Photographing Argentina’s national parks: permits, fees, drones and hours

Photographing in an Argentine national park means working under the rules of the Administración de Parques Nacionales (APN), the federal agency that runs Nahuel Huapi, Los Glaciares, Tierra del Fuego, Iguazú, Lanín, Los Arrayanes and the rest of the national system. A visitor with a camera only pays the entry fee. A professional photographer selling sessions inside a park needs an APN habilitation, a commercial production needs a filming authorisation, and a drone needs both an APN permit and a reason the APN accepts. This guide separates those cases, with each rule linked to the APN text it comes from.

Who sets the rules, and where they are published

The APN publishes its regulations on its normativas page, and every park applies them through its own office, the Intendencia. Three texts matter for photography: the filming and photography rules of Resolución HD 297/2018, the drone regulation of Resolución D 9/2021, and the tourism permit regulation of Resolución 62/2025, which governs the businesses that sell services to visitors inside a park. Provincial reserves, such as Península Valdés, are not APN areas and follow their own province.

Entry fees in 2026

Every adult pays a daily access fee, the derecho de acceso, set by the APN for each park. These are the figures on the APN tariff page in force since 1 June 2026, in Argentine pesos.

Peso fees change often, so check the page before the day. In Nahuel Huapi the fee is collected at Puerto Pañuelo for the boat trips to the Bosque de Arrayanes, Isla Victoria and Puerto Blest, at the Mascardi access towards Cerro Tronador and at the Quetrihué peninsula, and the park's own page gives a 50% discount on a second day. A photographer's entry is on top of yours, and we include it in the quote.

Three kinds of photography, three procedures

Sessions with a hired photographer

The APN's tourism regulation lists "prestadores de servicio fotográfico", photographic service providers, among the activities that need an APN habilitation under its simplified procedure, according to Annex I of the tourism permits regulation. The fees for those habilitations are set in the APN's tourism tariff schedule. A couple session, a proposal or an elopement inside a park is therefore planned with the Intendencia before it is promised, and some sessions are planned where no park fee applies for that reason: Nahuel Huapi lists the points where it charges, and the Circuito Chico road is not one of them.

Commercial and advertising productions

A production made for publication, from a brand campaign to a travel series, follows the APN filming rules. The request goes in Spanish to the APN's communications office at least 20 business days before the first day, and the office answers within 10 business days (article 3). The applicant must have a legal address in Argentina (article 5). Before shooting starts, the production pays a daily canon expressed in park entry fees, lodges a surety bond and shows civil liability and accident insurance (articles 8, 9 and 19). The canon falls by 50% from the second day, rises by 25% in parks that are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as Los Glaciares and Iguazú, and is higher for foreign productions (articles 10, 11 and 15). The Film Commission page links the form and takes proposals by e-mail.

The same rules forbid non-documentary shots within 200 m of a cultural or historic site and scenes driven along roads or trails (article 25), and they let the APN fine the commercial use of park images obtained without that procedure (article 27).

Drones

The APN drone regulation bans recreational and sporting drones in every APN area and requires prior express authorisation for any project (articles 4 and 7). An approved flight is in daylight, one drone at a time, at least 30 m horizontally and 10 m vertically from people outside the crew, with the park office told 48 business hours ahead (articles 19 and 22). The filming rules add that an approved drone flies outside public opening hours (article 25). The drone guide covers the ANAC side.

Park by park

Iguazú has one rule of its own: Resolución APN 460/2025 treats a small event of up to 60 participants in the Área Cataratas as a "microevento", held within normal park hours, without amplified sound and without drones except by extraordinary authorisation. The Iguazú guide covers the falls in detail, and the Patagonia elopement guide covers ceremonies in the south.

What we arrange for a park session

A couple session starts at $120 for 30 minutes and 20 edited photos, an elopement at $750 for 3 hours and 150 photos, and an adventure elopement at $1,200 for 6 hours and 200 photos. For any of them inside a park we check the photographer's APN standing with the Intendencia, add the photographer's entry fee to the quote, and keep the timing inside the park's hours. A drone session inside a park is quoted only after the APN has said yes.