Guatemala Government Services

CONAP (Consejo Nacional de Áreas Protegidas) is Guatemala’s lead conservation agency. It administers SIGAP (the Guatemalan System of Protected Areas) — more than 320 areas covering about 31% of the national territory, including world-class sites like Tikal, Lake Atitlán, Sierra de las Minas, Río Dulce, and the Maya Biosphere Reserve. CONAP is also Guatemala’s CITES authority (international trade in endangered species), regulates sport hunting, certifies forest regents, and authorizes scientific research in protected areas.

Quick rule: Going to Tikal or Atitlán as a tourist? → CONAP’s trámite catalogue publishes no permit for an ordinary visitor (and no exemption either); you pay the entry fee the administering body sets for that area. Going to hunt, research, export wood, or transport species? → CONAP is the mandatory filter. Running a flora/fauna company? → registration is indispensable, and the two official catalogues disagree on its price (Q2,000.00 inscription per CONAP’s Trámite 07A; Q0 for the update act per tramites.gob.gt #651) — see the FAQ below.

CONAP sub-portals and divisions

Most-searched CONAP trámites

For hunters and sport people

For companies and forest regents

For researchers and scientists

Most-visited protected areas (SIGAP)

What CONAP publishes, and what it does not. CONAP’s catalogue of twenty trámites contains no permit addressed to an individual visitor — and no exemption for one either; treat that as a silence in the catalogue, not as a permission. What it does publish for the visitor side is Trámite 03, the authorization a service provider needs to operate inside a protected area (annual licence Q50.00 individual up to Q1,000.00 for a large operator; a one-day-to-three-month permit Q25.00–Q500.00), filed “por lo menos 30 días previo a desarrollar la actividad”, with an INGUAT guide card required if the service is guiding. On entry fees, CONAP’s Libro Tarifario prices only the two areas CONAP administers itself: Semuc Champey Q50.00 foreigners / Q30.00 national adult / Q10.00 national child, and Yaxhá-Nakum-Naranjo Q80.00 foreigners / Q40.00 nationals. Tikal, Atitlán and the rest are priced by their own administering bodies, so check the area you are visiting. Commercial filming does carry a CONAP fee where CONAP administers the site — Q2,000.00 per project at Semuc Champey. All figures retrieved 2026-08-14.

Active CONAP programs

Before any CONAP trámite — checklist

Diaspora — researchers, hunters and conservationists in the USA

If you are a researcher or doctoral student in the USA

• Research is two trámites, not one, and CONAP runs both through its Dirección de Valoración y Conservación de Diversidad Biológica — not the wildlife directorate that handles hunting and exports. First Trámite 04A, the researcher registry: Q800.00 for a foreign individual researcher (BANRURAL code 712) or Q400.00 for a legal entity (code 713). CONAP prints an exemption that matters to anyone on a university payroll: “personal e investigadores de Universidades y de CONAP están exentos de este pago, para ello deben de presentar constancia dónde se acredite su vinculación a una Universidad”.
• Then Trámite 04B, the Licencia de Investigación, which CONAP’s cost block prints as Sin Costo. CONAP’s own requirement list is: its application form, an existing researcher registry, a research protocol on CONAP’s format, a letter of support from a national counterpart institution if you are a foreign researcher (“Carta de respaldo de la institución contraparte nacional para el caso de investigadores extranjeros”), and a letter from the area’s administrator if the work is inside a protected area. CONAP publishes no list of counterpart institutions, so we name none.
• Neither trámite publishes a lead time or a resolution deadline (checked 2026-08-14). The only 30-day advance rule in CONAP’s catalogue belongs to Trámite 03, the visitor-services authorization, and does not apply to research — so we print no figure for how early to start.
• To take samples out of the country (animals, plants, soil, DNA) you need a Research Transport Permit + CITES Permit if the species applies + SAT export permit.
• For research in Tikal or the Maya Biosphere also coordinate with IDAEH (Anthropology Institute) if your work touches archaeology.

