In October 2017, the National Park Service (NPS), initially published its plan to drastically increase the entry fees and standardize the Commercial Use Authorization (CUA) permitting process at over 117 NPS locations, including national parks, monuments, historical and other sites. Over the past few months, NPS has been reviewing the comments that ABA and many of our members and the public submitted regarding the initial NPS plan.
On Friday, April 12, NPS announced that they would be increasing the entry fees by $5 for all parks that are currently collecting entrance fees. On April 19, NPS announced their plans for changes to the CUA fees and requirements for groups traveling to parks via motorcoach in a new proposal. This new CUA plan will take effect Oct. 1, 2019. However, future motorcoach entrance fees at parks are impacted by the April 12 announcement, so operators will need to pay attention to both the April 12 and April 19 announcements.