Torres del Paine Park Entrance 2026: How the New System Works

Torres del Paine Park Entrance 2026: How the New System Works

If you read somewhere that the park ticket is split between "up to 3 days" and "more than 3 days", you read something out of date. That stopped existing on 1 May this year, and there are still plenty of guides out there with the old information.

What changed

• Before: the rate depended on whether you were staying less or more than three days.
• Now: there are two tickets, a day ticket and a 2-or-more-day ticket.
• The 2+ day ticket is valid for one continuous period of up to ten days.
• Purchase is online and in advance only. Before, in some cases, you could buy at the gate.

One detail worth knowing before you reach the checkout: if your group mixes Chileans and foreigners, the two selections are made in separate processes, even though you pay for everything together. It has ruined more than one person's morning.

Opening hours

• Summer season, October to April: 07:00 to 21:00, last entry 21:00.
• Winter season, May to September: 08:00 to 18:30, last entry 18:30.

They can change for weather or safety. This year the winter season was brought forward to 27 April.

If you come in winter

For high-difficulty routes or winter conditions you must go with an accredited guide, there is a specific set of rules, and microspikes and poles are required.

It sounds like paperwork until you are on the trail with ice and wind. The registration exists because somebody has to know you are in there.

Which gate to use

The park has several gates and they sit at quite different distances from Puerto Natales. Serrano is about 80 km away on Route Y-90; Sarmiento about 112 km on Route 9; Laguna Amarga about 129 km, also on Route 9.

Laguna Amarga is your gate if you are heading for the Base Torres lookout. Serrano, if your day starts in the south of the park. Picking wrong is two hours of driving you will miss later.

What the ticket does not cover

The refuges and campsites inside the park are concessions: they are booked and paid for separately, each with its own operator. And since 2016 you must have a booking to sleep at any campsite or refuge in the park. The rule started in 2015, only at the CONAF campsites, and was extended to all of them the following year.

If you were planning to walk the W or the O and improvise where you sleep, the problem is not the price. It is that they won't let you in.

Why the system works this way

The park charged no entry fee for its first seventeen years. It started in 1976, at the Sarmiento gate. In 1996 it took between 16,000 and 18,000 trekkers a year, and between 1990 and 2010 visits grew by more than 600%.

Today the trail to the Base Torres lookout takes between 500 and 1,200 people a day in high season. That is where the "Tu Mejor Huella para el Paine" campaign came from, which is trail restoration work. When they ask you to buy in advance and book where you will sleep, that figure is the reason.

Two more things before you buy: which gate suits you, which is in how to get to Torres del Paine, and what weather you will meet, in the piece on wind and temperatures. If you are walking the W or the O, the map with the circuits will sort out your itinerary. And if you would rather come in with us, there is the full day from Puerto Natales.