YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Yellowstone National Park (YNP) released its Annual Park Recreation Visitation numbers, sharing that the park saw a climb in recreation visits in 2024, making it the second busiest year on record since 1904.
A total of 4,744,353 people visited YNP in 2024, a 5.4% increase from 2023, per the visitation report.
The busiest year in the park’s history was 2021, with 4,860,242 recreation visits. Visitation in 2023 ranks third, with 4,501,382 visitors.
According to the National Park Service’s (NPS) statistics portal, the first time YNP topped one million annual recreation visits was 1948. It crossed the two million annual recreation visits threshold in 1965, and topped three million for the first time in 1992. 2015 was the first time visitation exceeded four million.
So far in 2025, YNP has hosted 40,363 recreation visits in January, 44,133 in February and 33,284 in March.
National parks across the U.S. have seen a rising trend in visitation. Grand Teton National Park (GTNP) jumped to 3,628,222 recreation visits in 2024, from 3,417,106 recreation visits in 2023. 2024 was the second busiest year on record for GTNP, just shy of 2021’s 3,885,230 recreation visits.
On March 5, the NPS reported a record-setting 331,863,358 visits in 2024. That report arrived amid news of a 9% cut to the NPS workforce, according to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
“The NPS just reported the highest visitation in its history, as the administration conducts massive firings and threatens to close visitor centers and public safety facilities,” NPCA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Kristen Brengel said in a statement.
According to the NPS, last year’s increase of 6.36 million recreation visits was a 2% jump from 2023. The previous record was set in 2016, with 330,971,689 recreation visits.
