Park fees in northern Madagascar, and the November 2026 increase
Entry to a Malagasy national park costs 45,000 Ariary a day today. From November 2026 it roughly doubles, and at Ankarana it nearly triples. Here are the real numbers, where they come from, and what a normal visit adds up to.
The headline
Madagascar National Parks announced that the foreign entry fee would rise from 45,000 to 90,000 Ariary per person per day from January 2026. That increase was postponed to November 2026.
The park's own notice put it plainly: the fees in the 2025 schedule "should remain valid until that time."
So a traveller arriving today pays the old rate. A traveller arriving in December pays roughly double, and at Ankarana considerably more than double. If your dates straddle that line, it is worth knowing before you book flights, not after.
One honest caveat: this increase has already been postponed once. We will update this page when the position changes, and the date at the foot of the page tells you when we last did.
What you pay today, and what you pay from November
| Park | Entry now, per foreign adult, per day | From November 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Marojejy | 45,000 Ar | 90,000 Ar |
| Ankarana | 45,000 Ar | 130,000 Ar |
| Montagne d'Ambre | 45,000 Ar | not confirmed |
| Children | 25,000 Ar | not confirmed |
| Malagasy nationals | 2,000 Ar (500 children) | not confirmed |
Ankarana is higher because it is classified as an exceptional park. Night walks, birdwatching and other complementary activities become 50,000 Ariary.
We have not found a confirmed new figure for Montagne d'Ambre, and we would rather leave a gap than fill it with a plausible guess — a wrong number on this page is worse than no page.
The guide is compulsory, and it is charged two different ways
A certified Madagascar National Parks guide has been mandatory since 2010. It is not an upsell and not something a driver can substitute: your driver is not a park guide, and at the gate that distinction is absolute.
At Marojejy and Anjanaharibe-Sud the fee is per guide, per day, and is set in an official published schedule. The reduced column applies when the client feeds the guide.
| Marojejy, per day | Full | Reduced |
|---|---|---|
| Guide | 70,000 Ar | 60,000 Ar |
| Nature Visit Guide | 40,000 Ar | 30,000 Ar |
| Tracker, to find the silky sifaka | 55,000 Ar | 45,000 Ar |
| Cook | 50,000 Ar | 40,000 Ar |
One guide takes a maximum of six visitors; a nature-visit guide up to ten.
Porters are priced by stage, which tells you something useful about the mountain before you ever see it:
| Porter stage, max 15 kg | |
|---|---|
| Manantenina → Camp Mantella | 10,000 Ar |
| Camp Mantella → Camp Marojejia | 8,000 Ar |
| Camp Marojejia → Camp Simpona | 10,000 Ar |
| Camp Simpona → summit | 7,000 Ar |
At Ankarana and Montagne d'Ambre the guide fee works differently: it is charged per group, not per person — between 20,000 and 60,000 Ariary a day depending on the length of the circuit and the size of the party. A full-day circuit sits near the top of that range, and two travellers pay one fee.
What a real visit costs
Two people, three parks, one day at each, at today's rates:
| Ankarana — entry 2 × 45,000 + guide ~40,000 | ≈ 130,000 Ar |
|---|---|
| Montagne d'Ambre — entry 2 × 45,000 + guide ~40,000 | ≈ 130,000 Ar |
| Marojejy — entry 2 × 45,000 + guide 70,000 | 160,000 Ar |
| Total | ≈ 420,000 Ar ≈ €86 |
Add a tracker at Marojejy — 55,000 Ariary, and the reason people go there is the silky sifaka, which a tracker is what finds — and it is about 475,000 Ariary, roughly €98.
For most itineraries that is under ten per cent on top of the transport cost. Far less than a European expects, which is exactly why it is better said out loud than discovered at a gate.
After November 2026 the same three days for two people move to something closer to 700,000 Ariary before guides. Re-price any autumn or winter enquiry.
How it is paid, at every park
- Cash, in Ariary, at the park office on arrival. No cards, no euros. - No advance booking for day tickets. There is no online permit system. - Bring more than the exact amount. Cash machines are not evenly spread, and on the northern corridor Ambilobe is the reliable one.
Where you pay:
| Park | Where |
|---|---|
| Ankarana | Main office at Mahamasina, on the RN6 |
| Montagne d'Ambre | Park entrance above Joffreville |
| Marojejy | Visitor centre at Manantenina |
Daraina is not a national park, and its fees are not here
The Loky-Manambato protected area at Daraina — the only place on earth with golden-crowned sifakas — is managed by the Malagasy NGO Fanamby, not by Madagascar National Parks. None of the figures above apply to it, and nobody publishes its fees anywhere we can find.
We are asking our own driver, who lives an hour away, rather than repeating a guess. When we have the figure it will appear here.
Where these numbers come from
The Marojejy figures are extracted from the official schedule Tarifs2025-26En published by the park, marked valid until November 2026. The postponement is quoted from the park's own fee notice and confirmed in the Malagasy press. The Ankarana and Montagne d'Ambre entry fees and the per-group guide range come from a published price list by reserve.
We say this because the official document exists only as a PDF that search engines cannot read, which is why so much of what is written about Malagasy park fees online is out of date, and why several sources we checked stated the guide fee confidently and were wrong.