What the Manaslu Circuit Trek Actually Costs: A Full 2026 Breakdown

Twelve thousand five hundred and twelve people walked the Manaslu Circuit in the 2024/25 season. Annapurna, one valley over, saw roughly 250,000. That gap is the first thing to understand about what this trek costs, because a quieter trail with a government-capped restricted area permit prices differently than an open route with a hundred teahouses bidding for your business.

A full guided package runs $850 to $2,199 in 2026, verified across eight independent agency breakdowns plus our own books. Most mid-range packages land between $1,300 and $1,800. Our own 15-day all-inclusive package is $1,675, guide, porter, all three permits, every night's teahouse bed, three meals a day on the trail. I'll put that number against the market honestly rather than just quoting a range and leaving you to guess where we sit inside it, because that's the part most cost pages skip.

For the route itself, the itinerary day by day, and what Larkya La actually feels like at 5,106m, the complete Manaslu Circuit guide covers that separately. This is the money version.

The gap between $850 and $2,199 isn't a pricing mystery. It's group size, trip length, and how many of the daily extras below get bundled into your package versus left for you to pay at each teahouse. Once you see where each dollar goes, that wide range stops looking arbitrary.

#The full cost breakdown at a glance

That table is the one worth screenshotting before you request a quote from anyone. Everything below explains where each number comes from.

#Permit costs, the pure numbers

Three permits, and the price is set by the Nepal government, not by whichever agency you book with. The Manaslu Restricted Area Permit runs $100 per person for the first seven days in peak season, September to November, then $15 for every additional day. Off-season, December through August, it drops to $75 for the first week and $10 a day after that.

On top of the RAP, you need the Manaslu Conservation Area Permit and the Annapurna Conservation Area Permit, because the standard route exits over Larkya La into ACAP territory near Dharapani. MCAP and ACAP each cost NPR 3,000 for foreigners, which works out to roughly $22 to $30 apiece depending on the exchange rate the bank or the money changer is running that week. Same fixed rupee price, a small range in dollars, nothing more mysterious than currency conversion.

Add it up and here's where the day-count matters. Budget $150 to $220 in permits alone if your restricted-zone stretch keeps close to the RAP's included seven days. Our own Nepal trekking permits guide walks a slower, nine-day version of the same restricted-zone stretch out to $250 to $300, spread across a fourteen-day itinerary overall, which is the number to use if your schedule builds in an extra night around Samagaon or Samdo. Same permits, same fee structure, just a different number of nights inside the restricted boundary. This article treats permits as a budget line item only. For the application process itself, see the guide linked above or our permits resource page.

It's a fair question why a Manaslu permit costs more than an open-route park fee elsewhere in Nepal. The Restricted Area Permit funds direct government administration of a border-adjacent conservation zone and deliberately limits how many people can be on the trail at once. That's also why you won't find the crowds Everest or Annapurna see at their busiest viewpoints. You're paying for the ratio as much as the paperwork.

#Guide, porter, and tipping

A licensed guide runs $25 to $40 a day. A porter runs $18 to $30 a day. Both figures usually cover the crew member's own food and lodging on the trail, so you aren't paying for their teahouse room on top of their wage. Over a 15-day trek, that's roughly $375 to $600 for the guide and $270 to $450 for the porter if you were hiring them as standalone services outside a package. Inside a package, those numbers get folded into the total instead of appearing as separate line items on your invoice.

You can't legally walk the restricted section without a licensed guide arranged through a registered agency. This is simply how the permit is structured, and it means "guide-only, skip the agency" isn't really available here the way it might be on an open route. What it does mean for your budget is that the guide's day rate is a fixed cost, not a negotiable extra.

Some budget operators charge for the porter separately instead of folding it into the headline price. Check that single line item before comparing two quotes side by side. It's a $270 to $450 swing hiding inside what looks like the cheaper option.

Tipping runs $10 to $15 a day for your guide and $8 to $10 a day for your porter, paid as a lump sum in rupees on the final morning. For a 14-day trek that's roughly $150 to $180 for the guide and $100 to $150 for the porter, so budget $250 to $330 combined. Some trekkers instead do a flat 10 to 15% of the package price split between the crew, which lands in a similar place. It isn't required by law. It is how these two people make a living off a trail that sees a fraction of Everest's traffic, and it's worth planning for rather than scrambling for on the last night.

#What the trail costs beyond the package

Plan for an extra $15 to $30 a day in cash, separate from whatever you paid your agency up front.

Wifi, where you can get it, runs $2 to $8 a night and mostly disappears past Samdo. Hot showers cost $2 to $6, cheaper at lower villages where a solar panel does the heating, pricier near Samagaon where the gas cylinder that heats the water arrived on someone's back. Charging a phone or a power bank runs $1 to $5 a device depending on altitude. Boiled or bottled water climbs from about $1 a liter near Jagat to $4 or $5 near Samagaon and Dharamsala. A beer or a Coke at altitude runs $4 to $6.

Dharamsala sits at 4,460m and has exactly two guesthouses on the whole ridge. When there are only two roofs and everyone on the trail needs one that night, the price of a hot bucket of water stops being negotiable. High on the circuit a liter of boiled water can cost more than the same bottle would in Kathmandu, and trekkers pay it without much argument, usually on the morning their fingers are too cold to work a filter properly.

