National Parks in Florida: All 11 NPS Units, Acreage and Entrance Fees

FLORIDA · ELEVEN NPS UNITS · THREE NATIONAL PARKS

Everglades, Biscayne and Dry Tortugas are the three Florida units the National Park Service lists as National Parks. The other eight carry a preserve, two seashores, two monuments, two memorials and one ecological and historic preserve between them. The label sets the scale of a visit: Castillo de San Marcos fits inside a morning in St. Augustine, while Everglades has three entrances that sit at least an hour’s drive from one another.

Biscayne National Park states that it has no entrance fees, and Big Cypress and De Soto charge none either. Everglades asks $35.00 per private vehicle for seven consecutive days, and Gulf Islands National Seashore sells a standard pass at $15.00 to $25.00. Those are the two fee pages on this list that produce a charge at the door, and the rest of the sorting is geographic: the southern cluster near Miami and Homestead holds three units, while the remaining eight run from Pensacola to 70 miles west of Key West.

On this page

• All eleven NPS units and their designationsThe full table
• Acreage, from 1,400,539.30 to 30.00Sizes by unit
• Everglades, Biscayne or Dry TortugasThe three National Parks
• Getting to Dry Tortugas without a carFerry, seaplane, private boat
• Everglades entrance fees and the $80.00 passFees and pass arithmetic
• What “preserve”, “seashore” and “monument” allowThe designations
• Which unit sits in which part of the stateWhere they are

The gap between the largest and the smallest unit runs to a factor of roughly 46,000: Everglades National Park at 1,400,539.30 acres against De Soto National Memorial at 30.00 acres, same state, same agency, same green arrowhead sign. One asks for several days and three separate drives. The other is a shoreline walk you can finish before lunch.

How many national parks are in Florida?

Three of the eleven hold the National Park designation. The remaining eight describe a beach, a fort, a memorial or a preserve, and two of those names are really one stop: Fort Caroline National Memorial is administered by Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, and both names serve the same visitor information pages. Plan the eleven as ten visits.

Only two of these units charged us anything to walk in. Everglades takes $35.00 per private vehicle, $30.00 per motorcycle or $20.00 per person on foot or by bicycle, each good for seven consecutive days at every park entrance. Gulf Islands National Seashore sells a standard pass at $15.00 to $25.00 and an annual pass at $45.00, and asks visitors to plan on going cashless. Biscayne, Big Cypress and De Soto publish no entrance fee at all.

How big is each Florida national park?

Everglades National Park covers 1,400,539.30 acres in the Park Service’s acreage report of June 30, 2026, and that number turns into driving. Its Homestead, Shark Valley and Gulf Coast entrances, plus the Flamingo Visitor Center inside the park, are each at least an hour’s drive from the next. Taking in two of those doors in one day means at least two hours behind the wheel between boardwalks.

Big Cypress National Preserve is the second-largest unit in the state at 574,453.32 acres, with a separate 146,110.69-acre Addition listed beside it. Most visitors meet it as the stretch of road between Miami and Naples, with trailheads and campgrounds hanging off the highway.

Acreage at the two water parks counts water. Biscayne’s 172,971.11 acres are bay, islands and reef, Dry Tortugas’ 64,701.22 acres sit 70 miles out at sea, and neither figure describes ground you can walk. At both, what you see depends on the boat you booked.

Gulf Islands National Seashore’s 138,306.64 acres are counted across Florida and Mississippi, so the Florida portion is smaller than the headline figure. Canaveral National Seashore holds 57,661.69 acres and Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve 46,262.76, and both spread over several access points along a coast or a river instead of one gate with a road behind it.

De Soto National Memorial closes the list at 30.00 acres. For Castillo de San Marcos, Fort Matanzas and Fort Caroline we did not read the acreage rows, so no figure for them appears above. All three are ticketed sites with closing times, and each fits inside a half day (est.).

Everglades vs Biscayne vs Dry Tortugas

Everglades is the one a rental car drives into, and the one with a season: the dry months pull wildlife toward the water where the boardwalks already are, and our month-by-month calendar takes that apart. Entry runs $35.00 per vehicle for seven days at all entrances, and those entrances sit an hour apart, so two doors mean two days for most people. Detail lives in our Everglades guide.

Biscayne is the bay and reef park east of Homestead, and it charges nothing to enter. The dollar figures on its fee page are boat figures: $25.00 for day-use docking at Boca Chita and Elliott Key on Fridays through Mondays and federal holidays, and $35.00 a night to camp, charged even when you sleep aboard your own boat. Getting out to the islands and the reef takes a hull under you.

Dry Tortugas is the fort at the end of the chain, roughly 70 miles west of Key West, with 64,701.22 acres of park around it and no road reaching any of it. Visitors arrive by ferry, seaplane, private boat or permitted charter.

If the trip allows one of the three, take Everglades. It is the only one a car enters on its own, the $35.00 vehicle fee stays good for seven days, and nothing about a dry-season morning on the Anhinga boardwalk requires a reservation. Choose Biscayne instead when water plans and a boat are already part of the week. Choose Dry Tortugas when you are willing to give it a whole day and put it in the calendar before anything else.

How do you get to Dry Tortugas National Park?

Cars cannot access Dry Tortugas National Park. The Park Service puts it in one line on its directions page: there are no bridges or roads connecting the park to the Florida Keys, and visitors travel by ferry, seaplane, private boat or permitted charter. The fort sits approximately 70 miles west of Key West, open water the whole way.

