Having just gotten back from Machu Picchu, I thought I would write a quick tutorial on how to buy Machu Picchu tickets. There are several sites talking about how to buy Machu Picchu tickets, but many of them are just fronts for travel agencies who are looking to sell you tickets for Machu Picchu with additional charges and/or fees. You can buy tickets for Machu Picchu directly from the Peruvian government with no fees, AND pay with a credit card.
How to buy Machu Picchu tickets – direct from the Peruvian government
The first step in buying tickets for Machu Picchu is to go to the official Peruvian government site. At the time of this writing, that was at
http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/
By default it’s in Spanish, but you can click the British flag in the upper right corner to switch for English. The site is not the most user-friendly (to say the least!) but here’s a step by step guide / tutorial for buying Machu Picchu tickets that will hopefully make your ticket buying experience a little easier.
Buying entrance tickets to Machu Picchu
The first step in buying tickets to Machu Picchu is to choose your ticket type. It’s not super intuitive how you do that but the place to do this is over on the left of the page – there are 2 dropdowns. The top one you can choose Machu Picchu or Museo Manuel Chavez, which I guess is run through this same site for some reason. Once you choose to buy tickets for Machu Picchu, you can choose your Machu Picchu ticket type from the second dropdown.
There are several different options, including just buying Machu Picchu tickets, or additionally buying tickets to hike Huayna Picchu or the Machu Picchu Mountain (Moñtana). If you just want Machu Picchu tickets, then just select that. Given that Peru has announced additional restrictions on visiting Machu Picchu as of July 1, 2017, including limiting visitors to either a morning ticket or an afternoon ticket, I would assume that would be indicated here, but so far I don’t see anything like that here on the site.
3 steps to buying Machu Picchu entrance tickets
There are 3 steps to enter once you select which type of Machu Picchu entrance tickets. After you choose your ticket type and date, you’ll see a screen like this
There you want to put in the number of tickets you want. I assume you are a “Foreign”, so choose your quantity. You can also see in the top left the number of tickets still available for your given date – in my case, 2068 remaining tickets.
The second step is putting in your personal information, which looks similar to the below screen.
If you’re looking for United States, like I am – it’s of course not under “U”. Even though everything is in “English”, the dropdown is still sorted in Spanish – so the United States is alphabetized under “Estados Unidos”, right after Spain AKA España.
After you submit all of that information, you are given a terms and conditions popup
Don’t make any fires there please.
Once you choose “Book”, you’ll get ANOTHER popup which gives you a booking form with a reservation code.
This is NOT your ticket and you are NOT done
Machu Picchu tickets – don’t forget the last step!
Once you get your booking code, you’ll go to the second tab on the screen (Payments). Again, this is not super clear on the website but that’s why I wrote this guide to buying Machu Picchu tickets!
Put in the code that you got from the first step and click Pay. And wait… and wait… and maybe try again. But hopefully, eventually, you’ll get a screen like this
PAGO EXITOSO!!!! (Payment Successful). You’ve successfully navigated the website to buy tickets for Machu Picchu! As this success screen says, you may need to show the credit card you used to buy the tickets. Perhaps this is just for the high season as described – I do not remember having to do that when we went to Machu Picchu.
Now it’s time to take the train to Machu Picchu.
I hope this helps – if you have any other tips on how to buy Machu Picchu tickets, leave them in the comments!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Other option is to buy tickets on your arrival to Aquas Calientes (by train or car) from official Tourism Office. Be aware – there is NO ticket sales at the entrance to Machu Picchu, you have to have your ticket before you get there. So buy tickets to MP at the official Tourism Office first, then buy your bus tickets to the entrance second (unless you are willing to walk couple miles up steep hill in high altitude).
On our trip I’ve purchased train (Vendome) tickets ahead of time as those can be sold out few month prior, but got MP entrance tickets on arrival without any problem, and believe you can use credit card or cash for them. Buses running up and down the MP hill are run by private companies and sell tickets on the spot at small bus stop (like $8 pp each way).
When I did this many years ago, the credit card had to have a Verified by Visa functionality and all of my go to cards (CSR, etc.) did not work. I had to use a Banana Republic Visa card of all things that did work.
Don’t know if that is still that case, but I do remember that being a stumbling block for my purchase.
