National Parks Fee-Free Calendar Drops MLK Day and Juneteenth, Adds Trump's Birthday

In December 2025, the Interior Department revised the National Park Service's fee-free entrance day calendar for 2026, removing Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth and adding a new "resident-only patriotic fee-free day" tied to President Trump's birthday, which falls on Flag Day. The updated calendar also added the Fourth of July weekend and Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, while dropping the Great American Outdoors Act anniversary and National Public Lands Day.

Fee-free days are largely symbolic, since they do not affect operating budgets, but they function as civic signals about which dates the government chooses to honor with free public access. Removing MLK Day and Juneteenth eliminates the two entries most closely tied to civil rights history.

The change also restricts free-entry days to U.S. citizens and residents only, a break from prior practice. Civil rights groups and park advocates criticized the substitution as politicizing a public-lands program meant to be civic rather than partisan, while the administration described it as a routine calendar update.