Park fees are the least negotiable line in a safari costing. Lodges give STO rates, transfers can be optimised, margins are yours to set — but the gate charges what the gazette says, per person, per day, and a costing that gets them wrong is wrong by exactly that amount, out of your margin.
This guide covers the fee structures a Kenyan operator prices around in 2026, and how to enter them into a costing so they never surprise you.
What are the KWS park fees now?
The Kenya Wildlife Service fee structure changed materially in late 2025 — the first substantial revision in years. New rates were gazetted in September 2025 and took effect on 1 October 2025, organising the parks into categories, each with its own tariff.
Headline daily rates for the parks most safaris touch, per adult:
- Amboseli and Lake Nakuru (premium parks) — USD 90 non-resident · KES 1,500 East African citizen
- Nairobi National Park — USD 80 non-resident · KES 1,000 citizen
- Tsavo East and Tsavo West — USD 80 non-resident · KES 1,000 citizen
Children pay roughly half the adult rate in each category. A third band — African citizens outside the EAC — sits between the citizen and non-resident rates.
Two costing consequences are easy to miss. First, the categories mean two parks on the same itinerary can carry different fees — an Amboseli–Tsavo circuit crosses tariff bands. Second, rates for some smaller parks are reported differently by different secondary sources; where a park is central to your product, confirm the figure on the KWSPay eCitizen portal at payment time rather than pricing from a stale table.
What does the Maasai Mara cost?
The Mara is not a KWS park — the Narok County Government sets its fees, and its structure differs from KWS on every axis that matters to a costing:
- Seasonal pricing. Non-resident adults pay USD 200 per day in high season (July–December) and USD 100 per day in low season (January–June).
- Children 9–17 pay USD 50 per day; children under 8 enter free.
- Kenyan citizens pay KES 2,500 per day in low season and KES 5,000 in high season.
- A ticket is valid 12 hours — 6am to 6pm — on the day of entry, a rule in force since July 2023. Guests staying outside the reserve and departing by road need to exit by 10am, or an additional day’s fee applies.
That 12-hour rule is the one that quietly reprices itineraries: a “3-day Mara safari” is three daily tickets, and a relaxed final-morning game drive that rolls past the exit window is a fourth.
How do you build park fees into a costing?
Park fees are the cleanest line in the whole sheet, because the arithmetic is fixed: travellers × days in the park × the daily rate for their category and season.
Two non-resident adults, three days in the Mara in August: 2 × 3 × USD 200 = USD 1,200 — before a single bed-night is costed. The same trip in May is USD 600. That swing is why the fee line needs its own row in your tour costing sheet, per park, rather than being folded into a lump: the quantity is pax × days, the unit cost is the gazetted rate, and the line total recomputes when the group size or dates change.
Fees are quoted in USD for non-residents and KES for citizens, so a mixed group carries two fee lines. If your quote is in one currency, note the rate applied — the same discipline a clear quote applies everywhere else.
What about conservancy fees?
Conservancies around the Mara and elsewhere charge their own per-person-per-night fees, set by each conservancy, separate from the reserve fee. Whether the fee is bundled into the lodge’s rate or payable on top varies by property — which is precisely the kind of detail that should be captured once, when the lodge sends its rates, on a supplier rate sheet with an explicit “included or payable extra” line. A costing built from a rate sheet that answers that question never double-pays a conservancy fee, and never omits one.
How are the fees actually paid?
KWS parks are cashless: fees are paid through the KWSPay service on the eCitizen portal, by card or M-Pesa, not at the gate. The Mara runs on Narok County’s own arrangements, which vary by gate — with cashless accepted in the Mara Triangle.
The operational point for an operator: park fees are a pre-trip payment obligation, not a day-of expense. They belong in your payment schedule the same way the lodge deposit does — collected from the client with the balance, paid before travel, with the confirmation kept against the booking.
What should your quote say about park fees?
Three lines protect you:
- An inclusions line naming the parks and days covered — “includes Maasai Mara fees, 2 adults × 3 days” — so fee coverage is explicit, not implied.
- A validity clause — fees are gazetted, and the Mara’s rate doubles on 1 July, so a quote that straddles the season boundary must price each day at its own band and say how long the quoted price holds.
- The category assumption — non-resident, resident or citizen — since the same itinerary can differ by hundreds of dollars per traveller depending on who is travelling.
Get those three onto the quote and the gate becomes what it should be: a formality your costing already paid for.