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Seasonal
Eight Fee-Free Days in 2026, and a Change to Who They Apply To
- By Prudence Ashby
- Published
- Last updated
- Seasonal
Eight dates carry no entrance charge this year. One of them falls in peak leaf season, which makes it both the best value and the worst queue of the autumn.
UnsplashThe National Park Service waives entrance fees on eight dates in 2026, and all of them apply at Harpers Ferry.
The dates are 16 February for Presidents Day, 25 May for Memorial Day, 14 June for Flag Day, 3 to 5 July over the Independence Day weekend, 25 August for the 110th birthday of the National Park Service, 17 September for Constitution Day, 27 October for Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, and 11 November for Veterans Day.
One change matters this year. Beginning in 2026, free entrance on these days applies to United States citizens and residents only. Non-residents pay the standard entrance fee and any applicable non-resident fees on those dates.
At Harpers Ferry the waiver removes the $20 private vehicle charge, or $10 a head for anyone arriving on foot or by bicycle. It does not change anything else: museums and the visitor center still run 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., trails and parking areas still open thirty minutes before sunrise and close thirty minutes after sunset, and the shuttle from Cavalier Heights still runs to its usual timetable.
What it does change is the crowd, and here the arithmetic is worth doing before you commit.
A town of 269 residents receives its visitors through one parking lot and one shuttle bus service. A fee-free day concentrates arrivals, and 27 October is the sharpest case on the calendar: a Tuesday in the middle of peak leaf season on the ridges. Expect it to be the busiest weekday of the autumn by a distance. The day before and the day after are free of the queue and cost $20.
The more useful dates for anyone wanting a quiet visit are 16 February, when the exhibit buildings are close to empty and a ranger has time to talk, and 11 November, a Wednesday after the leaves have gone, when the bare canopy opens up the views from all three heights.
One thing the waiver does not cover: rafting, tubing and guided evening walks are run by private operators outside the park boundary and are priced separately.
Fee-free dates are set annually by the National Park Service and can change. Confirm before travelling.
Sourcing2026 entrance fee-free dates and the citizens-and-residents limitation as published by the National Park Service. Dates are set annually and subject to change.
Plan around it
What this means for visitors
The pages that carry the practical detail behind this story — hours, costs, access and where it sits on Harpers Ferry.
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Who reported this
Prudence Ashby
Senior Editor
Prudence has edited mid-Atlantic travel coverage for twelve years and owns the practical pages here: the Cavalier Heights lot, the shuttle timetable either side of the clock change, fees that are card-only, and which navigation apps send drivers down a hill with nowhere to stop. She quotes park figures with the date she checked them.
Our newsroom is machine-assisted and human-edited: stories are drafted from verified public sources and checked before they publish. How that works is set out in our editorial standards.