Corcovado National Park: Fees, Reservations, Guide Rule and Daily Quotas

Verified on 25 September 2026, on SINAC’s Spanish and English Corcovado pages, all six Spanish sector pages, the park’s reservation-policy resolution SINAC-ACOSA-D-R-076-2022, and the Sirena station concessionaire’s own site.

Entry to Corcovado costs a non-resident adult USD 16.95 a day, and you cannot simply turn up. SINAC’s Spanish page states that an advance reservation is compulsory (“es obligatorio realizar una reservación previa”), made by email; the park is not on SINAC’s online ticket system, and its FAQ says Corcovado is paid by bank deposit. Five of SINAC’s six sector pages say you must enter with a local guide registered with the Área de Conservación Osa, or be refused entry. The park admits visitors 07:00 to 15:00, and resolution 076-2022 caps daily entries at 560 across six sectors (660 in cruise season, when San Pedrillo adds 100 afternoon places), with 70 overnight places, all at Sirena.

The data describes a park run by quota and paperwork rather than a ticket booth — a per-sector daily cap, bookings by email, payment by bank transfer slip — and by rules that SINAC’s own pages state in more than one way: the guide rule three ways, the October closure three ways, the hours two ways.

Entry fees

The columns reconcile at the 13% IVA — 15 × 1.13 = 16.95 (our arithmetic) — so the English page is the pre-tax figure and the Spanish pages the tax-inclusive one. Every Spanish sector page prints the same USD 16.95. The English page also lists camping at USD 4 (San Pedrillo and Sirena, bring your own tent); no Spanish page we read prints a camping fee, and the resolution’s only overnight places are at Sirena. SINAC’s non-resident fees for other parks, side by side, are on our Costa Rica trip cost page.

The guide rule, as SINAC writes it

SINAC’s pages do not word this rule the same way:

• Five Spanish sector pages (Sirena, La Leona, Los Patos, Los Planes, San Pedrillo): “para ingresar al parque debe hacerlo acompañado de un guía local que se encuentre registrado ante la oficina del Programa de Turismo Sostenible de ACOSA … De lo contrario se le negara el ingreso” — enter with a registered local guide or be denied entry. The sixth, El Tigre, says instead that its recommendation is always to go with a local guide.
• The Spanish main page: visitors enter “preferiblemente acompañado con un guía de turismo” — preferably with a guide — but the La Leona–Sirena and Los Patos–Sirena trails “debe ir acompañado por un guía de turismo”, must be walked with one; its recommendations add “se debe contratar un guía local”.
• The English main page: “you should hire a local guide.” SINAC’s English Sirena page, though, carries the sector pages’ rule: “you must do so accompanied by a local guide who must be registered with the office of the Sustainable Tourism Program of ACOSA … Otherwise, you will be denied entry to the Protected Area.”
• ADI Corcovado, which runs the Sirena station services: a guide is mandatory if you hike in to Sirena from La Leona or Los Patos, “as required by SINAC-ACOSA park regulations”; guiding is private and you arrange it yourself.

The Spanish pages, the English Sirena page and ADI Corcovado all require a guide on the two long trails into Sirena; the English main page is the only one that stops at “should”. For the other entrances, five of the six sector pages say required. Neither SINAC nor ADI Corcovado publishes a guide’s fee.

Reservation rules

From resolution SINAC-ACOSA-D-R-076-2022, dated 14 November 2022 and in force from 15 November 2022, unless noted:

The sector pages add two rules the resolution words differently: a refund request must be made with justification before 15 calendar days, and changes are accepted only for flight cancellation, illness or park closure, citing directive 015-2018.

SINAC publishes two reservation addresses. The resolution, the SICORE FAQ and the contact block of the Spanish page give [email protected]; the reservations section of the same page, the separate Contacto page, SINAC’s Compra y Reserva en Línea page and ADI Corcovado give [email protected]. El Tigre is booked separately, through the Asociación Dos Brazos de Río Tigre.

Daily quotas by sector

*Authorised temporarily. **120 morning places for tour operators; a further 100 afternoon places exist only in cruise season. ***Under study. The resolution adds that the number of places is “sujetos a cambios”. It also sets high season from 1 November to 30 May and low season from 1 June to 31 October.

Hours and closures — where SINAC contradicts itself

• Hours: 07:00 to 15:00, Monday to Sunday, on the Spanish main page, every Spanish sector page and the resolution. The English page says every day, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• October: resolution 076-2022 closes the whole park every year from 1 to 31 October for trail and facility maintenance. The English page, against the resolution, says only Sirena closes in October. The Spanish main page mentions no October closure. The resolution is the only one of the three that carries a date.
• San Pedrillo: SINAC’s Spanish Cómo llegar page says the San Pedrillo entrance closes from 1 May to 1 December every year. The San Pedrillo sector page does not mention it, and the resolution sets a San Pedrillo quota with no seasonal closure.
• Flights to Sirena: the Spanish Sirena page says air access “está temporalmente suspendido”, with no date. The English pages still describe flights.

The six sectors

The Los Patos–Sirena distance has three published figures: 23 km on the Spanish Sirena page, 20 km on the English Sirena page and 27 km on the English How to get page. The Spanish and English Sirena pages agree on 8–9 hours. SINAC’s English page counts five sectors, omitting Los Planes; the Spanish pages list six.

SINAC’s rules for all sectors: no swimming at the park beaches (“hay corrientes fuertes”), lagoons or rivers; no picnics inside the park; no food brought into Sirena; no night walks; no single-use plastic.

Staying overnight at Sirena

Sirena’s lodging, meals, nature shop and lockers are run under a SINAC use permit by the Asociación de Desarrollo Integral Corcovado-Carate (ADI Corcovado). Its own Sirena page, read on 25 September 2026, describes shared beds under two roofed platforms with shared bathrooms and no private rooms, and publishes these rates:

A night with breakfast, snack and dinner is USD 87 for an adult (our arithmetic), before the USD 16.95 entry. ADI Corcovado’s page describes booking in two steps: park entry with SINAC-ACOSA first, then lodging and meals with ADI Corcovado.

These are not the figures SINAC’s English page still prints. That page, and a SINAC permit poster whose PDF file was created on 28 December 2016, list lodging USD 30, breakfast USD 20, lunch USD 25, dinner USD 25 and lockers USD 4. The poster announces a permit approved on 15 December 2016 to run from 15 January 2017 “durante los próximos 3 años”. ADI Corcovado’s current table has no lunch column and prices a USD 12 snack instead.

Getting to the gateways

SINAC names Drake, Puerto Jiménez, Rancho Quemado, La Palma, Carate, Los Planes and El Tigre as the communities around the park. The regulated bus fare San José – Puerto Jiménez is CRC 8,810 (route 699 BS, Autotransportes Blanco Lobo, senior CRC 6,610, ARESEP resolution RE-0115-IT-2026 from 4 September 2026) — about USD 19.43 at the BCCR reference sell rate of 453.50 colones to the dollar on 26 August 2026 (our conversion). Sansa’s fares to Drake Bay and Puerto Jiménez are on our Costa Rica trip cost page. SINAC also names Uvita as a boat departure point for San Pedrillo; buses and shuttles to Uvita are on our Marino Ballena National Park page.

SINAC’s sector pages give about 5,500 mm of rain a year in the mountains and 3,500 mm on the coast, a December–April dry season, and September and October as the wettest months. The meteorological service’s regional figures for the Pacífico Sur are on our best time to visit page.

For scale: 42,570 hectares of land and 5,375 of sea on the sector pages (the main page says 42,560 and 3,354), a highest point of 782 m, and — SINAC’s own claim — “el 2,5 % de la biodiversidad del mundo”. The park was created by decree on 24 October 1975.

