The National Park Service’s $3.6 Billion Budget in Perspective: A Comparison to Federal Spending Priorities
The Entire NPS Budget Is Just 0.05% Of The Federal Budget, Yet It's Being Cut.
Every year, more than 330 million people visit America’s national parks, from the towering cliffs of Yosemite and the geysers of Yellowstone to the historic battlefields of Gettysburg. They come seeking beauty, reflection, and a tangible connection to the country’s story.
And yet, the agency tasked with protecting these treasures—the National Park Service (NPS)—operates on a budget that amounts to little more than a rounding error in the federal ledger.
The National Park Service, steward of over 430 national parks, monuments, and historic sites across the United States, operates on a relatively modest budget—approximately $3.6 billion annually as of 2024.
While this figure may sound substantial, it represents a tiny fraction of the overall federal budget, which exceeded $6.8 trillion in the same fiscal year. That’s about 0.05%.
To truly appreciate the miniscule scale of the NPS’s funding—and what it says about national priorities—it’s useful to compare it to other single expenditures within the federal government.
First, however, let’s look at what’s arguably the single biggest challenge in terms of government funding—the ever-increasing national debt, and the massive interest the country needs to pay on it each year.
Interest on the National Debt
One of the most significant and rapidly growing expenses in the federal budget is the interest on the national debt. In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. government spent approximately $1.13 trillion on interest payments alone. This amount is over 300 times the annual budget of the NPS.
To put this into perspective:
The interest payments in 2024 surpassed spending on both national defense and Medicare, making it the second-largest federal expenditure after Social Security.
Projections indicate that interest costs will continue to rise, reaching nearly $1.8 trillion by 2035.
So, will reducing the operational budget of the National Park Service by $897 million—as is currently being proposed by the executive branch and discussed in Congress—do anything to help pay back the national debt?
No, not in any meaningful way. Not at all. Not whatsoever.
While absolutely devastating and crippling to the Park Service itself, those cuts represent merely 0.07% of the annual interest on the national debt—which is projected to continue to increase in the next decade. That still leaves 99.93%.
To make matters worse, the budget reconciliation bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill, that just passed the House and is now in the Senate would add more than $3 trillion, including interest, to the federal debt over the next decade—that’s trillion with a T.
How would gutting the National Park Service help if no one’s even trying to get the federal debt down?

Defense Spending
Perhaps the most striking comparison is with the U.S. Department of Defense, which received roughly $817 billion in FY2024.
This means the entire National Park Service budget is equivalent to about 0.4% of the defense budget. Put differently, the Department of Defense budget is more than 225 times larger than the NPS budget.
To further contextualize this:
The Pentagon spends over $100 million per day on fuel alone, enough to fund the NPS for over a month.
One Ford-class aircraft carrier costs over $13 billion—nearly 4 times the annual NPS budget. Just one!
Transportation and Infrastructure
Federal spending on transportation infrastructure dwarfs that of parks as well. The Federal Highway Administration had a budget of about $60 billion in 2024. That’s more than 16 times the NPS budget—yet both agencies play roles in national connectivity and public access.
To further contextualized this:
Amtrak, a single corporation, received roughly $2.4 billion in subsidies in 2024. While not far off from the NPS, this supports one individual mode of transportation, compared to the NPS’s broad mission of preservation, education, recreation, and conservation.
Health and Social Services
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) operated with a budget of approximately $9 billion—nearly 2.5 times that of the NPS.
Meanwhile, Medicare spending reached over $1 trillion, making the NPS budget about 0.36% of that total. These disparities underscore the vast scale of entitlement programs and health care spending in America.
Homeland Security and Border Enforcement
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, had a 2024 budget of over $19 billion—more than 5 times that of the NPS.
This includes staffing, infrastructure, and border surveillance technology, while the NPS must maintain and staff hundreds of sites nationwide with a much leaner budget.
In fiscal year 2024, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received approximately $9.6 billion in funding. This allocation is more than 2.5 times the budget of the National Park Service. The ICE budget covers a range of activities, including immigration enforcement, detention operations, and homeland security investigations. (appropriations.senate.gov)
To further contextualize this:
ICE's detention budget alone in 2024 totaled over $3.4 billion, nearly matching the entire NPS budget. This funding is used to maintain approximately 41,500 detention beds.
NASA and Scientific Agencies
Even NASA, with its space missions and research initiatives, had a 2024 budget of $25 billion. While space exploration is inspirational and far-reaching, it highlights how America’s terrestrial wonders are maintained with far fewer resources.

Government Technology and Oversight
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) received about $12 billion to collect taxes and enforce federal tax laws.
Although critical to government function, this amount is still three times the cost of preserving the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Statue of Liberty, and hundreds of other national treasures.

A Matter of Priorities
While $3.6 billion is not an insignificant sum, in the context of the federal budget, it’s basically a rounding error.
Across all its departments, the federal government spends five times more every single day than entire annual National Park Service budget.
Let’s put that in another perspective.
Despite managing over 430 sites across more than 85 million acres, the National Park Service operates on a budget smaller than many single projects or programs elsewhere in the federal government.

The disparity between the NPS budget and other federal expenses is not simply a financial curiosity—it reveals a deeper conversation about how Americans value their shared heritage.
The implications of this neglect and chronic underfunding are everywhere.
Our national parks face a maintenance backlog of more than $23 billion—crumbling trails, aging water systems, eroding historic structures. Rangers are stretched thin. Facilities in many parks are outdated or overcrowded.
And yet, when we visit these places, we expect pristine landscapes, clean restrooms, well-informed guides, and preserved heritage. We want our parks to inspire awe, and they still do—but barely, and often in spite of, not thanks to, Washington.
We should ask ourselves what message this sends. We spend hundreds of billions defending the idea of America abroad, yet skimp on the lands that symbolize it here at home.
We spend vastly more to detain foreign people than to educate visitors about democracy at Independence Hall or protect sacred tribal sites in the Southwest.
For about $11 per visitor per year, the National Park Service delivers recreation, education, conservation, and cultural preservation to millions.
That’s a better deal than just about anything else in the federal government. And it’s one we’re jeopardizing.
Investing more in our parks won’t fix the national debt or the health care system or immigration issues. But it would make a powerful statement: that we care about what we leave behind. That we’re willing to protect the best of America for the next generation, not just react to its crises.
Investing more in parks would represent a relatively small financial shift, but a major statement of national values—prioritizing conservation, recreation, education, and public lands for current and future generations.
We can afford to do better. The real question is whether we will choose to.