I ran into that (Verified by Visa) when trying to buy Machu Picchu train tickets but didn’t have a problem using my card to buy tickets to Machu Picchu itself.
Additionally, prepare that visit to Machu Picchu are going to be the most expensive day in your Peruvian journey.
$500 for 2 people, including Vendome trian RT from Cusco; entry to MP; taxi from/to Cusco; bus to/from MP hill. And that was few years ago, now may be more.
Does it worth it? For most people – yes, although some months MP can be crowded and would not feel like a serene place as it should. Views are breathtaking and ancient city remnants are amazing.
Some say that you don’t have to go and can visit Pisac ruins instead. Being there too I can compare, and can say that MP is better in scale and variety, although views and trails in Pisac are amazing as well – you can even hike all the way from downtown Pisac (market square) up and around the hill – having a close look at the various structures and scenes along the way. Or take taxi to the top for $20.
Machu Picchu felt more of a journey with experience; Pisac felt more of an exploration – almost no people there, very quiet and peaceful there, but lots to see and feel. For Pisac you don’t need a train as regular ‘collectivo’ go from Cusco to Pisac market daily every so often for cheap ($5pp).
Some call Pisac “a poor man Machu Picchu”. 😉
Enjoy both if you can!
Yeah – Peru has certainly figured out that there’s only one Machu Picchu in the world, everyone wants to go there, and they can charge whatever they want. I tried to take a deep breath and not get too annoyed at how expensive it was.
We did go to the Pisac ruins but of course it started to rain pretty hard right when we got there, so we didn’t get to enjoy it as much as we could have.
so if i understand this right…. you just take a printout of your successful payment, the card used, a photo id to the entrance of Machu Picchu? I wasn’t sure if we needed to pick up tickets somewhere
No – once you make your payment – you’ll get a PDF with your actual ticket. THAT is what you need to print out and bring with you ( with your card)
Please note that there are (often steep) discounts for people with passports from the Andean Community and/or Peruvian DNI’s, for the train, the bus up the mountain, and the actual entrance fees. If you have a Peruvian ID, you can get the train trip a lot cheaper by buying the ticket directly in Ollantaytambo. Same train, slightly less luxurious service (same car style as the normal “tourist” train but your free cup of tea was not included). And S./15 ($5) each way instead of USD 60 each way.
You cannot buy those tickets in advance, only within a few days of travel locally.
Also note that entrance tickets for MP bought at the Ministry of Tourism in Aguas Calientes (MP Village) are often for a later date. In practice, they will let you get in with any ticket that has not yet expired. So if you need to go a certain day and you cannot find availability online, either buy the ticket on arrival (which we did) or buy it online for a later date.
Best season to go is June-Sept as it’s often sunny and no clouds. If you go during the coastal summer months (Dec-Mar), there will often be a lot of rain, landslides, etc. The mountains are often in the clouds during those months and your visibility is not good.
You are correct. I did not mention that in this post (I did mention it in my post on how to take the train to Machu Picchu) specifically because most of my audience is US based and I didn’t want anyone thinking that they could somehow scam their way into getting one of these highly discounted tickets
I’m in the US purchasing MP tickets for our trip in August. The page for the last step to make payment is not working at all. I’ve been trying for a while now, and my time to input that info is about to expire. Is there an alternative? I would like to buy tickets ahead of time because the rest of our trip is strictly planned with no other day to visit MP. Is my ONLY option online payment?!
You might try a different browser or using an incognito window / clearing cookies. It’s definitely finicky. You can pay at local offices in Peru but that probably won’t help you specifically
Dan, the incognito trick worked! Thanks a million! I got a “Pago Exitoso” notification – woohoo. I saw in your comment above (to Antonio) that this is not enough for entrance. I didn’t get a separate “PDF with my actual ticket”. Does that come via email? If so, is it normal for it to take a while?!
Annie – awesome! Glad that helped. As for the tickets itself, I don’t remember getting an email – everything was on the site itself. It’s been awhile though so I can’t remember
I tried your step by step instructions only to find out that my credit card is not “verified by Visa” so it did not work. But I was able to buy my tickets from https://machupicchu.center Thought I would give the link for those who are having difficulty. Ordering was very very easy and got my tickets 20 minutes later.