Book this one before the rest of the week. A crossing is a reserved seat on a fixed departure, the visit takes a day rather than an afternoon, and wind or storms can void the sailing: the Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, and a boat can be stopped in any month of the year. Sleep in Key West the night before rather than up the chain, and leave the following day loose enough to absorb a cancellation.

Florida national park entrance fees and the $80 America the Beautiful pass

A single Everglades ticket at $35.00 already runs seven consecutive days at every entrance, so a one-week trip that drives in three times still pays $35.00 in total. The $80.00 pass pays off somewhere else: at a second federal gate later in the same year, or at the Everglades entrance on foot, where four people at $20.00 each come to exactly $80.00 and the pass covers four per-person fees. Everglades sells its own annual pass for $70.00, valid twelve months at that park. Ten dollars more buys twelve months at all of them.

Non-US residents pay $250.00 for the same annual pass. At $35.00 a vehicle entry, eight separate visits are needed to clear that, and eight Everglades weeks are not a Florida itinerary. Price the gates instead: three units on this list charge nothing, and a two-week trip with one Everglades entry and one Gulf Islands standard pass lands between $50.00 and $60.00.

Three dollar figures at these parks are not entrance fees, and reading them as entry money wrecks a budget. Biscayne’s $25.00 is day-use docking and its $35.00 is camping per night. Big Cypress’ $100 is an annual off-road vehicle permit. De Soto’s $1.00 is a Recreation.gov service fee per ticket. The annual pass covers entrance and standard amenity fees, a shorter list than docking, camping and permits.

What is the difference between a national preserve, a national seashore and a national monument?

The designation tells a visitor what the ground allows. In a national preserve, uses continue that a national park shuts out: Big Cypress runs hunting seasons and sells an annual permit for off-road vehicles. A national seashore is managed beach and dune with parking, ramps and a fee window, so Gulf Islands charges $15.00 to $25.00 for a standard pass and $45.00 for the year, cards only. A national monument is a built site, so Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas come with walls, tickets and closing times rather than trailheads. A memorial marks a place, which is why De Soto’s 30.00 acres hold exhibits and a shoreline path.

Where are Florida’s national parks?

Three units sit inside one southern base. From Homestead or south Miami you can reach Everglades’ main entrance, Biscayne’s shoreline and Big Cypress along the Tamiami Trail corridor without changing hotels. Everglades resists that logic internally: its three entrances and the Flamingo Visitor Center are each at least an hour’s drive apart, so three days on one mattress still means three separate drives.

The northeast groups just as neatly. Castillo de San Marcos stands on the St. Augustine waterfront, Fort Matanzas is a short way south at the inlet, and Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, which administers Fort Caroline National Memorial, is in Jacksonville. That is four names, one or two days, and no long transfer. De Soto National Memorial works in reverse on the Gulf side: 30.00 acres near Bradenton, too small to build a day around and easy to fold into one.

The rest are too far apart to pair. Canaveral National Seashore is on the Space Coast, Gulf Islands National Seashore is over in the Panhandle with its acreage counted across two states, and Dry Tortugas is 70 miles offshore. One week holds the southern cluster or the northeast one, and the driving distances are the reason. Our Florida orientation splits the state along the same lines.

The last word

Federal Florida hands one traveler an unusual range: 1,400,539.30 acres of sawgrass at Everglades, a bay park with no entrance fee at Biscayne, a fort 70 miles out at Dry Tortugas, hunting country and ORV trails at Big Cypress, and 30.00 acres of Gulf shoreline at De Soto. All of it is comfortable in the weeks after the Atlantic hurricane season closes on November 30, and those are the same weeks the Everglades boardwalks do their best work.

Two moves, in this order. Book the Dry Tortugas crossing first, because the ferry and the seaplane set the date and the weather can cancel it. Then price the pass: one $35.00 Everglades ticket already covers seven days, so the $80.00 America the Beautiful pass, or $250.00 for non-US residents, is a purchase for the year rather than for the week.

Sources & data for this guide

• Eleven Florida units and their designations · NPS Florida state index · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Everglades fees ($35.00 vehicle, $30.00 motorcycle, $20.00 per person, 7 days) and the $70.00 park annual pass · NPS Everglades Fees & Passes · checked Sep 11, 2026
• America the Beautiful at $80.00 and $250.00, one vehicle or four per-person fees · NPS Entrance Passes · checked Sep 11, 2026
• No bridges or roads to Dry Tortugas, approximately 70 miles west of Key West · NPS Dry Tortugas directions · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Everglades entrances and Flamingo at least an hour apart · NPS Everglades directions · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Acreage figures · NPS Acreage Report, June 30, 2026 (NPS-Acreage-06-30-2026.xlsx) · read September 11, 2026
• Fee pages for Biscayne, Big Cypress, De Soto and Gulf Islands, including docking, camping, the ORV permit and the Recreation.gov fee · nps.gov/bisc, /bicy, /deso, /guis · read September 11, 2026
• Atlantic hurricane season dates · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 11, 2026
• Editorial admissions: the time column is our estimate, not an NPS figure. We did not read the fee pages or the acreage rows for Castillo de San Marcos, Fort Matanzas and Fort Caroline, so no figures for them appear here. Ferry and seaplane schedules, prices and fee amounts change · check the operators and the park pages when you book.