Upper Mustang's $500 wall comes down: the permit is now $50 a day

One of the longest-standing pricing rules in Nepali trekking has been torn up — and shorter trips into the old forbidden kingdom of Lo just became far more affordable. Nepal has replaced the flat USD 500 Upper Mustang restricted-area permit, which always charged for a minimum of ten days, with a flexible USD 50 per person per day. You now pay only for the days you actually spend inside the restricted zone.

How the new system works

Under the old rule, even a quick five-day jeep tour to Lo Manthang cost the full USD 500, because the permit always billed ten days whether you used them or not. Under the new pay-as-you-go model, that same five-day trip costs USD 250. The change was announced at a Cabinet meeting and enacted by amending Schedule 12 of Nepal's Immigration Regulations. For the first time, the permit price scales with the trip — a long, slow cultural traverse and a fast overland dash are no longer charged the same.

Who wins

The big winners are travellers on shorter itineraries: jeep tourers, mountain bikers and motorcyclists doing a four-to-seven-day loop to Lo Manthang, and trekkers who fly into Jomsom rather than walking in from Pokhara. If your time inside the restricted area is under ten days, you save real money. For a classic full-length walking traverse of two weeks or more, the cost works out about the same as before — but you gain flexibility rather than losing it.

This sits alongside a second, equally welcome change. Since 22 March 2026, the two-person minimum for restricted-area permits has been scrapped, so solo travellers can now obtain an Upper Mustang permit — provided they trek with a licensed guide through a registered agency, which remains mandatory.

A region that rewards the effort

Upper Mustang is unlike anywhere else in Nepal — a high desert of ochre cliffs, walled medieval towns, sky caves and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries that feels more like the Tibetan plateau than the green middle hills. It sits in the rain shadow of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs, which is why it stays dry and trekkable when the rest of the country is under monsoon cloud. Cheaper, shorter, solo-friendly access only sharpens an already singular case for going.

Source: Himalaya-King; Rugged Trails Nepal; Nepal Department of Immigration.

Cover photo: Mohan K. Duwal via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).