Kruger Gate Times by Month and Entrance Gates

Gate times are the one rule in Kruger you can’t bargain with. Every gate, entrance and camp, closes at a set time that moves through the year with the daylight, and if you are on the wrong side of it you pay a fine. Most people who get caught out are not reckless, they just underestimate how slowly you drive in a park where the limit is 50 km/h and there is an elephant in the road.

Gate opening and closing times by month

All the South African entrance gates keep the same hours. The camp gates (the gates of the rest camps inside the park) open at the same time as the entrance gates for most of the year, but from November to January they open an hour earlier so overnight guests can be out on the roads at first light. Everything closes at the same time.

Month	Entrance gates open	Camp gates open	All gates close
January	05:30	04:30	18:30
February	05:30	05:30	18:30
March	05:30	05:30	18:00
April	06:00	06:00	18:00
May	06:00	06:00	17:30
June	06:00	06:00	17:30
July	06:00	06:00	17:30
August	06:00	06:00	18:00
September	06:00	06:00	18:00
October	05:30	05:30	18:00
November	05:30	04:30	18:30
December	05:30	04:30	18:30

These times were checked on 7 October 2026 and have not changed in years, but SANParks can alter them, so confirm with SANParks (sanparks.org) before you plan a tight day.

The short version: winter days (May to July) are the shortest, with only eleven and a half hours between opening and closing. In midsummer you get thirteen hours, and overnight guests get fourteen.

The entrance gates

There are nine gates from the South African side, spread along about 350 km of the park’s western and southern edge. Which one you use matters more than people think, because driving inside the park at 40 to 50 km/h (with stops) is far slower than the national road outside it. Pick the gate closest to your first camp, not the one closest to the airport.

Gate	Nearest town	Approx. from Johannesburg	Nearest camp inside
Crocodile Bridge	Komatipoort	450 km	Crocodile Bridge (at the gate), Lower Sabie
Malelane	Malalane	405 km	Berg-en-Dal
Numbi	White River, Hazyview	390 km	Pretoriuskop
Phabeni	Hazyview	415 km	Skukuza, Pretoriuskop
Paul Kruger (Kruger Gate)	Hazyview	450 km	Skukuza (about 12 km)
Orpen	Hoedspruit, Acornhoek	505 km	Orpen (at the gate), Satara
Phalaborwa	Phalaborwa	500 km	Letaba
Punda Maria	Thohoyandou	550 km	Punda Maria
Pafuri	Musina	617 km	Punda Maria, Pafuri area

Distances are road distances as published by Wikivoyage and are a guide only. There is also Giriyondo, a border post into Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, which you reach from inside Kruger rather than from a South African town.

For a first visit with no particular plan, the southern gates (Malelane, Crocodile Bridge, Numbi, Phabeni and Kruger Gate) are closest to Johannesburg and Mbombela’s Kruger Mpumalanga airport, and the south has the densest game and the most traffic. Orpen is the gate for Satara and the central plains. Phalaborwa has its own airport in town and gets you into the mopane country around Letaba quickly. Punda Maria and Pafuri are for people heading to the far north, which is quieter and the best birding in the park.

Flood damage in 2026

The January 2026 floods hit the north and centre of the park hard. By late March 2026 Phalaborwa, Punda Maria and Pafuri gates were open again and the Pafuri border post had reopened, but Giriyondo was still closed for repairs and some roads, bridges and bush camps were on staged reopening dates running into the second half of the year. If you are using a northern or central gate, check the latest SANParks notice before you leave home.

Day visitor quotas and booking a day visit

Each gate only lets in a set number of day visitors a day. Overnight guests with a booking are not part of the quota, which is one good reason to sleep in the park in busy months.

For the 2025/26 festive season SANParks let day visitors pre-book online, and pre-booked visitors chose one of three time slots (05:30 to 08:00, 08:00 to 10:00, or from 10:00). Booking carried a non-refundable admin fee of R59 per adult and R29 per child, on top of the daily conservation fee. If you arrived outside your slot you were treated as if you had not booked. When a gate reached its limit, people without a booking were turned away or sent to another gate.

I’d book any day visit that falls in December, early January, Easter or a long weekend. Outside those periods the quota rarely bites at the quieter gates, but it can at Paul Kruger and Phabeni on a Saturday. The daily conservation fee for foreign visitors goes up on 1 November 2026, and our park fee table and calculator have the current and new rates. If you visit often, read our guide to the SANParks Wild Card, which covers entry fees for a year.

Speed limits and what happens if you are late

The limits are 50 km/h on tar, 40 km/h on gravel and 20 km/h inside rest camps. Rangers do run speed checks, and the fines are not small.

If you reach a camp or entrance gate after closing time, the official at the gate will take your details and you can expect a fine. SANParks has reported late fines ranging from R500 to R1,000 depending on how late you are, though amounts may have changed since. More to the point, nobody is allowed to drive the public roads after dark outside a guided night drive, so a late arrival can also mean an uncomfortable conversation.

My rule of thumb is to work out the distance to your camp, divide by 25 km/h (a realistic average once you stop for animals) and add half an hour. A 50 km drive is two hours, not one.

Related guides

If you are still choosing dates, my guide to the best time to visit Kruger goes through the weather, malaria season and the busy school holidays. For visas and arrival, see South Africa entry requirements, and for money, plugs and driving on the left, see South Africa travel essentials. Our Kruger National Park page lists places to stay near each gate.