Rocky Mountain National Park's $100 Non-Resident Fee

If any part of your Colorado elopement involves Rocky Mountain National Park (for the ceremony itself, photos, or just a day trip while you’re in the state), there’s a new cost to budget for, and it applies per person, not per booking.

The new fee

As of January 2026, non-US-citizen visitors who don’t hold an America the Beautiful Non-Resident Annual Pass pay an additional $100 per person, ages 16 and up, at Rocky Mountain National Park and 10 other of the most-visited national parks. This is on top of the park’s standard entrance fee; it’s a separate, additional charge specifically for non-resident visitors.

The full list of all 11 parks, confirmed directly against the National Park Service’s own nonresident-fee page: Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion.

The America the Beautiful Non-Resident Annual Pass costs $250 and, per the same NPS page, covers the pass holder plus three additional adults traveling with them, on top of waiving the standard entrance fee. Children 15 and under are exempt from the nonresident fee entirely, regardless of citizenship.

No exemption for weddings

This is the detail that matters most if you’re planning any kind of gathering in the park: there is no exemption for weddings or special-use permits. Even if you’ve already gone through the process of getting a wedding-related special-use permit for the park, every non-resident guest in your party still pays the $100 fee individually. A permit doesn’t cover your guests, and it doesn’t waive the per-person charge.

What this means for your guest list

If you’re an international couple planning to have family or friends fly in to join you at RMNP:

• Budget $100 per non-US-citizen guest, 16 and older, in addition to standard park entrance fees.
• The America the Beautiful Non-Resident Annual Pass ($250) is the way to avoid the fee if someone in your group will be visiting US parks more than once, or visiting multiple parks. One pass also covers up to three additional adults traveling with the pass holder, so it can be the cheaper option for a group of four even on a single visit; otherwise the per-visit $100 fee may be simpler for a smaller group or a single trip.
• Guests 15 and under are exempt from the nonresident fee regardless of citizenship.
• This applies to the couple too, if either or both of you are non-US citizens; it isn’t just a guest fee.

Practical takeaway

Factor this into your total headcount cost before you commit to a Rocky Mountain National Park ceremony site. A small guest list of six non-resident friends and family, for example, adds $600 in fees alone, separate from lodging, travel, and standard park admission. It’s not a dealbreaker for most couples, but it’s exactly the kind of Colorado-specific, non-obvious cost that a generic elopement checklist won’t mention.

For the permit, timing, and site-selection side of an RMNP ceremony itself, see eloping in Rocky Mountain National Park. If the per-person fee (or the park’s permit rules generally) has you reconsidering the venue, Garden of the Gods is a lower-elevation, no-permit alternative elsewhere in Colorado.