Yellowstone National Park just dropped its annual visitation numbers for 2024, and the park had quite a year, welcoming 4,744,353 recreation visits. That’s a 5.4% increase over 2023 and enough to make 2024 the second busiest year in Yellowstone’s long history (going all the way back to 1904).
Here’s a quick look at how recent years stack up:
| Year | Recreation Visits | Rank All-Time |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 4,860,242 | 1st |
| 2024 | 4,744,353 | 2nd |
| 2023 | 4,501,382 | 3rd |
Yellowstone’s popularity has been growing for decades. Here’s a glance at some visitation milestones:
| Milestone | Year Reached |
|---|---|
| 1 million annual visits | 1948 |
| 2 million annual visits | 1965 |
| 3 million annual visits | 1992 |
| 4 million annual visits | 2015 |
And how’s 2025 shaping up so far? It’s still early, but here’s where things stand through March:
| Month | Recreation Visits |
|---|---|
| January | 40,363 |
| February | 44,133 |
| March | 33,284 |
Grand Teton National Park Visits Increased
National parks around the U.S. are seeing an uptick in visitors. Grand Teton National Park, just south of Yellowstone, also saw a bump, 3,628,222 visits in 2024, up from 3,417,106 in 2023. That makes 2024 its second busiest year ever, just trailing 2021’s peak of 3.88 million.
The entire National Park Service system hit an all-time high in 2024 with 331.8 million total recreation visits. That’s a 2% jump from the year before and a new record, edging out the previous high from 2016.
