Inca Trail Permits: How They Work and When They Sell Out

Short answer: You cannot buy an Inca Trail permit yourself. Permits are sold only through licensed tour operators, issued in your name and passport number, and capped at 500 people a day on the classic routes, porters and guides included. The trail closes every February. For May to August, book as soon as the season opens, typically months ahead.

Inca Trail permits at a glance (as of October 2026)

Item	Detail	Source
Who can book	Only licensed travel agencies with a SERNANP service contract	Reglamento, art. 9
Guide	Official tour guide designated by the agency, mandatory	Reglamento, art. 15 and 16
Daily cap, routes 1 to 4	500 users a day, staff included	Reglamento, art. 14
Daily cap, route 5 (KM 104)	250 users a day	Reglamento, art. 14, DDC Cusco 2026 opening
Hikers among the 500	About 200 (industry estimate, not official)	Operators
Closure	Every February	Reglamento, art. 10, DDC Cusco notice
2026 sale opening	17 November 2025, 8:00 a.m., January dates first	DDC Cusco, 17 November 2025
Payment after reserving	Within 3 hours or cancelled	Reglamento, art. 19
Final traveler list	Up to 48 hours before the start	Reglamento, art. 19
Transfers and refunds	Nominal, non-transferable, no refund for no-shows	Reglamento, art. 20 to 22
Trail hours	Entry 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., no walking 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.	Reglamento, art. 9

That last point is the one that costs people their trek. The permit is the bottleneck, not the hike. If the Classic Inca Trail is the reason you are going to Peru, lock it in first and build the rest around it: our Classic Inca Trail 4 days, permit included books the permit under your passport as part of the trip, through the partner operator authorized by SERNANP that runs the trek for us. Then read on for how the system works, so you know what you are signing up for.

What an Inca Trail permit covers

An Inca Trail permit is a named entry ticket to the Inca Trail network (Red de Caminos Inka) inside the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, valid for one route and one start date. It also includes your visit to the Machu Picchu citadel at the end of the route. Without it, the checkpoint at the trailhead turns you back, and there is no ticket office to fix that on the spot.

Two public bodies run the network. SERNANP, Peru's protected-areas service, manages the sanctuary as a natural area. The Ministerio de Cultura, through its Cusco office (DDC Cusco), manages the archaeological sites and sells the entries. Their joint rulebook is the Reglamento de Uso Turístico Sostenible de la Red de Caminos Inka, and most of what follows comes from it.

Who can book a permit

Only licensed travel agencies with a service contract signed with SERNANP can book Inca Trail permits, and every group must walk with an official tour guide designated by the agency. The regulation says tourist use of the network happens in an organized way through those agencies. Independent hiking is not allowed on the Classic Inca Trail.

In practice, the agency registers each traveler in the DDC Cusco system, pays within 3 hours of reserving (or the reservation is cancelled automatically), and submits the final traveler list up to 48 hours before the start date. That is why the first thing an operator asks for is your passport. Treat any website that offers a permit without asking for your passport data with suspicion.

Daily caps and how they fill

The regulation sets a capacity of 500 users a day on routes 1 to 4 and 250 a day on route 5 (the short trail from KM 104). For the 2026 season, DDC Cusco confirmed 500 daily spaces on each of routes 1, 2 and 3 and 250 on route 5. The 500 count everyone on the trail: hikers, guides, cooks and porters. Operators commonly estimate that leaves around 200 spaces for hikers, a figure that is not official but matches what we see.

Spaces go per day, not per operator. When a date fills, it is gone for every agency at once. A permit booked by an agency for a group cannot be reassigned to another traveler, so there is no secondhand market to wait for. The table below shows the routes defined by the regulation.

When permits go on sale

Permits for the following season typically go on sale in the last months of the year before, on a date DDC Cusco announces a few weeks ahead. For the 2026 season, reservations opened on 17 November 2025 at 8:00 a.m. for the Inca Trail, starting with the month of January, according to DDC Cusco. Peruvian radio network RPP reported that the opening was moved earlier than the usual December date. Expect the date to shift from year to year, and check our availability table or your operator in September.

Opening day matters only for the busiest dates. The first wave of agency reservations targets May to August, Easter and the long weekends. If you want a Saturday start in June, send your passport data to your operator before the opening, so the reservation goes in on the first morning.

Availability by month

From May to August, permits for most dates sell out months ahead, and the late-May and June dates around Inti Raymi go first. April, September and October fill more slowly. January, March, November and December usually have spaces a few weeks out, because they fall in the rainy season. February has no permits at all.

