Everest Base Camp Trek Cost From Canada: The Real All-In Numbers in CAD for 2026 and 2027

Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.

Last updated 5 September 2026. Package prices read from our booking system on that date; they hold for 2026 and 2027 departures. Canadian dollar figures use 1 US dollar = 1.38 Canadian dollars, the rate in the first week of September 2026, rounded.

Two of the trekkers on our confirmed list this autumn are Canadian, one on a budget Manaslu circuit and one walking to Everest Base Camp by road, and both asked me the same question before they paid a cent: what does this actually cost, all in, from Canada? Not the package price with the flights, the insurance and the tips quietly missing. This page is my answer, in Canadian dollars, with the arithmetic shown so you can check it against any quote you are holding.

The short answer

A twelve-day Everest Base Camp trek costs a Canadian trekker roughly CAD 5,300 to 5,700 all in on a budget package once you add your own trail meals, about CAD 6,500 to 7,000 on a standard package with meals and porters, and CAD 9,900 to 10,500 for the luxury version with helicopter transfers. In US dollars, which is what we quote in, that is about $3,850 to 4,150, $4,700 to 5,050 and $7,150 to 7,600. The flights from Canada are the single biggest line after the trek itself, which is why the totals sit higher than the figures a European reads. Where the money goes, line by line, is below.

What does the trek package itself cost?

Our own prices for the twelve-day trek, per person, held for 2026 and 2027:

• Budget: US$1,399, about CAD 1,930. Guide, permits, Lukla flights and lodge rooms. You carry your own bag and buy your own meals on the trail.
• Standard: US$2,499, about CAD 3,450. Everything above plus all meals and one porter between two trekkers.
• Luxury: US$4,999, about CAD 6,900. A porter to yourself, private rooms, and a helicopter to and from Lukla instead of the fixed-wing flight.

The route and the guide are the same on every tier; what changes is how much is carried, cooked and arranged for you. The full inclusion list is on the Everest Base Camp trek page.

If you would rather ask than read, message me on WhatsApp with your dates and how many of you there are, and I will send real numbers the same day. Kathmandu is 9 hours 45 minutes ahead of Toronto and 12 hours 45 minutes ahead of Vancouver, so an evening message from Canada lands on my desk first thing in the morning and you have the answer before you wake up.

Does it get cheaper as a group?

Yes, and here are the actual bands rather than a vague promise. Per person, US dollars, for the twelve-day trek:

In Canadian dollars the standard tier runs from about CAD 3,450 for a pair down to about CAD 3,240 a head for a group of thirteen or more. Two things about how we run groups, because not everyone does it this way. Every trip is private, so we never add strangers to your trek to fill seats, and the discount comes from group size alone. Six members of a Calgary hiking club get the same deal as six members of one family. Most Canadians who trek with us come as a couple or a pair of friends, and if that is you, the first row is your price. A solo trekker pays the same per-person rate; there is no single supplement on the trek itself.

How much are flights from Canada to Kathmandu?

There is no nonstop flight from Canada to Nepal, and no single-stop routing from the west coast either that I would call comfortable. From Toronto and Montreal the usual routings connect once, in Doha or Istanbul, and land in Kathmandu the following evening. From Vancouver most people connect in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Delhi or Doha, sometimes with a second stop. Our Canadian clients report paying somewhere between CAD 1,700 and 2,500 return when they book three to five months ahead; peak October departures booked late can pass CAD 3,000. Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa usually add CAD 150 to 300 for the domestic leg. Total travel time is 20 to 26 hours each way including connections, so treat it as two travel days out and two back, not one. Land in Kathmandu at least a full day before the Lukla flight all the same: a missed connection in Doha should cost you a night in Kathmandu, not your trek.

The jet lag is real and it is the opposite direction from a trip to Europe. Kathmandu is 9 hours 45 minutes ahead of Eastern time and 12 hours 45 minutes ahead of Pacific, one hour more after the clocks change in November. Most Canadians need two nights in Kathmandu to feel human, and we build the itinerary that way, with the sightseeing day doing double duty as the recovery day.

Visa, permits and insurance

Nepal tourist visa for Canadian passport holders: US$50 for 30 days, about CAD 69, paid on arrival at Kathmandu airport in cash or by card. You can fill the online arrival form up to 15 days before you fly to skip the kiosk queue. Bring one passport photo. The visa on arrival guide walks through it step by step.

