Full list of National Park fee free days as Juneteenth and MLK Day are axed

It comes as international visitors face a steep new fee to visit America’s parks

The Department of the Interior says it is undertaking ‘the most significant modernization of national park access in decades’ (Getty Images)

The National Park Service’s new free-admission policy takes effect Jan. 1, one of several changes announced by the Park Service late last month including higher admission fees for international visitors.

The option to visit on one of the “fee-free days” also disappears for non-Americans beginning next year.

In 2026, U.S. residents can get free admission to parks on President Donald Trump's birthday, which also happens to be Flag Day, but the Park Service is eliminating the benefit for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth.

The other days of free park admission in 2026 are Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Constitution Day, Veterans Day, President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday (Oct. 27) and the anniversary of the creation of the Park Service (Aug. 25).

Eliminating Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Americans were emancipated, removes two of the nation's most prominent civil rights holidays.

Trump is taking his ‘America First’ policy into the Great Outdoors with new rules that will force foreign visitors to pay more than triple the price to visit U.S. national parks (Getty/iStock)

Some civil rights leaders voiced opposition to the change after news about it began spreading.

“The raw & rank racism here stinks to high heaven,” Harvard Kennedy School professor Cornell William Brooks, a former president of the NAACP, wrote on social media about the new policy.

Kristen Brengel, a spokesperson for the National Parks Conservation Association, said that while presidential administrations have tweaked the free days in the past, the elimination of Martin Luther King Jr. Day is particularly concerning.

For one, the day has become a popular day of service for community groups that use the free day to perform volunteer projects at parks.

That will now be much more expensive, said Brengel, whose organization is a nonprofit that advocates for the park system.

Resident-only fee-free days for 2026:

• President’s Day (February 16, 2026)
• Memorial Day (May 25, 2026)
• Flag Day/President Trump’s birthday (June 14, 2026)
• Independence Day weekend (July 3–5, 2026)
• 110th Birthday of the National Park Service (August 25, 2026)
• Constitution Day (Sept. 17, 2026)
• Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday (Oct. 27, 2026)
• Veteran’s Day (November 11, 2026)

“Not only does it recognize an American hero, it's also a day when people go into parks to clean them up,” Brengel said. “Martin Luther King Jr. deserves a day of recognition … For some reason, Black history has repeatedly been targeted by this administration, and it shouldn’t be.”

Some Democratic lawmakers also weighed in to object to the new policy.

“The President didn’t just add his own birthday to the list, he removed both of these holidays that mark Black Americans’ struggle for civil rights and freedom,” said Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. “Our country deserves better.”

Since taking office, Trump has sought to eliminate programs seen as promoting diversity across the federal government, actions that have erased or downplayed America's history of racism as well as the civil rights victories of Black Americans.

Self-promotion is an old habit of the president's and one he has continued in his second term. He unsuccessfully put himself forward for the Nobel Peace Prize, renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace after himself, sought to put his name on the planned NFL stadium in the nation's capital and had a new children's savings program named after him.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested putting his visage on Mount Rushmore and the $100 bill.