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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.

a screenshot of a phone

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

a screenshot of a computer

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.

a screenshot of a computer

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

a white background with black text

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.

close-up of a card with a barcode and a person's face

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!

a screenshot of a computer

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

a document with text and images

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!

If you're doing travel in Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu Peru here is a step by step guide on how to buy tickets


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