What SINAC and the concessionaire don’t publish

Checked on 25 September 2026:

• A guide’s fee. SINAC and ADI Corcovado both say guiding is private and arranged by the visitor; neither prints a rate.
• The list of registered guides. SINAC’s sector pages say “Ver lista adjunta de guías locales” and ADI Corcovado says to request it from SINAC-ACOSA by email, but none of the pages we read links or carries the list.
• A date for Sirena’s air-access suspension, or for its end.
• A dated statement reconciling the October closure — whole park or Sirena only — or the San Pedrillo May–December closure with the resolution’s year-round San Pedrillo quota.

How we researched this

Scope: this page reports source research, not an on-site visit. On 25 September 2026 we read SINAC’s Spanish and English Corcovado pages, the six Spanish sector pages, the English Sirena and How to get pages, the Spanish Cómo llegar and Contacto pages, the SICORE portal FAQ and SINAC’s online-booking list; downloaded resolution SINAC-ACOSA-D-R-076-2022 and the SINAC permit poster as PDFs; read ADI Corcovado’s own Sirena and booking pages; and pulled the San José–Puerto Jiménez fare from ARESEP’s current bus-tariff dataset. Where SINAC’s pages disagree with each other, every version is printed with its source.

Last verified: 25 September 2026. Fees, quotas and closures are set by decree and resolution and can change without notice; resolution 076-2022 itself says its quotas are subject to change.

Figures on this page labelled our arithmetic or our conversion are calculated by us from the sourced inputs cited below — the 13% IVA reconciliation, the USD 87 Sirena total and the dollar conversion. Every other figure is reproduced as its named source published it.

Sources

• SINAC — Parque Nacional Corcovado (Spanish) — USD 16.95 / USD 5.65 / CRC 1,808 / CRC 565, the compulsory reservation, both reservation emails, 07:00–15:00, the “preferiblemente” guide wording and the two guide-only trails, the six sectors, the rules, the gateway communities, the 2.5% biodiversity claim, the 1975 decree and the main-page area figures.
• SINAC — Corcovado National Park (English) — USD 15 and USD 5 pre-tax, USD 4 camping, the 7 a.m.–4 p.m. hours, the Sirena-only October closure, five sectors, “you should hire a local guide”, and the old Sirena price list.
• SINAC sector pages — Sirena, La Leona, San Pedrillo, Los Patos, Los Planes, El Tigre — the registered-guide rule, six-month booking horizon, refund and change conditions, access routes, trail lengths and times, the suspended air access, the 23 km and 16.5 km Sirena distances, the 5,500 / 3,500 mm rainfall and the sector-page area figures.
• SINAC — Sirena Sector (English) and How to get — the 20 km and 27 km Los Patos–Sirena figures, the 16 km La Leona–Sirena figure, and the English Sirena page’s registered-guide rule.
• SINAC — Corcovado, ¿Cómo llegar? and Contacto — the San Pedrillo 1 May–1 December closure, the Los Patos access from Guadalupe, boats from Sierpe, Drake or Uvita, and the contact email.
• SINAC-ACOSA — Resolution SINAC-ACOSA-D-R-076-2022, Corcovado reservation policies (PDF) — the daily quotas, 07:00–15:00, high and low season, six-month horizon, 10 + 1 group size, bank-deposit payment, five-day stay limit, the 1–31 October closure, the no-change and no-transfer rules, refunds and 30-day rescheduling, and its 14 / 15 November 2022 dates.
• SINAC — SICORE portal FAQ and Compra y Reserva en Línea — Corcovado’s bank-deposit payment and its absence from the online-ticket lists.
• SINAC-ACOSA — Permiso de Uso PNC poster (PDF) — the 2016 permit, its 15 January 2017 start and three-year term, and the old Sirena price list with the USD 25 lunch.
• ADI Corcovado — Sirena Station (Spanish) — current lodging and meal rates, the shared-platform lodging, the two-step booking and the guide requirement on the hike-in routes.
• ARESEP — current bus tariff dataset — San José–Puerto Jiménez CRC 8,810 / CRC 6,610, route 699 BS, RE-0115-IT-2026.
• BCCR — reference sell rate — 453.50 colones to the dollar, 26 August 2026.

Written by Estuardo Enriquez. This site is independent, has no affiliate relationship with any operator or agency named here, and is not connected to any previous owner of this domain.