Information about current Inca Trail trek permit availability can be found on the DRCC website (Direccion Regional de Cultura Cusco) www.machupicchu.gob.pe. To make things easier to understand we recommend that you click on one of the links below which will bring you to the relevant page of the government’s website showing a summary of the number of Inca Trail trek permits available for each month. It should be noted that this website is often not working. If you cannot access the website or any of the links below are not working then just try again in a few hours (or days!) time.
Number of remaining Inca Trail permits:
January 2015
February Inca Trail closed throughout the month
“Sold out” signifies that all Inca Trail trek permits have sold out for that month. Therefore no company is able to sell you the classic 4 day Inca Trail trek or the shorter 2 day trek. You will have to do an alternative trek.
There aren’t any results for February because the Inca Trail is closed each year in February for maintenance and to allow conservation projects to take place.
By following one of the links above you should be brought to a page that looks similar to the one shown below. Obviously the values will be different because the information below was taken from the government website on 06 June 2011. We’ve tried to explain the significance of the information by adding comments and translations in red.
The webpage obtained by following the links above will show the real-time availability of Inca Trail trek permits. Trek permits are required for the classic 4-day Inca Trail, the shorter 2-day Inca Trail and the 7-day Salkantay / Inca Trail trek. Alternative treks such as Lares Valley, Ausangate, Choquequirao, and the 5-day Inca Trail via Santa Teresa do not require trek permits. The government issues a maximum of 500 trek permits for each day. Since trekking staff are also included within this limit of 500 persons this means that, on average, about 200 trek permits are allocated to tourists and about 300 allocated to guides, cooks and porters.
Interpretation of the Results: If the number of spaces available is zero then it basically means that all the trek permits have been sold out for that date and no matter how many companies you contact, none of them will be able to offer you space on the Inca Trail. The only options that you have are to look at an alternative departure date or an alternative trek to the Inca Trail. Even if companies have cancellations regulations prevent them from filling these spaces with other clients. This may sound ridiculous but the system has been designed to prevent “wealthy” companies buying up all the spaces in advance using made-up names and passport numbers and then cancelling them nearer the time only to fill the cancelled spaces with real clients. The number of remaining spaces does not fall steadily, rather it falls exponentially. That it to say that the number of spaces remains between 300 and 500 for quite along time but as it starts to fall below 250 more companies decide to buy permits for their groups and the rate that the spaces drop starts to increase. Often the last 100 spaces can sell out in a day or so. For example just because there may be 150 spaces available on the day that you want to start the trek, by the time you find a suitable trekking company and send them your trek deposit, it doesn’t mean that there will still be 150 spaces left! So it is highly recommended to book your Inca Trail as far in advance as possible.