Planning to cover President Donald Trump's face on your new national park pass?
It could cost you extra to use it.
An updated "void if altered" policy, shown in an internal document, states that changing the appearance of the passes or covering any part of them with a sticker that can't be removed could result in extra charges to enter the parks, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Field staff encountering altered passes are told to ask that stickers or coverings be removed, and if they don't believe the pass is valid, then "the visitor should be charged the regular entrance fee or given the option to purchase another pass."
This year's passes feature a photograph of Trump alongside that of the nation's first president, George Washington.
"Defacing the pass in any way, including writing on it or adding stickers or other coverings, is a form of altering the pass," according to the policy. "Altering a pass can cover up important information and required security features necessary to prevent fraud."
Kieran Suckling, founder and director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has filed a lawsuit against the images on the new pass, said the updated policy on altering the passes comes after people have been selling stickers online for passholders to put over Trump's photograph.
"Covering up important information on the pass would be fraud," Suckling acknowledged.
"Covering Donald Trump's face, however, is not fraud," he added. "Trump is once again trying to make it illegal for people to make a public statement against him."
However, Elizabeth Peace, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said that the government has long considered the passes to be void if they are altered.
"The most recent interim update for the 2026 pass year did not change that policy," Peace said while not commenting on the internal document.
The updated policy follows an announcement in November that said Trump's face would be on the 2026 entrance passes.
The park pass system has undergone significant modernization for 2026, including the introduction of fully digital passes that can be stored on smartphones as well as physical passes with the Trump image.
A new "America-first" pricing structure that changed entrance fees to be based on citizen status has also been added.
The "America the Beautiful" passes cover unlimited entrance fees for one vehicle at more than 2,000 National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Forest Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service sites for a year.
This year, park visitors who are not U.S. residents must pay $250 for an annual pass, compared to $80 for U.S. residents.
In addition, non-residents who don't buy the $250 annual pass may be subjected to a $100-per-person surcharge at 11 of the nation's most popular parks, including Glacier, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia, but children under 16 aren't subject to the extra charges.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.