How Much Is the Cozumel Marine Park Fee in 2026?

Under Article 198, fraction I of Mexico's Ley Federal de Derechos, the fee for entering the Parque Nacional Arrecifes de Cozumel is set at 225.56 pesos per person, per day. The law itself instructs the amount to be rounded to the nearest multiple of five pesos, so what you actually hand over is 225 pesos, about $13 at 17.02 pesos to the dollar in August 2026. CONANP's own park page prints the same rounded figure: 225 pesos per person per day.

We want to correct something plainly here rather than tiptoe around it: the figure of roughly $5 that still shows up on older tour listings and forum posts is wrong, and has been for a while. It looks like an honest holdover from an earlier fee schedule that nobody went back to update. The statutory number, confirmed against the text of Article 198 currently in force and CONANP's own published rate, is 225 pesos, not five dollars' worth of pesos. If you are budgeting for a Cozumel snorkeling day, use the higher number.

Cozumel's park sits in fraction I of the law, the tier the government classifies as low carrying capacity and high vulnerability, alongside places like Isla Contoy, Sian Ka'an and Bahía de Loreto. The Área de Protección de Flora y Fauna covering the island's northern portion and eastern coastal strip falls under the same tier.

Last verified: August 2026, against the Ley Federal de Derechos text in force and CONANP's descubreanp park page.

Article 198 sets out clear exemptions and discounts, and most visitors never hear about them until they are already at the dock.

In practice, the discounts and exemptions are only honoured when someone actually shows the right paperwork at the dock: an ID for a child's age, an INAPAM card, a residency document, a student or teacher credential. Nobody is going to volunteer a discount you did not ask for, so if you qualify, say so before the crew collects the fee, not after.

A family of four traveling with two children under 12 only pays the fee twice, once for each adult, so the real cost for that group is 450 pesos, about $26, rather than the 900 pesos a naive per-head calculation would suggest. A retired couple traveling with valid INAPAM cards pays nothing at all. Neither exemption shows up automatically on a tour listing's price, which is exactly why this line item catches people off guard at the dock rather than when they book.

The legal obligation to pay the fee falls on the holder of the tourism and nautical permit, which in practice means the operator running your boat, whenever you travel with an authorised operator. Someone entering the park's waters without going through an authorised operator owes the fee individually. Either way, the money reaches CONANP through the same channel, but the practical result for you is that on almost every organised trip, the crew collects the fee on the operator's behalf rather than you paying the government directly.

That collection happens in cash, usually right at the dock before boarding or shortly after, and the amount quoted by the crew should match the statutory 225 pesos per person, per day, not an older or invented number. Bring pesos if you can; dollars are usually accepted too but you will lose a little to a rougher exchange rate at the dock than you would get at a bank or ATM.

• Small pesos or dollars in cash for the fee
• Your booking confirmation
• ID or a discount credential, if you qualify for an exemption or a reduced rate
• Reef-safe mineral sunscreen, or a rash guard instead
• A dry bag to keep phone and cash out of the water

Under the final paragraphs of Article 198, the money collected for the marine park fee goes to CONANP, Mexico's national commission for protected natural areas, for the management of the country's protected areas generally, not Cozumel's park in isolation. The park itself covers the beaches and marine zone running from kilometre 6 of the southern coastal highway round to Punta Chiqueros on the island's east side, which is the boundary CONANP publishes on its own park page. Palancar, Columbia and El Cielo all sit well inside that boundary, along with most of the leeward-coast shore entries.

CONANP's park page sets out a short, specific list of rules that apply to everyone in the water, on a boat tour or a shore entry alike:

• Stay 1.5 metres off the reef at all times
• Do not touch the reef, and do not stand on it
• Do not use ordinary sunscreen inside the park
• Do not feed or disturb marine wildlife, and do not fish
• Hire only boats and guides authorised and certified by CONANP
• No anchoring; boats use fixed mooring lines instead
• No gloves, knives or rods in the water

The starfish rule deserves a specific mention because it trips up more visitors than any other item on this list: the cushion starfish at El Cielo must stay in the water. CONANP has recorded a real decline in that starfish population, and lifting one out for a photo falls squarely under the do-not-disturb-wildlife rule, even though guides on some trips used to allow it.

None of these rules are unique to boat trips. A shore entry at a leeward-coast beach club sits inside the same park boundary, so the 1.5-metre distance, the no-touch rule and the sunscreen rule all travel with you whether you paid the fee to a boat operator or walked into the water yourself. CONANP does not distinguish between a guided group and a solo swimmer when it comes to reef conduct, only when it comes to who owes the fee directly.

What CONANP actually says

CONANP's own park rules state plainly that sunscreen is not to be used inside the park, full stop. In practice, the working standard that operators and dive shops apply is a mineral sunscreen made with non-nano zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which does not carry the chemical filters CONANP is trying to keep out of the reef. A rash guard or a long-sleeve swim shirt is the option that avoids the question entirely, since it needs no sunscreen at all on covered skin.

The label trap

Be honest with yourself about one thing: the word biodegradable on a sunscreen label does not mean it is free of oxybenzone or octinoxate, the two chemical filters most strongly linked to coral stress. Read the ingredient list for zinc oxide or titanium dioxide as the active ingredient, not the marketing copy on the front of the bottle.

Nearly every boat snorkeling trip sold on this site runs inside the park boundary, because that is where Cozumel's snorkeling actually happens. Palancar and Columbia are the coral reef systems off the southwest coast that made the island's reputation; boats work the shallow shoulder of each, since the deeper coral formations sit below normal snorkeling depth. El Cielo and El Cielito are shallow sand flats, not reefs, famous for their cushion starfish and waist-deep turquoise water. The turtle grounds further along the coast are a stretch of seagrass and shallow reef where green turtles are regularly reported grazing.

Shore entries on the leeward coast, covered in full on the shore snorkeling guide, sit inside the same park boundary too, which is why the rules on this page apply there as well, fee or no fee at the door. If you are weighing the full cost of a Cozumel snorkeling day against this fee, the snorkeling cost breakdown walks through where the 225-peso line item actually lands in a real budget, and how the Palancar, Columbia and El Cielo reef trip compares against other reef-focused options.