Sagarmatha National Park permit: NPR 3,000, about CAD 27. Khumbu Pasang Lhamu municipality permit: NPR 2,000, about CAD 18. On any decent package, ours included, both permits are bought for you and sit inside the price; I list them so you can see where the money goes.

Travel insurance: this is the one item you must buy yourself and the one item not to economise on. Your provincial plan, whether that is OHIP, MSP, RAMQ or another, pays a token amount towards care outside Canada and nothing at all towards a helicopter, and a helicopter from Gorak Shep to Kathmandu is billed in the thousands of US dollars. Buy a policy that names trekking to 6,000 metres in the wording; it has to be higher than Kala Patthar at 5,545 metres, not equal to it, because a rescue helicopter flies above you to reach you. Many Canadian travel policies stop at 3,000 or 4,000 metres unless you add an adventure or high-altitude rider, and a few exclude helicopter evacuation altogether, so read the exclusions page rather than the brochure. Budget CAD 150 to 300 for two to three weeks. Ask the insurer for the confirmation in writing, because the helicopter company in Kathmandu will phone them before it lifts. Send us the wording before you fly and we will tell you honestly if it has a hole in it.

What will I spend on the trail?

On a standard or luxury package with meals included, trail spending is small: hot showers (NPR 500 to 800 higher up), wifi, battery charging, snacks and a bakery stop in Namche. CAD 18 to 28 a day covers it comfortably. On a budget package you buy your own meals, and prices climb with altitude because everything above Namche arrives on a porter's back or a yak. Plan on CAD 42 to 55 a day for three lodge meals and tea, so roughly CAD 500 to 650 across the trek.

Add two or three Kathmandu hotel nights, which are not included in trek packages, ours included. A clean tourist-class double in Thamel runs CAD 70 to 100 a night; a five-star runs CAD 200 and up. Carry the trail money in Nepali rupees from Kathmandu. Canadian dollars are not an easy currency to change in Nepal, so bring US dollars or use a Kathmandu ATM, and do not count on the trail: the only ATMs on the route are in Namche and they are often empty.

How much should I tip?

Tipping is a bigger part of the trek than it is of a holiday at home, and nobody in Nepal will make you feel awkward about it, but it genuinely matters to the crew. A fair guideline is about ten per cent of the trek price, pooled: for a standard trek, think CAD 200 to 280 for the guide and CAD 140 to 200 for the porter, adjusted for group size and how the team looked after you. Hand it over on the last trekking day, in rupees or US dollars. Canadian notes are hard for a porter to change in his village, so change them before you leave Kathmandu.

The full arithmetic, from Toronto

Standard package, one trekker sharing rooms:

The same arithmetic puts the budget route at about CAD 5,500 once you add roughly CAD 575 of trail meals and tip the guide alone, and the luxury route at about CAD 10,200. From Vancouver, add CAD 200 to 400 to the flight line. If someone quotes you dramatically less than the bottom of that range for the same twelve days, a line has been cut somewhere, usually wages, an acclimatisation day or the safety margin. The fuller breakdown of what sits under every operator's pricing is in what Everest Base Camp really costs.

How many days off work do I need?

Seventeen is the honest answer from Canada: twelve for the trek, two travel days each way, and a spare day at the end. Lukla weather occasionally holds flights, and a buffer day turns a drama into a rest day. That is a real ask against two or three weeks of vacation, and it is why so many Canadians tie the trek to Thanksgiving in October, leaving the Friday before and using the Monday, or go in the first half of November when fares ease. Plenty of Canadians pair the trek with a few days in Pokhara or Chitwan on the way home, since the flight is too long to waste on twelve days alone. If you only have two weeks, tell me and I will show you honestly what fits and what does not.

When should I go?

October is the most reliable month and the busiest. Know one thing most sites will not tell you: from late September to the end of November, Lukla flights leave from Manthali airstrip, four to five hours by road from Kathmandu, with a 1 to 2am pickup. We tell every client this before they book. Mid-November into early December is quieter, colder and often better value, with fares and hotels easing. Late March into April is the warm, rhododendron alternative, and for a Canadian it lands after the worst of winter at home. Two recent autumns have seen the tail of a Bay of Bengal cyclone clip the last week of October, so if your dates are free, the first half of November has become my honest recommendation. The month-by-month detail is in the Everest Base Camp weather month by month guide.

What does the Government of Canada say?