A plate of dal bhat costs NPR 300 to 400 near Machha Khola and NPR 700 to 900 by the time you reach Samagaon, free refills on rice and lentils included at most teahouses regardless of altitude. It's part of why dal bhat stays the default order for anyone watching a budget, filling and consistently priced even where everything else on the menu climbs.

There are no ATMs once you leave Kathmandu, and realistically none once you leave Arughat or Soti Khola. Carry all the rupees you'll need in cash before the trailhead, and carry smaller notes. A 1,000 rupee bill is hard for a small teahouse to break once you're two days past the last town with a bank branch.

None of this is optional if you want to stay clean, warm, and in touch with anyone back home, so budget for it as real trip spending, day to day.

Insurance belongs in this bucket too, even though it's paid before you fly rather than on the trail. A rescue flight from the Samagaon-to-Samdo stretch typically costs $4,000 to $7,000, and evacuations elsewhere on the circuit can run $3,000 to $12,000 depending on distance. That's why a policy naming helicopter evacuation, valid to at least 5,500m given Larkya La sits at 5,106m (a handful of 2026 guides list it closer to 5,160m, most likely GPS variance rather than a different pass), isn't a box you tick and forget. A solid two-week policy with adequate high-altitude and evacuation cover runs $80 to $120.

#Budget, mid-range, and private tiers

There's no five-star lodge on this route. Say that plainly before anyone books expecting one.

Budget, $850 to $1,000. Group-joining departure, shared teahouse rooms, standard menu, guide and porter costs split across the group. You get the same trail, the same mountains, and a smaller room to yourself than you might on a busier route, because Manaslu's teahouses are simply fewer and smaller than Everest's or Annapurna's.

Mid-range, $1,300 to $1,800. This is where our own package sits, at $1,675: private or twin-share rooms where the teahouse has them, a wider food selection, your own dedicated guide and porter, and the logistics handled end to end. This band is where most well-prepared trekkers land once they add everything up honestly.

Private or small-group upgrades, $2,000 and up. A private guide, a private jeep rather than a shared one, and priority on the limited private rooms that exist at places like Samagaon and Dharamsala. What you're paying for at this tier is exclusivity and flexibility on departure dates, not a fundamentally different trail experience. The mountain doesn't get more comfortable because you paid more for it. Nobody sells a heli-supported luxury Manaslu package the way some operators do for Everest Base Camp, because the lodges to support one don't exist yet this far into the restricted zone.

Two people traveling together sit in an unusual sweet spot on this route. You get most of the efficiency of a group departure, since one guide and one porter, sometimes even a shared porter, still covers both of you, without needing to coordinate around a scheduled group's dates. A two-person private booking often prices closer to $1,400 to $1,900 per person than the $2,000-plus a true solo private trek runs.

If you want to extend the trip rather than upgrade the comfort, the Tsum Valley extension or a combined Manaslu and Annapurna Circuit itinerary both add cost roughly in proportion to the extra days, more guide and porter wages, more nights of lodging, and in Tsum Valley's case, an additional permit. Worth a direct quote, since the day count varies by how much of each valley you want to see.

#How Manaslu compares to Everest Base Camp, Annapurna Circuit, and Langtang

Manaslu is cheaper than Everest Base Camp and roughly comparable to, sometimes a touch pricier than, the Annapurna Circuit. EBC's cost is driven mostly by the Lukla flight, $390 to $550 return depending on whether you fly direct from Kathmandu or drive out to Ramechhap first, and a trail so busy that teahouse prices climb accordingly. Manaslu needs no flight at all, just a jeep ride to Soti Khola, and that alone typically makes it 20 to 30% cheaper than EBC for a comparable service level. That holds even though Manaslu's permits cost more on paper. Your three Manaslu permits run $150 to $220, where EBC's two, the Sagarmatha National Park fee and the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu municipality fee, come to NPR 6,000 together, roughly $44. There's no TIMS card in the Khumbu any more, and there hasn't been for a while.

Annapurna Circuit sits closest to Manaslu in price, with cheaper permits, around $30 to $40 total, but most of the route now runs alongside a road on both ends, which is a tradeoff some trekkers are happy to make for a lower bill and some aren't. Langtang is the budget outlier of the group. No restricted permit, no domestic flight, a shorter trek overall, and it shows in the price.

Why is Manaslu, on paper, the more expensive of the two circuit-style treks despite fewer creature comforts? The restricted area permit is most of the answer. It's a government-set fee that funds conservation and controls trekker volume in an area bordering Tibet, and it's the same reason the trail stays this quiet. You're paying for the ratio: fewer teahouses, fewer trekkers, more room at the table when you do sit down for dinner.

If you're weighing EBC directly, our Everest Base Camp trek page has the same kind of honest pricing, and the Annapurna Circuit trek page does too if the road sections don't bother you.

#What it costs in other currencies, and with flights

Every figure in this article is in US dollars, since that's the currency the trekking industry quotes in globally, but the actual payment usually lands in Nepali rupees or whatever currency your agency invoices in.

