Yosemite visitation by year.

Yosemite by the year.

Each row is the park's total recreation visits for that calendar year, drawn from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025 (Statistic = TRV, summed from monthly to annual). The full 1979-2025 history is shown — 47 years. Bar widths are proportional to the all-time peak; the orange bar marks the peak year and the teal bar marks the lowest year in the full window.

What the trend says

Yosemite's annual recreation visits over the full 1979-2025 dataset show a long, gradual climb from a 1979 baseline of about 2.35 million into a 4-to-5 million modern plateau. The 1980s ran between 2.4 and 3.3 million with a decade mean near 2.80 million. The 1990s pushed the park into a new range: visits crossed 3.5 million by 1992 and reached 4.05 million in 1996 — the first time Yosemite cleared 4 million in the dataset. The early 2000s settled back to the high-3-million range before climbing again through the late 2000s and 2010s; the 2010s decade mean was 4.12 million.

The all-time peak in the full window is 5.03 million in 2016 — the NPS Centennial year, when network-wide promotion drove a one-time spike that has not been matched since. The all-time low is 2.27 million in 2020, when Yosemite closed entirely for parts of the spring and operated under a day-use vehicle reservation cap for the remainder of the season; that year displaces 1979 as the trough of the full series. The 2021 through 2023 figures (3.29M, 3.67M, 3.90M) reflect that same administrative day-use reservation system rather than depressed demand. 2022 also includes the Washburn Fire, which closed the Mariposa Grove and parts of the south entrance corridor for weeks. 2023 reflects a heavy-snow year in which Tioga Pass did not open until late July — a usually June-opening road that, when delayed by a month, removes a meaningful slice of summer visits to the high country.

Starting in 2024 the day-use reservation requirement eased and visits resumed climbing: 4.12 million in 2024 and 4.28 million in 2025. NPS has announced that day-use vehicle reservations will not be in effect for 2026. The 47-year mean is roughly 3.49 million; 2025 sits about 790,000 visits above that long-term mean but still below the 2016 Centennial high. Read across the full window, the structural pattern is a slow 1980s-1990s climb into a 4-million floor by the mid-2000s, a one-time 2016 spike, an administrative-cap plateau through the pandemic and reservation years, and a steady release back toward the high-4-million annual range. Year-to-year movement is dominated by operational decisions (closures, reservations, heavy-snow Tioga openings) rather than by changes in underlying demand.

Methodology

Annual recreation visits come from the official NPS Visitor Use Statistics Data Package, 2025 on NPS IRMA Stats. The statistic shown is Recreation Visits — the NPS visitor-count category that excludes Tent Campers, Backcountry Campers, and Recreation Visit Hours. Annual totals are computed by summing the twelve monthly TRV (Total Recreation Visits) values for each year. The window displayed here is the full 1979-2025 history available in the NPS dataset. Independent site, not affiliated with the National Park Service.