You need two permits for Everest Base Camp, not three, and you don't need a TIMS card for this route. That trips up a lot of people, because plenty of blog posts still list TIMS as required, and some still describe a permit system that changed years ago.
Here's the short version: the Sagarmatha National Park permit and the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality permit. Both are checked on the trail. Both cost money that varies by nationality. Neither one is the old TIMS card, which no longer applies to this specific route (it's still used elsewhere in Nepal, which is where most of the confusion comes from).
Below is what each Everest Base Camp entry permit covers, where you actually get it, what it costs as of this writing, and what happens if you show up without it.
Sagarmatha National Park entry permit
Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality permit
A word on that second entry. The municipality calls this permit a "Trek-Card" on its own site, issued through the Tourist Information Center in Lukla, and it's the local government's own published rate rather than one pieced together from trekking blogs. It's worth noting anyway that this is a local fee, not a national one, and local rates are the kind that can move with less notice than something administered by a national body like the Nepal Tourism Board. Confirm it hasn't changed since this was checked, especially if you're reading this more than a few months after publication.
Pricing on both permits differs by nationality, and this is where people get caught out at the checkpoint. Nepali citizens pay a small fraction of the foreign rate. SAARC nationals (India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other member countries) pay a reduced rate. Everyone else pays the full foreign rate. Bring a passport that clearly shows your nationality, because the person at the desk is going to check it.
This one funds the park itself: trail maintenance, ranger staff, conservation work inside a protected area that also happens to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a national government fee, administered through the Nepal Tourism Board, and it applies to Sagarmatha National Park specifically, which covers the upper Khumbu including Everest Base Camp and the Gokyo valley.
You can buy it in Kathmandu before you fly to Lukla, at the Nepal Tourism Board office. Bring your passport and a passport-size photo; some desks ask for two. Or you can buy it at the park entrance gate in Monjo, which is where nearly everyone actually gets checked, since it sits right on the trail between Lukla and Namche Bazaar.
If you show up at Monjo without it, you're not turned away outright. You buy it there, on the spot, at the same posted rate. The only real cost is time, and during busy trekking seasons (October to November, March to April) that queue can run long enough to eat into your day's walking window. Buying it in Kathmandu beforehand just means one less thing to deal with on a day when you're also getting used to the altitude and the trail.
This is the one that trips people up, because it replaced the TIMS card for this region specifically, and a lot of older articles never got the memo. The municipality permit was introduced in 2018 as part of Nepal's shift toward local governance, giving the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality (the local government body covering Lukla and the surrounding villages) its own entry fee separate from the national park system.
You cannot buy this one in Kathmandu. It's issued locally only, either at a desk in Lukla near the airstrip when you land, or at the checkpoint in Monjo if you're arriving by a different route. There's no advance-purchase option through the Nepal Tourism Board or through any office outside the region. If you're still deciding on your route in, our guide to flying into Lukla covers what to expect from that leg of the trip.
The fee goes toward the municipality itself: trail upkeep, local infrastructure, and services for the villages your trek passes through. It's a genuinely local fee for a genuinely local government, which is part of why it operates on its own pricing schedule rather than the national park's.
You'll sometimes still hear guides or checkpoint staff refer to "TIMS" out of habit, even though the actual document you're handed is the municipality permit. Old signage and old habits linger longer than the rules they described.
No, not for this route. The TIMS card (Trekkers' Information Management System) was Nepal's older registration system, and it's still required for a lot of other regions when it comes to trekking permits in Nepal. If you're weighing a different route alongside EBC, our broader guide to trekking permits in Nepal breaks down what each region needs, since the rules genuinely differ from one trekking area to the next. For the Khumbu region specifically, the local municipality permit took over that role.
That said, rules like this can shift, and they have shifted before in this exact region. Before you travel, confirm the current requirement with a licensed trekking agency or directly with the Nepal Tourism Board, rather than taking any single article's word for it, including this one. If you're booking with an agency, ask them directly whether TIMS applies to your specific route and itinerary, especially if you're combining EBC with an approach through Jiri or Salleri, which can bring a different permit (Gaurishankar Conservation Area) into the mix.
Two things make the Everest Base Camp permit cost worth double-checking here. First, nationality changes the price, sometimes by a large margin. Second, these are two different government bodies publishing two different fees, and they don't update on the same schedule.
The national park figures come from the Nepal Tourism Board's own page. The municipality figures come from the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality's own site, where they list the entry permit as a "Trek-Card" issued through the Tourist Information Center in Lukla. Both are as current as their respective official pages, checked September 2026. A local government fee like the municipality's can still shift faster than a national one, so if you're reading this a while after publication, it's worth a quick check with your agency or at the permit desk before you finalize a budget. For the full picture of what a trip actually runs, including flights, guides, and food alongside these permit fees, see how much the full trek costs.
After you land in Lukla, the municipality permit is typically checked at a desk near the airstrip or at the municipality office in town, right at the start of your walk. Keep your passport handy from the moment you step off the plane.
The national park permit is checked further along, at the gate in Monjo, which you'll reach on your second day of walking, between Phakding and Namche Bazaar. There's sometimes a secondary check at Jorsalle as well. You can see exactly where that day falls in our full day-by-day itinerary.
At both checkpoints, bring your original passport. Some offices ask for a photocopy in addition to the original, and it's worth carrying a couple of copies just in case, since photocopy shops aren't exactly common on the trail. If the name or passport number on your permit doesn't match your passport, exactly, expect delays while staff sort it out. This happens more often than you'd think with transliterated names or middle names left off one document but not the other.
Getting your own permits for the Everest Base Camp trek is possible, at least for one of the two. You can handle the national park permit yourself. It's available in Kathmandu at the Nepal Tourism Board office, and independent trekkers buy it there or at Monjo all the time.
The municipality permit is a different story, but not because of your trekking style. It simply isn't available anywhere except locally, in Lukla or Monjo, whether you're independent or traveling with a guide. Nobody gets to skip that step or arrange it early.
What an agency actually changes is who's standing in line and handling the paperwork. If you book a guided package, your permits are typically arranged as part of the itinerary, and your guide handles the checkpoint process. If you're trekking independently, you're the one managing both permits yourself, which is entirely doable, just one more task on your plate during the first couple of days of the trip.
Your passport is the anchor document for both permits, and you'll be asked for it repeatedly along the route, not just at the two checkpoints. Carry the original, plus at least one photocopy.
You'll also need passport-size photos. Two is a safe number to bring, since different desks sometimes ask for different quantities, and photo printing options thin out once you're past Kathmandu. Some checkpoints still prefer physical photos and physical copies over anything on your phone, partly because signal and battery life aren't guaranteed at altitude. For the rest of what to bring, see our what to pack guide.
Travel insurance isn't a permit and nobody checks it at Monjo, but it's worth carrying proof of it anyway. Reputable insurance that covers high-altitude trekking and emergency evacuation matters a lot more once you're above Namche, and some agencies and lodges do ask to see it.
Nothing dramatic. You'll be stopped at the checkpoint you were supposed to clear, and you'll buy the permit there before you're allowed to continue. That's a delay to your day, not a crisis, though during peak season a long queue can genuinely cost you an hour or two of daylight you'd rather have spent walking.
Occasionally a checkpoint applies a small surcharge for buying on the spot rather than in advance, though this isn't universal and isn't something to plan around either way. The practical takeaway is logistics, not safety: sort your permits before you need them, and you avoid standing at a desk in Monjo while your itinerary slips.
A lot of numbers floating around the internet are old. Before you budget around any figure, including the ones in this article, ask: