The short answer: what the Manaslu Circuit costs
Booked direct with us, the guided 14-day Manaslu Circuit starts at £1,295 per person, based on two trekkers sharing. That is all-inclusive from the moment you leave Kathmandu to the moment you get back: guide, porter, all three permits, every teahouse night, three meals a day on the trail and all the ground transport in between. No UK agency margin, because there is no UK agency.
The number that actually matters, though, is the total trip budget from the UK, which is realistically £2,100–£2,700 per person. The gap is return flights, the Nepal visa, insurance that genuinely covers the 5,106 m pass, hotel nights in Kathmandu, tips, and the daily spending on the trail. Those are the costs a headline price never includes, and they are the reason people who budget only for the package come home surprised.
Manaslu costs more than the Annapurna Circuit, and it is worth knowing why before you compare two quotes. Three reasons, all structural rather than a markup. The restricted-area permit alone is roughly £120–£150 a head against about £30 of permits on Annapurna. A licensed guide is a legal condition of the permit rather than an option you could decline. And the jeep in and out is longer, rougher and more expensive than anything on the Annapurna side. If a Manaslu quote looks like an Annapurna quote, something has been left out of it.
Everything on this page is either our own price or a range we watch trekkers actually pay. Where it is a range, we say so. Where it depends on the season or the exchange rate, we say that too. We would rather you arrived with the right amount of money than be flattered by a low number.
| Our 14-day package, from | £1,295 per person, two sharing |
|---|---|
| Realistic total from the UK | £2,100–£2,700 per person |
| UK return flights | £650–£1,000 |
| Nepal visa (30 days) | US$50, roughly £40 |
| Trekking insurance to 6,000 m | £80–£150 |
| Permits (RAP + MCAP + ACAP) | ~£120–£150, seasonal, included in our price |
| Tips, guide and porter | £80–£120 per trekker |
| On-trail extras | £85–£160 over 14 days |
What's included in the package price
The list below is identical whatever group size you book at, and it is the whole list. If something is not on it, it is not in the price. We would rather that be obvious now than negotiated in a teahouse at 4,000 m.
- All ground transport on the trip: the 4WD jeep from Kathmandu up the Budhi Gandaki to Machha Khola, and Dharapani back through Besisahar to Kathmandu at the end.
- A licensed, English-speaking guide for the whole trek, on the government licence system, with mountain first-aid training.
- A shared porter, one per two trekkers, carrying up to 22 kg between you.
- Every teahouse night on the trail, twin-share, including the beds at Samagaun, Samdo and Dharamsala. Dharamsala has only a few dozen of them and no alternative within four hours, which is the single strongest reason to book this trek ahead.
- Three meals a day while trekking, breakfast, lunch and dinner, ordered from the lodge menu.
- All three permits: the Manaslu Restricted Area Permit, MCAP and ACAP, filed for you with the Department of Immigration in Kathmandu before you start walking. On this route that is not a convenience, it is the only legal way to get them.
- Guide and porter wages, insurance, food and lodging: this is not optional and we do not push it onto trekkers as a tip.
- A first-aid kit with a pulse oximeter, carried by the guide and used at Samagaun, Samdo and Dharamsala, plus supplementary oxygen from Samagaun onwards.
- All government and local taxes.
What's not included, and what to budget for
None of the costs below are paid to us. They go to airlines, the Nepal immigration desk, your insurer, hotels and teahouses. Here is what UK trekkers on this trip actually spend.
UK → Kathmandu return flights: £650–£1,000
There are no direct flights from the UK to Nepal. Most people fly from Heathrow, Manchester or Edinburgh via Doha, Dubai, Istanbul or Delhi, with one stop and 13–17 hours in the air. Autumn is the expensive season because it is the trekking season; a January booking for an October departure typically saves £150–£250 against booking in August. Kathmandu's airport is small and delays cascade, which is another argument for the buffer day the itinerary already has.
Nepal visa: US$30–$125
UK passport holders get a tourist visa on arrival at Kathmandu. Bring clean US dollars in cash, or pay by card at the machines when they are working.
| 15 days | US$30 (~£24) |
| 30 days (the right choice for every Manaslu itinerary) | US$50 (~£40) |
| 90 days | US$125 (~£100) |
Trekking insurance: £80–£150
This is the line nobody should trim. A standard UK travel policy typically covers walking to 2,500 m or 3,000 m: the Manaslu Circuit tops out at 5,106 m, so you need a policy that names a limit of at least 6,000 m and covers helicopter evacuation and repatriation. Check as well that it does not exclude remote or restricted areas, which a few policies do and which matters here in a way it does not on the Annapurna trails. UK trekkers on this trip commonly use BMC Trek, True Traveller and Snowcard; expect £80–£150 for a two- to three-week trip, more if you are over 65. A helicopter lift from the upper Budhi Gandaki to Kathmandu is a five-figure bill if you are uninsured. Bring the certificate on paper as well as on your phone: there is no signal above Samagaun.
Hotels and meals in Kathmandu: £120–£220
Budget three to four city nights across the trip. A clean 3-star twin in Thamel runs £20–£35 a night, and eating out is £5–£12 a head. You need at least one full day in Kathmandu at the start whatever else you plan, because that is when the restricted-area permit is filed against your passport and visa. We book these at operator rates if you want us to, or you can arrange your own. Either way it sits outside the trek price.
Tips for the guide and porter: £80–£120
Tipping is customary in Nepal and is not built into our price. For a 14-day trip, groups usually give the guide the equivalent of £8–£10 per trekker per day and the porter £5–£6, handed over together at the last dinner. Nobody will chase you for it and nobody will be rude if you tip less; it is genuinely at your discretion.
On-trail extras: £70–£140
Drinks, hot showers, charging, Wi-Fi and snacks. These are cheap at Machha Khola and expensive at Samdo and Dharamsala, where everything has come up the valley by mule or on somebody's back. Detail in the cost-per-day section below.
Personal kit
If you already hill-walk in the UK you own most of what you need. The gaps are usually a proper down jacket, a four-season sleeping bag and decent gloves for the pass. Buying all three new in the UK is £300–£500; hiring the down jacket and sleeping bag in Kathmandu is about £1.50–£3 a day each. The packing list says which items are worth buying and which are fine to hire.
Manaslu Circuit cost per day
Two different questions hide inside "cost per day", so here are both answers.
What a day on the trail actually costs
Food and a bed on the circuit are priced by altitude and by how far the load has come, and on Manaslu it has come a very long way. At Machha Khola you can eat and sleep for very little; at Dharamsala the same meal is two to three times the price, because everything on that shelf arrived on a mule or a back from two days below. These are the ranges we see in the 2026 season, in Nepalese rupees with an approximate sterling conversion:
| Item | Low (Machha Khola → Deng) | High (Samagaun → Dharamsala) |
|---|---|---|
| Teahouse room, twin | NPR 500–800 (~£3–£5) | NPR 1,200–2,500 (~£7–£15) |
| Dal bhat (refills included) | NPR 600–800 (~£3.50–£5) | NPR 1,000–1,500 (~£6–£9) |
| Breakfast | NPR 400–600 (~£2.50–£3.50) | NPR 600–900 (~£3.50–£5) |
| Boiled or filtered water, 1 litre | NPR 100–150 (~£0.60–£0.90) | NPR 300–450 (~£1.80–£2.70) |
| Hot shower | NPR 200–300 (~£1.20–£1.80) | NPR 400–600 (~£2.40–£3.50) |
| Phone charging, per device | NPR 150–250 (~£0.90–£1.50) | NPR 300–500 (~£1.80–£3) |
| Wi-Fi, per night | NPR 200–300 (~£1.20–£1.80) | NPR 400–600 (~£2.40–£3.50) |
| Chocolate bar / energy snack | NPR 150–250 (~£0.90–£1.50) | NPR 350–500 (~£2–£3) |
Add it up and the food-and-bed cost is roughly £20–£35 a day, rising steeply with altitude, before permits, guide, porter or transport. On Manaslu those last four are not a choice you could make differently: no permit is issued without an agency and a guide, so there is no independent version of this sum.
What you spend on a guided trip
On our package the bed and the three meals are already paid. Your own daily spend is only the optional column: hot showers, charging, Wi-Fi, a beer at Bimthang, sea buckthorn juice at Samagaun. Most trekkers get through £6–£12 a day, so £85–£160 across a 14-day trip. Bring all of it in rupees, in small notes, from Kathmandu. There is no cash machine anywhere on the Manaslu Circuit and cards are decorative from Machha Khola onwards. This catches people out who have done Annapurna, where there is at least an ATM at Chame: here there is nothing at all between Kathmandu and Besisahar on the way home.
Solo, group or private: where the price actually moves
The biggest lever on the per-person price is not the season or the itinerary. It is how many people share the fixed costs. A guide costs the same whether they walk with one trekker or six. A porter carries for two people whatever happens. Permits and food scale per head; almost everything else does not.