How early to book an Inca Trail permit (our planning rule, not an official figure)

Start month	Classic trail (route 1)	Short trail (route 5)	Weather
January	3 to 6 weeks	2 to 4 weeks	Wettest open month
February	Closed	Closed	Network closed for maintenance
March	1 to 2 months	3 to 6 weeks	Rain easing late in the month
April	3 to 4 months	1 to 2 months	Green, some showers
May	6 months or more	2 to 3 months	Dry, clear, cold nights
June	6 months or more, on opening day for Inti Raymi week	3 months	Dry, coldest nights
July	6 months or more	3 months	Dry, busiest month
August	6 months or more	2 to 3 months	Dry, windy
September	3 to 5 months	1 to 2 months	Dry, warming
October	2 to 4 months	1 month	First rains
November	1 to 2 months	3 to 4 weeks	Showers most afternoons
December	1 to 2 months, more for the holidays	3 to 4 weeks	Rainy

The timing table below is our planning rule from booking the trail, not an official figure. Real availability changes daily. A licensed operator can check the live count in the DDC Cusco system for your exact date.

The February closure

The Inca Trail network closes every February, by rule. Article 10 of the regulation sets the closure for natural recovery of the ecosystem and maintenance of the heritage and its facilities. DDC Cusco confirms the dates each January. During the month, crews clear vegetation from the Inca walls, repair stone steps and bridges, and rebuild the campsites at Pacaymayo, Phuyupatamarca and Wiñay Wayna.

Machu Picchu itself stays open in February. A train tour still works, and so do treks that do not use the Inca Trail network, such as Salkantay to Santa Teresa or Lares. Expect heavy afternoon rain on any of them.

Names, passports and the no-transfer rule

The permit is nominal, personal and non-transferable, valid only for the route and date booked, per Article 22 of the regulation. Foreign hikers must identify themselves with their passport at the checkpoints. The name and passport number on the permit have to match the document you carry.

• Send your operator a clear photo of your passport data page, not a typed copy. Most errors come from retyping.
• If you plan to renew your passport before the trip, renew first and book with the new number.
• If you renew after booking, tell your operator the same day and carry both passports.
• DDC Cusco decides whether a passport number can be updated on the permit, so a fix is never guaranteed.
• A permit cannot be moved to a friend or a different date. A traveler who does not show up loses the full entry fee, per Article 21.

Agencies can cancel spaces up to 48 hours before the start, without a refund of the entry, and the cancelled spaces cannot be used again. That is why operators' cancellation terms for the permit portion are strict. Read them before you pay the deposit.

Best time to hike the Inca Trail

The best months to hike are May to September, the dry season in the Andes, with clear mornings and cold nights near freezing at the high camps. Our pick is May or September: the weather is close to July's and the permits are a little easier to get. April and October are greener, with some afternoon showers. January and March are the wettest open months, and the stone steps turn slick.

Routes in the Inca Trail network

The regulation defines six routes. Most hikers mean route 1 when they say "the Inca Trail". Route 5 is the short version, often sold as the 1-day or 2-day Inca Trail, and it has its own quota of 250 a day. Route 6 is listed in the regulation but, per the Ministerio de Cultura's 2026 sale announcement, still needs technical coordination before it opens.

Routes in the Inca Trail network

Route	Start	Length of stay	Daily cap (people)	Notes
Route 1	Piscacucho (KM 82)	4 days, 3 nights	500	The Classic Inca Trail via Wayllabamba and Wiñay Wayna
Route 2	Qorihuayrachina (KM 88)	4 days, 3 nights	500	Starts a little further down the valley
Route 3	Soraypampa	6 days, 5 nights	500	Salkantay joining the Inca Trail, needs a permit
Route 4	Piscacucho (KM 82)	4 days, 3 nights	500	Via Pacaymayo Bajo and Chachabamba (KM 104)
Route 5	Chachabamba (KM 104)	Direct access, 1 day on the trail	250	The short Inca Trail, guide with up to 4 hikers, no porters
Route 6	Paucarcancha	Direct access	Not set	Listed in the regulation, not yet opened per the 2026 announcement

When the permits are gone

A sold-out Inca Trail does not mean no trek to Machu Picchu. The alternatives below need no Inca Trail permit (except the short trail), and some of them are, in our view, better walks.

Salkantay Trek

Five days over the 4,630 m (15,190 ft) Salkantay Pass, down through cloud forest to Aguas Calientes, with no permit and no daily cap. It is higher and longer than the Classic Inca Trail, with fewer ruins and bigger mountains. Read the Salkantay trek guide for the day-by-day route.

Short Inca Trail from KM 104

Route 5 starts at Chachabamba, KM 104 of the railway, and climbs past Wiñay Wayna to the Sun Gate in about 12 km (7.5 mi). It needs a permit, but from a separate quota of 250 a day, so it often has room when the classic trail does not. You get Wiñay Wayna, to us the finest ruin on the trail, and the Sun Gate arrival in one day.

Lares Trek

Four days through Quechua weaving villages and high passes, then the train to Aguas Calientes. No permit, small groups, and more contact with village life than on any other route. Compare these and other options among our treks from Cusco.

Not sure which to choose? Our Salkantay versus Inca Trail comparison sets the two side by side on altitude, distance and effort.