The 2026 quota ran out in August, you must now enter on the date printed on your e-ticket, and walking in without one costs five times the normal fee.
Planning to see the dragons before the year ends? Then the first thing you need is not a boat. It is a ticket for a named date, booked in a government app, from an allocation that has already run out once this year.
Komodo National Park capped entry at 1,000 people a day from 1 April, roughly 365,000 a year across Komodo, Rinca and Padar. By August the 2026 allocation had gone, CNN Indonesia reported, and the park released extra places for September to December at 500 a day. We first reported the cap in Issue 3 in April and covered the quota running out in this week’s newsletter. This is the practical guide to booking under the new rules.
Labuan Bajo harbour, where the paperwork now matters more than the boat. Photo: Isabell Schulz
Book the ticket before the boat, and keep to the date
The order matters. Park ticket first, boat second, any flight you cannot change last. A boat without a park ticket for your date is a pleasant sail to nowhere.
Reservations run through SiORA, a government app on the Play Store and the App Store. JawaPos set out the steps when the cap began. You log in with an active email address, choose the Komodo Reservation menu, pick the date, the number of people and the location (Komodo, Rinca or Padar), pay without cash and save the e-ticket to show on entry.
Padar South runs on time slots, with three arrival sessions of roughly 300 to 330 people each, a senior forestry official said in April. The same official admitted the app still had errors and bugs, and that quota availability needed to be shown more clearly through the year. Booking a protected park through an app its own regulator calls buggy is a very modern way to meet a lizard, so screenshot your confirmation. The system did have a three-month trial before the cap became official on 1 April, according to Liputan6, which may explain why it works at all.
He also said last-minute booking, the day before or on the day, was fading as people booked earlier. With the extra 500 places a day running only until December, check availability in the app before you pay a boat deposit.
The newest rule is the one that catches people. A park notice at the end of September said some visitors had been turning up before the date on their ticket, which uses up the quota, and that the park is realigning its allocation. Treat the date as fixed. If a storm or a late flight shifts your trip by a day, do not assume the ticket shifts with it. Ask your operator, and get the answer in writing.
Entering without a valid ticket is expensive: five times the normal rate, per person per day. Boat owners and travel agents must make sure every tourist and crew member aboard holds a ticket, which puts the pressure on the operator, where it belongs. It is still your trip, so ask to see the e-tickets, with your name and date on them, before the boat leaves the harbour. Keep a screenshot of each e-ticket on your phone as well as the app, because signal on the water is never guaranteed.
What to check, and what you pay
If you paid a boat deposit months ago, before any of this applied, ask your operator for the SiORA e-ticket and check that the date matches your booking. The park now holds you to the date on the ticket, not the date you hoped to sail. If you are told the ticket “will be sorted on the day”, ask how, when reservations are compulsory. Cruise passengers should ask the line how their visit is registered and in whose name, because the conservation directorate said in April that the app still needed work on cruise bookings.
The park fee for foreign visitors is Rp250,000 a day, about £10, the same on weekdays and holidays. Since 30 October 2024 it has been a single ticket covering trekking, wildlife observation and snorkelling in place of four separate tariffs, Bisnis.com reported. If an operator lists trekking or snorkelling as an extra park fee, ask where it comes from.
Rangers lead every walk among the dragons on Komodo and Rinca Island
The boat is the larger cost, and it is a private charge, so the price depends on the length of the trip and the size of the vessel. Rangers lead every walk among the dragons on Komodo and Rinca, and operators usually quote the ranger’s charge per group of up to five rather than per head. Ask whether it sits inside your quote or outside it, and get that in writing too.
Ask any operator two more things before you commit. Will you register me in SiORA in my own name, and is anything else charged on the day? You want a plain answer to both.
A fair quote shows the boat, the park ticket per person, any ranger charge and the date, each on its own line. If two of those are missing, you are comparing a price with a guess, and a gap is where an extra charge hides.
Why the cap exists, and what it will not fix
Komodo took 429,509 visitors in 2025 against a stated carrying capacity of 366,108, according to Antara’s report of the forestry minister’s explanation in April. The cap is set almost exactly at that capacity, because 1,000 a day works out at about 365,000 a year.
Komodo is a World Heritage site, and the IUCN’s 2025 World Heritage Outlook rates its conservation outlook as “significant concern”. It rates tourism as a high threat and the management of visitors as a serious concern. The Komodo dragon has been listed as Endangered since 2021. The forestry minister said the limit is meant to prevent the habitat damage that long-term overtourism causes, and his deputy mentioned plans for breeding programmes outside the park, which is a reminder of who is on the endangered list.
I think the cap is right, and 1,000 a day is still a crowd on islands where large lizards share the trails. What needs explaining is the September to December top-up, which adds places after the yearly allocation was used up. I would like the park to say how that squares with its own capacity figure.
A Komodo dragon on Rinca, entirely unbothered by the booking system.
For you, the sums are simpler. Komodo is open and worth the effort, but it now rewards people who plan. Book the ticket in SiORA, match the date and islands to your boat, and keep your flights flexible until you hold it. If you are looking at early 2027, check availability in the app before you pay for anything you cannot cancel. The dragons are not going anywhere. Your slot might.
Further Reading
- The Similan Islands Took 400,000 Visitors Last Season. Before You Book This One, Read the Rules.
- Raja Ampat’s UNESCO Status Changes the Game for Sustainable Diving in Southeast Asia
Have you been to Komodo since the cap began? Tell us how booking went. Follow Asia Unmasked on Facebook and X for more on responsible travel in Southeast Asia.
