The National Park Service sets a handful of fee-free days each year, when parks that normally charge at the gate let everyone in for free. Four are left in 2026, and the first falls inside National Park Week, the agency's weeklong celebration.
New for 2026, the waiver covers U.S. citizens and residents only. Nonresidents pay the regular entrance fee. The waiver was always narrow. It drops the entrance fee, not the timed-entry or reservation windows some parks run in summer, and never camping, tours, or concession charges. Most Park Service sites are free every day already. It matters at the hundred or so that charge, the big drive-in parks like Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, and Arches.
The dates left this year:
- August 25: National Park Service Birthday. The agency turns 110. The Organic Act created it on this day in 1916. It falls inside National Park Week.
- September 17: Constitution Day. Marks the signing of the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787.
- October 27: Theodore Roosevelt's Birthday. The conservation president who signed the Antiquities Act and put roughly 230 million acres under federal protection.
- November 11: Veterans Day. Honors those who served. Many Park Service battlefields and memorials add commemorations.
National Park Week is not a run of free days. Only August 25 is fee-free. The rest of the week keeps normal rates, with extra ranger programs and Junior Ranger activities built around the 2026 theme, "Celebrate America's Story," for the country's 250th anniversary. It usually falls in April, but this year it moved to late August to line up with the birthday.
If a fee-free date lands on a route you were already running, time your gate entry for that morning. The full list and the current rules are on the NPS passes page, and every date is on our events calendar.
Photo: Death Valley National Park (National Park Service).