket in Pokhara’s Lakeside rather than buying gear, and trek in a shoulder window when lodges are less full.

False economies: skipping travel insurance that covers trekking at altitude and helicopter evacuation, since a rescue is billed to you and recovered from the insurer; and choosing the shortest package purely on price when your fitness or altitude tolerance suggests otherwise. The difficulty guide is the better place to make that call than a price list.

Annapurna Base Camp Trek Cost and Permits