The short answer: what the Annapurna Circuit costs
Booked direct with us, the guided 8-day Annapurna Circuit starts at £1,095 per person, based on two trekkers sharing. That is all-inclusive from the moment you leave Kathmandu to the moment you get back: guide, porter, permits, every teahouse night, three meals a day on the trail and all the ground transport in between. No UK agency margin, because there is no UK agency.
The number that actually matters, though, is the total trip budget from the UK, which is realistically £1,900–£2,500 per person. The gap is return flights, the Nepal visa, insurance that genuinely covers the 5,416 m pass, hotel nights in Kathmandu and Pokhara, tips, and the small daily spending on the trail. Those are the costs a headline price never includes, and they are the reason people who budget only for the package come home surprised.
Everything on this page is either our own price or a range we watch trekkers actually pay. Where it is a range, we say so. Where it depends on the season or the exchange rate, we say that too. We would rather you arrived with the right amount of money than be flattered by a low number.
| Our 8-day package, from | £1,095 per person, two sharing |
|---|---|
| Realistic total from the UK | £1,900–£2,500 per person |
| UK return flights | £650–£1,000 |
| Nepal visa (30 days) | US$50, roughly £40 |
| Trekking insurance to 6,000 m | £80–£150 |
| Permits (ACAP + TIMS) | ~£30, included in our price |
| Tips, guide and porter | £80–£120 per trekker |
| On-trail extras | £70–£140 over the trek |
What's included in the package price
The list below is identical whatever group size you book at, and it is the whole list. If something is not on it, it is not in the price. We would rather that be obvious now than negotiated in a teahouse at 4,000 m.
- All ground transport on the trip: Kathmandu to Besisahar, the 4WD jeep up the Marsyangdi to the trailhead, Jomsom to Pokhara and Pokhara to Kathmandu.
- A licensed, English-speaking guide for the whole trek, on the government licence system, with mountain first-aid training.
- A shared porter, one per two trekkers, carrying up to 24 kg between you.
- Every teahouse night on the trail, twin-share, including the beds at Thorong Phedi or High Camp that sell out in October.
- Three meals a day while trekking, breakfast, lunch and dinner, ordered from the lodge menu.
- The ACAP permit and TIMS card, arranged before you start walking.
- Guide and porter wages, insurance, food and lodging: this is not optional and we do not push it onto trekkers as a tip.
- A first-aid kit with a pulse oximeter, carried by the guide and used at Manang, Yak Kharka and Phedi.
- All government and local taxes.
What's not included, and what to budget for
None of the costs below are paid to us. They go to airlines, the Nepal immigration desk, your insurer, hotels and teahouses. Here is what UK trekkers on this trip actually spend.
UK → Kathmandu return flights: £650–£1,000
There are no direct flights from the UK to Nepal. Most people fly from Heathrow, Manchester or Edinburgh via Doha, Dubai, Istanbul or Delhi, with one stop and 13–17 hours in the air. Autumn is the expensive season because it is the trekking season; a January booking for an October departure typically saves £150–£250 against booking in August. Kathmandu's airport is small and delays cascade, which is another argument for the buffer day the itinerary already has.
Nepal visa: US$30–$125
UK passport holders get a tourist visa on arrival at Kathmandu. Bring clean US dollars in cash, or pay by card at the machines when they are working.
| 15 days | US$30 (~£24) |
| 30 days (covers a 14–21 day trek comfortably) | US$50 (~£40) |
| 90 days | US$125 (~£100) |
Trekking insurance: £80–£150
This is the line nobody should trim. A standard UK travel policy typically covers walking to 2,500 m or 3,000 m: the Annapurna Circuit tops out at 5,416 m, so you need a policy that names a limit of at least 6,000 m and covers helicopter evacuation and repatriation. UK trekkers on this trip commonly use BMC Trek, True Traveller and Snowcard; expect £80–£150 for a two- to three-week trip, more if you are over 65. A helicopter lift from Thorong Phedi to Kathmandu is a five-figure bill if you are uninsured. Bring the certificate on paper as well as on your phone: the lodges at Phedi have no signal.
Hotels and meals in Kathmandu and Pokhara: £120–£220
Budget three to four city nights across the trip. A clean 3-star twin in Thamel or Lakeside runs £20–£35 a night, and eating out is £5–£12 a head. We book these at operator rates if you want us to, or you can arrange your own. Either way it sits outside the trek price.
Tips for the guide and porter: £80–£120
Tipping is customary in Nepal and is not built into our price. For a trip, groups usually give the guide the equivalent of £8–£10 per trekker per day and the porter £5–£6, handed over together at the last dinner. Nobody will chase you for it and nobody will be rude if you tip less; it is genuinely at your discretion.
On-trail extras: £70–£140
Drinks, hot showers, charging, Wi-Fi and snacks. These are cheap at Jagat and expensive at Thorong Phedi, where everything arrives by mule. Detail in the cost-per-day section below.
Personal kit
If you already hill-walk in the UK you own most of what you need. The gaps are usually a proper down jacket, a four-season sleeping bag and decent gloves for the pass. Buying all three new in the UK is £300–£500; hiring the down jacket and sleeping bag in Pokhara or Kathmandu is about £1.50–£3 a day each. The packing list says which items are worth buying and which are fine to hire.
Annapurna Circuit cost per day
Two different questions hide inside "cost per day", so here are both answers.
What a day on the trail actually costs
Food and a bed on the circuit are priced by altitude and by how far the mule train has come. At Jagat you can eat and sleep for very little; at Thorong Phedi the same meal is roughly double. These are the ranges we see in the 2026 season, in Nepalese rupees with an approximate sterling conversion:
| Item | Low on the circuit | High (Manang → Phedi) |
|---|---|---|
| Teahouse room, twin | NPR 500–800 (~£3–£5) | NPR 1,000–2,000 (~£6–£12) |
| Dal bhat (refills included) | NPR 600–800 (~£3.50–£5) | NPR 900–1,300 (~£5–£8) |
| Breakfast | NPR 400–600 (~£2.50–£3.50) | NPR 600–900 (~£3.50–£5) |
| Boiled or filtered water, 1 litre | NPR 100–150 (~£0.60–£0.90) | NPR 250–400 (~£1.50–£2.40) |
| Hot shower | NPR 200–300 (~£1.20–£1.80) | NPR 400–600 (~£2.40–£3.50) |
| Phone charging, per device | NPR 150–250 (~£0.90–£1.50) | NPR 300–500 (~£1.80–£3) |
| Wi-Fi, per night | NPR 200–300 (~£1.20–£1.80) | NPR 400–600 (~£2.40–£3.50) |
| Chocolate bar / energy snack | NPR 150–250 (~£0.90–£1.50) | NPR 350–500 (~£2–£3) |
Add it up and an independent trekker's food-and-bed cost is roughly £18–£30 a day, rising with altitude, before permits, guide, porter or transport, all of which are compulsory now anyway.
What you spend on a guided trip
On our package the bed and the three meals are already paid. Your own daily spend is only the optional column: hot showers, charging, Wi-Fi, a beer in Muktinath, a slice of apple pie in Manang. Most trekkers get through £5–£10 a day, so £70–£140 across the trek. Bring it in rupees: cards are useless above Chame and the ATMs at Chame and Jomsom are unreliable. Change enough in Kathmandu or Pokhara to cover the whole trek and carry it in small notes.
Solo, group or private: where the price actually moves
The biggest lever on the per-person price is not the season or the itinerary. It is how many people share the fixed costs. A guide costs the same whether they walk with one trekker or six. A porter carries for two people whatever happens. Permits and food scale per head; almost everything else does not.
So the pattern is simple and it applies to every operator, not just us:
- Solo: you carry the whole guide and porter cost yourself, so expect a meaningful single supplement over the two-person rate.
- Two trekkers: the standard basis for our published price, and by far the most common booking.
- Three to six: the per-person price drops steadily; this is the value sweet spot.
- Seven or more: lowest per-head price, and we add a second guide so the group can split on pass day if somebody needs to turn round.
Group discounts apply to groups you form, friends, family, a walking club, not to groups we assemble. If you are solo and want the shared rate, ask about joining a fixed departure instead; those run at the group price.
We do not publish a per-head table for every combination because the honest figure depends on your dates, your group size and which itinerary you pick. Send those three things and you get a written price the same day, valid for 14 days, with nothing added at the end.
Send us your group size and dates: +977 9704551232How the itinerary you choose changes the price
The £1,095 starting price is for the 8-day standard circuit, Pokhara to Pokhara. The longer versions move the price for a reason you can see:
| Version | Days | What changes the cost |
|---|---|---|
| Standard circuit | 8 | The baseline: six walking days, one acclimatisation day at Manang, and the private jeep legs in and out. Cheapest version we run. |
| Circuit with Tilicho Lake | 10 | Two more days on the ground plus the Khangsar and Tilicho Base Camp nights, which are high-altitude lodge nights and the expensive kind. |
| Lakes route | 11 | Three more days than the standard circuit, four high lakes, and the extra guide, porter and lodge days that go with them. |
One counter-intuitive point: shorter is not proportionally cheaper. Permits, transport in and out, and the fixed cost of getting a guide to Besisahar are the same whether you walk for six days or sixteen. Cutting two days off an 8-day trek saves far less than a quarter of the price.
Why booking direct costs less
Almost every UK and European trekking agency selling the Annapurna Circuit subcontracts the actual trek to a Nepali operator. Someone in Nepal buys the permits, hires the guide, books the lodges and walks with you. The UK company handles marketing, the contract and the phone line, and adds a margin, commonly somewhere between a quarter and a half of the local price, on top.
That margin buys you real things: a UK contract, a familiar consumer-protection framework, and someone in your time zone to call. If those matter more to you than the money, use a UK agency and do not feel talked out of it.
What you get by coming to us instead is the local price, and direct access to the people who run the trek. You can ask the guide who will actually walk with you whether the Ghyaru high route is a good idea in your fitness, and get an answer from someone who was on it last week rather than from a call centre reading a supplier PDF. You also keep more of the money in the valley you are walking through.
What you give up, honestly
You are contracting with a Nepali company, not a UK one, so ATOL and the UK Package Travel Regulations do not apply to the trek itself. That is exactly why we structure payment the way we do: a small deposit up front, the balance in Nepal once you have met the team. You are never exposed for more than 10% of the trip cost, and your flights, the biggest single line, stay booked in your own name with your own airline or UK agent. Read the terms and cancellation policy before you book; it is short and it is not written in legalese.
How to pay from the UK
- Enquire and get a written price. No deposit, no card details, no obligation. The quote lists exactly what is in and out and holds for 14 days.
- Reserve your dates with a 10% deposit, paid in pounds through our brand hub 6knepaltreks.com. Visa, Mastercard, Amex or a Wise transfer; we absorb the processing fee rather than surcharging it.
- Pay the 90% balance in Nepal, before the trek starts, in NPR or USD. Most UK trekkers bring a fee-free card and draw cash in Kathmandu or Pokhara, or send a Wise transfer a few days ahead.
- Change your dates free up to 14 days before departure: rebook onto any departure in the following 24 months at no charge. Cancel outright and the deposit is refunded in full 30 or more days before departure, or half between 14 and 29 days.