Global Affairs Canada's advice for Nepal, as I write this, is to exercise a high degree of caution, which is the second of its four levels and the same level it applies to a long list of countries people visit every day. It also carries a regional advisory to avoid non-essential travel to Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts after the flood of 26 August on the Bhote Koshi, north-west of Kathmandu, where rescue work is still going on. The Everest region is on the other side of the country and was not touched. I keep a trail-by-trail status page updated at which treks are open after the Rasuwa flood. Read the travel.gc.ca page for Nepal yourself before you fly, and register your trip with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service while you are there; it is a sensible habit and your insurer expects it. Nothing on it changes the advice above: a licensed guide, which is inside our package, and evacuation insurance, which is yours to buy.

Which Everest trek should a Canadian trekker book?

The twelve-day trek on this page is the classic and the right first choice for most people. Given how far you are flying, three variants sell better with our Canadian clients than the standard route, because they trade a little time for a lot less crowd:

• Everest Base Camp with Gokyo Lakes via Cho La, 15 days. The Gokyo side carries a fifth of the traffic of the main corridor.
• Everest Three Passes, 17 days. The full circuit, for people who have done a week in the Rockies backcountry and want the same feeling with 3,000 metres more air below them.
• Everest Base Camp by road, 15 days. No Lukla flight at all, which some people pick for the budget and some for the nerves. One of this autumn's Canadians chose it for exactly that reason.

How do I pay from Canada?

We quote in US dollars, so there is no exchange-rate guesswork between us, and your bank converts at its own rate on the day. A 10 per cent deposit confirms the booking; it goes by card through Himalayan Bank's secure gateway, and the balance is paid in Kathmandu in cash or by bank transfer. Canadian Visa and Mastercard cards go through without trouble; the one thing to do is tell your bank you are paying a merchant in Nepal, because a first foreign charge from Kathmandu is exactly what fraud filters like to block. An Interac e-transfer cannot reach a Nepali bank, so card is the practical route. The deposit is non-refundable, but if your plans change we move your trek to any date within a year, free, with 72 hours' notice.

One thing to say plainly, because Canadians ask: we are a Nepali company, not a Canadian one, so the provincial travel-industry compensation funds that stand behind a booking through a Canadian agency do not apply here. What protects you instead is the small deposit, the balance paid only when you are standing in Kathmandu, and the paperwork below.

Check us before you pay

Trekking scams in Nepal are real and in the news, so do not take my word for any of this. The Everest Holiday Pvt. Ltd. was registered in Kathmandu on 8 April 2016, company registration 147653/072/073, trekking licence 2090/072, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal member 1586. Every legitimate operator holds the same paperwork and will send it without being offended that you asked. Ask me for a call before you send a deposit; I am on WhatsApp around the clock, and your evening is my morning. If a company will not get on a call with you, walk away. Our reviews are on TripAdvisor and Google under our own name; read the critical ones as well as the kind ones.

The questions Canadian clients always ask me

Do I need to be very fit? You need to walk five to seven hours a day at altitude with a daypack. If you can do a full day in the Rockies or the Gatineau hills with 1,000 metres of gain comfortably, and you take the acclimatisation days seriously, you are fit enough. Altitude does not care how fast you are; it cares how patient you are.

How does it compare to the Rockies? Base Camp is 5,364 metres and Kala Patthar 5,545 metres. Lake Louise sits at 1,600 and the Banff summits most people day-hike top out around 2,500 to 3,000. You will sleep higher than any summit in the Rockies for a week, which is exactly why the itinerary has two acclimatisation days and why we will not cut them.

Can I drink the water? Not from the tap. Budget for purified refills or bring purification tablets rather than buying bottles all the way up. Refills are cheaper and the mountain does not need more plastic.

What gear is provided? With us, a down jacket and a sleeping bag rated to minus fifteen Celsius are free on every tier, so do not buy either at home. Bring broken-in boots, layers you would trust in a Canadian November, and category-3 sunglasses. Full list on the trek page.

Will my phone work? Buy a Ncell or Nepal Telecom SIM at the airport for a few dollars; it works to Namche and patchily above. The Everest Link wifi card in Namche covers the lodges further up. The daily roaming passes from the Canadian carriers rarely include Nepal, and when they do they are expensive, so check before you rely on one.

Can I use my card in Nepal? In Kathmandu, yes, at hotels, better restaurants and ATMs. On the trail, no. Withdraw rupees in Kathmandu and carry them.

If you want a quote for your own dates and group size rather than an article's averages, write to me on WhatsApp and I will send the real numbers, including the unwelcome ones. That is rather the point of this page.

Shreejan Simkhada is the CEO and co-founder of The Everest Holiday, a family-run trekking company in Kathmandu, and a third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586. Every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center.