Convert the $1,300 to $1,800 mid-range band and it works out to roughly £1,020 to £1,415 in British pounds, or somewhere around AUD $2,000 to AUD $2,750, at rates that move week to week, so treat these as approximate, not numbers to hold an agency to. The same conversion applies down to individual line items. A $25 guide day rate is close to £20 or AUD $38, give or take whatever the exchange rate is doing that day.

None of the figures above include your international flight into Kathmandu. That's genuinely the largest variable in your total trip cost, and the one this article can't pin down, since it depends entirely on where you're flying from. A return flight from London or Sydney into Kathmandu commonly runs $700 to $1,400 depending on season and how far ahead you book, on top of everything above. Budget it separately, and book it once your trek dates are confirmed rather than the other way around. Restricted Area Permit season windows, peak September to November, off-season the rest of the year, matter more to your itinerary than flight availability does.

#Solo and private trekking after the March 2026 rule

Since March 22, 2026, a solo traveler can get the Restricted Area Permit issued under their own name, without pairing up with a stranger to satisfy an old two-trekker minimum. That's a real change, but it's a hassle change, not a cost change. What it removes is the old workaround of paying for a permit in someone else's name just to get your own approved.

Cost-wise, going solo still means you're the only person splitting a private guide's day rate, $25 to $40, and often a private jeep transfer, instead of sharing those costs across a group. Expect a solo, private Manaslu trek to run $1,600 to $2,200 for 15 to 16 days, noticeably more per person than a $850 to $1,000 group-joining departure at a comparable service level. The guide requirement itself hasn't changed either, one licensed guide for up to seven trekkers, which is why the per-person guide cost drops so sharply the moment you're trekking with even one other person.

If your dates are flexible, ask your agency whether a group departure is already forming close to when you want to go. Joining one, even a small one, is the single biggest lever on this trek's price.

#What the package covers, and what it doesn't

The single most useful thing you can do before comparing two quotes is work out what each one leaves out. Our $1,675 covers all three permits, your licensed guide and your porter including their wages, food and lodging, every night's teahouse bed on the trail, three meals a day while you're walking, the jeep transport out to the trailhead and back from Dharapani, and a night in Kathmandu either side with airport transfers.

What it doesn't cover is the part that catches people out, so here it is with real numbers attached.

Add the trek, the visa, insurance, tips and daily extras together and a realistic all-in figure for 15 days, international flights aside, sits closer to $2,100 to $2,300. That is the number worth budgeting against, not the package price on its own. Any agency quoting you a headline figure without walking you through this second list is quoting you half a trip.

The package price also shifts with trip length. A tighter 14-day itinerary that drops a second acclimatization day usually prices $50 to $100 below the 15-day version, since that's one fewer night of guide and porter wages and one fewer teahouse bill. A 16-day itinerary that adds a night at Bimtang or a side trip toward Pungyen Gompa runs $80 to $150 above it. None of these are large swings in either direction, because the fixed costs, permits, transport, agency overhead, stay the same no matter how many nights fall in between.

#Cutting cost without cutting the guide, porter, or permits

A few adjustments lower the bill without touching anything that keeps you safe on a remote trail.

Join a scheduled group departure instead of booking private. Guide, porter, and often jeep transport costs split across the group rather than falling on one person, which is why budget departures run $850 to $1,000 against $1,500-plus for a solo private booking.

Travel outside the September to November window, when the Restricted Area Permit drops from $100 to $75 for the first week and agencies tend to discount the quieter months. The overlooked version of this is spring. March, April and May sit outside the permit's peak-price window but bring some of the best walking weather of the year, rhododendron in flower through the lower valleys and long clear mornings before the cloud builds. You pay the off-season permit rate for what is, in practice, a peak-quality trek. Start the walk from Machha Khola instead of Soti Khola, which shaves a day of guide wages and lodging off the trip without cutting any of the route's highlights. Skip optional side trips, Pungyen Gompa is the usual one, if the budget matters more than the extra mileage.

Book early if you're aiming for peak season. Permit paperwork and teahouse room allocation both tighten up in September and October, and agencies typically ask for a deposit, commonly 20 to 30% of the package price, to lock in your dates and begin the permit process, with the balance due before departure. Booking six to eight weeks out gives an agency room to secure your permit slot and decent rooms at Samagaon and Dharamsala, where two guesthouses covering a full trekking season fill up fast in the busiest weeks of October.

What none of that means is trimming the guide, the porter, or any of the three permits. Those aren't optional line items on a restricted-area trek. An agency quoting you a price without them is quoting a permit application that won't get approved.

Twelve and a half thousand people walked this trail in 2024/25. That's a number worth sitting with if you're deciding between Manaslu and a busier alternative, because it's the reason a hot shower at Dharamsala costs what it costs, and also the reason you'll likely have the dining room mostly to yourself on a Tuesday night at 4,460m.

If you want a straight answer on where your dates and group size land inside these numbers, our 15-day Manaslu Circuit Trek page has the full itinerary, and you're welcome to get in touch if you'd rather we ran the numbers against your actual dates and group size than have you work them out from the ranges above.