Quetico Entry Permit: Entry Points, Fees and Border Rules

How the entry quota works

Quetico is the one Ontario park booked by entry quota. You reserve the access point where your trip starts, and you must start there. Once inside, all campsites are first come, first served; if a site is full you keep going until you find one. The park counts over 2,200 backcountry campsites, with no facilities, services or signs on campsites and portages.

Reservations open up to five months before your arrival date, online or by phone. Ontario Parks' own example: on January 15 you can book an arrival of June 15. Backcountry fees are paid in full when you reserve, and a reservation cannot be changed or cancelled more than four months before your arrival day.

The longest stay on one interior campsite is 16 consecutive nights, and 23 nights across a whole itinerary. Other rules Ontario Parks states for Quetico:

• No more than nine people on an interior campsite
• No cans or glass bottles
• No motor boats, power saws, generators, mechanized portage devices, ATVs or snowmobiles
• Artificial bait and barbless hooks only, with a valid Ontario fishing licence bought before you arrive
• No firearms, bows or crossbows; leave pictographs and artefacts untouched

Picking up the permit

In the operating season, when the entry stations are open, you collect your permit in person at a designated entry station before you enter. Permits for entry points run by Beaverhouse, Atikokan and Dawson Trail can be picked up at any of those three. Permits for entry points run by Lac La Croix, Prairie Portage and Cache Bay must come from the station that controls your access point.

The stations generally open on the Friday of Victoria Day weekend and keep Central Daylight Time in summer. Late arrivals are not allowed unless high winds held you up. Outside the season, when the stations are closed, you reserve and pay online or by phone and carry your booking confirmation, printed or digital, as your permit.

Fees in Canadian dollars

The backcountry fee per person, HST included, is the same on Ontario Parks' fee tables for April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027 and for April 1, 2027 to March 31, 2028:

• Canadian residents: $12.43 per adult (18 and over), $5.65 per child (6 to 17)
• Non-residents of Canada, except at the south entry points: $14.97 per adult, $6.50 per child
• South entry points (Cache Bay, Prairie Portage and Kings Point), everyone: $21.47 per adult, $8.48 per child
• Reservation fee: $11.00 online, $13.00 by phone; a change or cancellation costs at least $8.50 online or $10.50 by phone

Crossing from outside Canada

If you enter Quetico from outside Canada, clearing Canada Customs is your job. Ontario Parks says the Canada Border Services Agency's Remote Area Border Crossing (RABC) permit program closed on September 14, 2026.

Since June 8, 2026, travellers entering through designated reporting locations in the park, including Cache Bay and Prairie Portage ranger stations, may be able to report to the Canada Border Services Agency by telephone instead of at a port of entry. It is open to Canadian citizens and permanent residents, and to US citizens and lawful permanent residents. In 2026 Cache Bay took calls to September 13 and Prairie Portage to September 20. The border agency's information line is 1-800-461-9999.

What PermitSnag does here

Each permit page says whether you can set a PermitSnag alert for it, and links to the agency that sells it.

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