Bar Harbor’s new premium parking fee schedule generated $2.3 million in July and August, amounting to a 24% boost compared to the same period last year, despite visitation at Acadia National Park this summer dipping below the record high set in 2025.
Just five weeks after Bar Harbor raised its rates for the town’s most coveted parking spots, Mount Desert Island’s busiest tourist destination is already seeing financial gains.
“This early revenue demonstrates the financial capacity of the program — the new rate structure,” said Sara Gilbert, the town’s finance director.
In early August, the town’s premium parking slots, along downtown’s main drag, jumped to $6 an hour. Around the same time, the elected town council also approved a coupon program for residents, providing locals with two-hours per week of free downtown parking.
As of Tuesday, 372 residents had applied for the coupon, Gilbert said. Finding parking in downtown Bar Harbor during the local tourist season, from late spring through early fall, is notoriously difficult.
In a single week last month, the town’s premium parking rates helped generate $86,000 more in revenue compared to the same period last year. The town has recorded over $1 million in revenue in August alone. The new rates went into effect Aug. 4.
Those increases are a product of the new parking rates, particularly as Acadia’s visitation numbers have slightly dropped since last year. Last month’s visitation total was lower than it was for the same month in 2025 — when the park recorded its busiest August on record — though it was still only the second time the park has surpassed 800,000 visits in one month, according to National Park Service statistics.
Last September, the Acadia Gateway Center in Trenton opened, encouraging visitors to ride the Island Explorer, the park’s fare-free shuttle system, onto MDI. The new visitors center has roughly 300 parking spots available and, in part, is designed to alleviate congestion in the park and Bar Harbor.
Parking spots along Cottage, West and Main streets, as well as side streets off Main and most parking lots, now cost $6 an hour during the town’s busy season between May and October. Parking areas further from the heart of downtown are $2 per hour.
Bar Harbor generated $87,000 more in parking revenue between July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, which aligns with the town’s fiscal year, than it did the previous year — though the most recent figures have not been audited, Gilbert said.
A single week — Aug. 20 through Aug. 26, which was after the new free schedule was introduced — nearly matched that entire annual gain.
Brandon Monroe, a member of the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and manager at Stay Bar Harbor, a local hotel group, supports the new parking rates and believes it will be a “good step forward for the town.” He didn’t think the new fee structure would prevent visitors from parking downtown.
“Bar Harbor, particularly its beautiful downtown area, continues to be extremely popular amongst our visitors so I am not surprised the parking rates were increased,” Monroe said. “It takes a lot of time and money for the public works department of the town to handle the number of visitors we get. I am happy for the continued visitation of folks along with how hard the town works to clean up and keep our streets cleaned.”