Who Gets the Money From Mount Everest?

0:00 Base camp from space

This is the base of Mount Everest, photographed from space on the 21st of May this year. Those yellow dots are tents. Hundreds of climbers and the people working for them, camped on a glacier.

Every foreign climber in that camp paid Nepal's government $15,000 just for permission to climb. This spring, a record 492 people paid it. So where does all that money go?

We followed one permit, using Nepal's own government records. Half of it goes to the federal government. A small slice reaches the mountain municipality where Everest stands. And by the end, you'll see why the man who carries your oxygen to the top is insured for less than the price of your permit.

0:45 The price of a summit

First, how much does it actually cost to climb Everest? Nobody publishes official prices. But Alan Arnette, who has tracked Everest expeditions for more than 20 years, surveys over 50 companies every season.

His answer for this year: most people pay between $40,000 and $80,000. With a Nepali company, the middle price was about $45,000. With a foreign company and a foreign guide, about $76,000. Into that price go oxygen at around $650 a bottle, gear that can cost $20,000 new, flights, food, tents, and the people who make the climb possible.

And one line on every bill is fixed by law: the permit. For a foreign climber in spring, $15,000. It went up from $11,000 in September last year. That's a third of a cheaper expedition, and about a fifth of an expensive one.

The permit is the part we can follow all the way down.

1:46 Follow the permit

Nepal's law treats climbing fees like the royalty from a river or a forest: money earned from a natural resource. And the law says how to split it. Half goes to the federal government.

A quarter goes to the province. A quarter goes to local governments. For Everest, the province's quarter is shared between two provinces. Koshi, where the mountain is, gets about 89%.

Bagmati gets the rest. The local quarter is split between 21 local governments. But one of them gets half of it: Khumbu Pasang Lhamu, the rural municipality where Everest stands, along with Namche Bazaar and base camp itself.

So out of one $15,000 permit: about $7,500 to the federal government. About $3,300 to Koshi Province. About $1,900 to Khumbu Pasang Lhamu. And about the same again, shared between the other 20 local governments.

Now multiply that. This spring, Everest permits brought in Rs 1.07 billion. That's a record too. Everest alone is about 87% of everything Nepal earns from climbing permits in spring.

Under this year's formula, Khumbu Pasang Lhamu's share of this spring's Everest money would be around Rs 135 million, roughly $880,000. It's real money for a mountain municipality. But it arrives late: royalties are shared out only after the fiscal year ends, and Khumbu's own officials have complained it isn't enough.

In 2024 the municipality raised its own entry fee for trekkers, saying it doesn't get much from the federal budget.

3:24 The rest of the bill

So the government gets the permit. Where does the other $30,000 to $60,000 go? Much of it goes to the companies running the expedition. Since about 2015, Nepali companies have taken over most of the business, and they're usually the cheaper option.

On the foreign model, a big slice goes abroad: to the company, and to an international guide who can earn $15,000 to $25,000 a season. And some of it is spent on the way up the valley. Climbers and trekkers fly into Lukla, pay a park entry fee and a separate local entry fee, sleep in lodges, hire porters and yaks, and buy food that gets more expensive with every day's walk.

That trail economy is bigger than the permits. In fact, even in a record year, Everest's permit money was only about 1% of what foreign visitors spent in Nepal.

4:16 The people who do the climbing

Every summit depends on Nepali climbing workers. Many, but not all, are Sherpa. They fix the ropes, carry the loads and the oxygen, and climb beside their clients to the top.

The Himalayan Database, which has recorded every expedition since the 1900s, counts 13,755 summits of Everest. More than half of them, 7,096, were made by hired workers. Last year, on Nepal's side, 831 hired workers climbed above base camp, alongside 500 paying clients.

What does the law guarantee them? Nepal's mountaineering rules set a minimum daily allowance the expedition must pay: Rs 1,200 a day for a high-altitude worker. That's about $8.

That's a floor, not the real pay. Experienced guides earn far more through contracts, summit bonuses and tips. Arnette reports certified Sherpa guides can now earn up to $10,000 in a season. In a country where the average income is about $1,500 a year, that's a lot.

But it's earned in the most dangerous workplace on Earth. Since the 1920s, 344 people have died on Everest. 134 of them were hired workers. They cross the Khumbu Icefall far more often than their clients.

This spring, a block of ice the size of a building hung over the route for 19 days. When part of it fell, 4 people were hurt. Now, the promise from the start.

By law, every climbing guide must be insured against accidents for at least Rs 2 million. Rs 2 million is about $13,000. Less than one climber's permit.

6:01 The mountain's bill

There's one more bill: the one the mountain pays. In the last financial year, 83 tonnes of garbage were brought down from Everest and its two neighbours, Lhotse and Nuptse. Almost 32 tonnes of it was human waste.

Each team leaves a $4,000 deposit and gets it back only if every climber brings down 8 kilos of rubbish. In 2024, Nepal's Supreme Court ordered the government to cap climbers based on what the mountain can handle.

Last December, the government launched its first five-year plan to clean Everest. Even the rescues have become a business. In March, Nepal's government attorney filed a case against more than 30 people over fake helicopter rescues of climbers and trekkers, staged to claim insurance.

At the time of writing, the court has not ruled.

6:50 So, who gets the money?

This year showed how fragile all of it is. China kept Everest's Tibetan side closed, which pushed more climbers to Nepal. In early May, Nepal's tourism chief said the Iran war, which we covered in our last video, was holding numbers back.

Days later, they set a record anyway. So, who gets the money from Mount Everest? On a cheaper expedition, about a third of the bill is the permit. Half of that permit goes to the federal government, and about an eighth of it reaches the municipality at the foot of the mountain.

The rest of the bill goes to companies, guides, and the long trail of lodges, porters and pilots. At the time of writing, Nepal's parliament is debating a new tourism law. Lawmakers have proposed auctioning Everest permits, requiring climbers to have climbed other big peaks first, and insuring climbing workers for Rs 50 million.

None of it has passed yet. Whether the people on that glacier get a bigger share may depend on what Nepal decides next. Every number in this video, with its source, is in the description.