So the pattern is simple and it applies to every operator, not just us:
- Solo: there is no solo rate, because there is no solo permit. The Manaslu Restricted Area Permit is issued to a group of two or more, so a trekker travelling alone is joined to another booking rather than quoted a single supplement. Tell us at enquiry stage and we will find you a date that works.
- Two trekkers: the standard basis for our published price, and by far the most common booking.
- Three to six: the per-person price drops steadily; this is the value sweet spot.
- Seven or more: lowest per-head price, and we add a second guide so the group can split on pass day if somebody needs to turn round. On Larkya La, where the descent is four hours long, that second guide is worth more than the discount.
Group discounts apply to groups you form, friends, family, a walking club, not to groups we assemble. If you are solo and want the shared rate, ask about joining a fixed departure instead; those run at the group price.
We do not publish a per-head table for every combination because the honest figure depends on your dates, your group size and which itinerary you pick. Send those three things and you get a written price the same day, valid for 14 days, with nothing added at the end.
Send us your group size and dates: +977 9704551232How the itinerary you choose changes the price
The £1,295 starting price is for the classic 14-day circuit. The other two versions move the price for a reason you can see:
| Version | Days | What changes the cost |
|---|---|---|
| Classic circuit | 14 | The baseline: ten walking days, one acclimatisation day, one buffer day. |
| Circuit with Tsum Valley | 19 | Five more days on the ground, plus a separate Tsum Valley restricted permit on top of the Manaslu one. The permits alone add roughly £40–£60 a head. |
| Circuit with Base Camp and side trips | 16 | An extra night at Samagaun for the full day up to 4,800 m and back, and an extra night at Samdo for the Rui La walk. Two more days on the restricted permit, which is the one fee charged by the day, but the cheapest way to add a serious objective because it uses lodges you were already paying for. |
One counter-intuitive point: shorter is not proportionally cheaper. The jeep in and out, the MCAP and ACAP fees and the first week of the restricted permit are the same whether you walk for ten days or fourteen. Cutting two days off a 14-day Manaslu trek saves far less than a seventh of the price, and it is the only permit on the list that is charged by the day.
Why booking direct costs less
Almost every UK and European trekking agency selling the Manaslu Circuit subcontracts the actual trek to a Nepali operator. On this route it could not be otherwise: the restricted-area permit can only be filed by a Nepal-registered agency, so somewhere behind every UK listing there is a Nepali company buying the permits, hiring the guide, booking the lodges and walking with you. The UK company handles marketing, the contract and the phone line, and adds a margin, commonly somewhere between a quarter and a half of the local price, on top.
That margin buys you real things: a UK contract, a familiar consumer-protection framework, and someone in your time zone to call. If those matter more to you than the money, use a UK agency and do not feel talked out of it.
What you get by coming to us instead is the local price, and direct access to the people who run the trek. You can ask the guide who will actually walk with you whether Manaslu Base Camp is a good idea on your acclimatisation day, and get an answer from someone who was up there last week rather than from a call centre reading a supplier PDF. You also keep more of the money in the valley you are walking through, which on a route with no road and no other industry is not a small thing.
What you give up, honestly
You are contracting with a Nepali company, not a UK one, so ATOL and the UK Package Travel Regulations do not apply to the trek itself. That is exactly why we structure payment the way we do: a small deposit up front, the balance in Nepal once you have met the team. You are never exposed for more than 10% of the trip cost, and your flights, the biggest single line, stay booked in your own name with your own airline or UK agent. Read the terms and cancellation policy before you book; it is short and it is not written in legalese.
How to pay from the UK
- Enquire and get a written price. No deposit, no card details, no obligation. The quote lists exactly what is in and out and holds for 14 days.
- Reserve your dates with a 10% deposit, paid in pounds through our brand hub 6knepaltreks.com. Visa, Mastercard, Amex or a Wise transfer; we absorb the processing fee rather than surcharging it.
- Pay the 90% balance in Nepal, before the trek starts, in NPR or USD. Most UK trekkers bring a fee-free card and draw cash in Kathmandu, or send a Wise transfer a few days ahead. Draw your on-trail spending money at the same time: it is the last cash machine you will see for a fortnight.
- Change your dates free up to 14 days before departure: rebook onto any departure in the following 24 months at no charge. Cancel outright and the deposit is refunded in full 30 or more days before departure, or half between 14 and 29 days.