If you are a Guatemalan sport hunter living in the USA

• Your CONAP Hunting License can be renewed on each visit to Guatemala — valid one year from issuance.
• Hunting trophies for export to the USA: a CONAP export document (CITES or NO CITES — see CONAP CITES export permit, Trámite 19), a USDA-APHIS declaration on entry to the USA and a customs declaration. Decreto 4-89 Art. 27 prohibits the collection, capture, hunting, transport, trade and export of species “en peligro de extinción, de acuerdo a los listados del CONAP”, and Art. 24 has CONAP draw those lists up annually. We do not reproduce a species list we did not retrieve — ask CONAP which of its lists your species sits on before you plan a trophy export.
• Bringing a personal firearm from the USA for hunting in Guatemala: requires a temporary DIGECAM (MINDEF) permit + SAT customs declaration. See MINDEF.

If you are a Guatemalan in the USA interested in conservation

• On donating from the USA, we verified nothing and therefore assert nothing. CONAP’s trámite catalogue publishes no donations channel. What it does publish is Trámite 02, the registry of national and foreign NGOs working on natural resources and the environment, priced in the Libro Tarifario at Q2,000.00 for a foreign NGO and Q750.00 for a national one — that is a Guatemalan registration, and it says nothing about any organization’s U.S. tax status. If you are donating in order to claim a U.S. deduction, look the receiving entity up yourself in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search and get the exact legal name and EIN. An earlier version of this page told you three named organizations were all 501(c)(3)-deductible; we never checked that, so it is gone.
• Private Natural Reserves: if you inherited forested land and want it protected, the Reglamento to the Ley de Áreas Protegidas (Art. 16) sets only two requirements — “Que contenga ecosistemas silvestres no afectados significativamente por la actividad humana” and “Que el terreno se encuentre libre de gravámenes”. You keep the land: the same regulation says the size depends on the owner’s proposal, “quien mantendrá plenamente sus derechos sobre la misma y estará encargado de su manejo”, and that these reserves “contarán con el respaldo y el reconocimiento pleno del Estado para la protección de la integridad del terreno y de sus recursos”.
• 🔴 There is no property-tax break, and we had this wrong. The Reglamento still prints an IUSI-exemption procedure in Arts. 75–79, but the Ley articles it implements — Art. 31 (Impuesto Único sobre Inmuebles) and Art. 32 (income tax) — are annotated Derogado in CONAP’s own consolidated edition: “Derogado por el numeral 11 del Artículo 1 del Decreto Número 117-97 el 01-01-1998”. The incentive has not existed since 1 January 1998. Earlier versions of this page promised an IUSI exemption; do not plan around one, and note that the exoneración decision belonged to the Ministerio de Finanzas Públicas, never to CONAP. (Consolidated Decreto 4-89 + A.G. 759-90 as published by CONAP, retrieved 2026-08-14.)

Sanctions, as the Ley de Áreas Protegidas actually prints them

Quoted from the consolidated Ley de Áreas Protegidas (Decreto 4-89) y su Reglamento (Acuerdo Gubernativo 759-90) published by CONAP, with that edition’s reform annotations (retrieved 2026-08-13).

What we do not publish here. Earlier versions of this page carried figures for illegal logging, invasion of a protected area, burning inside one, operating a flora company without registry and researching without a permit. No published figure for those conducts was found in the Decreto 4-89 text above, and the instruments that would carry them (Código Penal, Ley Forestal, Ley de Patrimonio Cultural) have not been retrieved for this page — so those rows are removed rather than replaced with a better-sounding number. Full detail on the export side: CONAP CITES export permit (Trámite 19).

On fire inside a protected area specifically, CONRED does publish a summary of the Ley Forestal penalties — and it is CONAP’s valuation, not INAB’s, that sets the fine there. We quote it, with its source, on wildfire hotspots, alongside the live satellite detection count for the Maya Biosphere Reserve’s department.

CONAP contact

More Guatemala state resources

• MARN Guatemala — environmental licenses, EIA, emissions control (general regulation; CONAP is specific to protected areas and biodiversity)
• MAGA Guatemala — INAB for productive forests outside SIGAP, animal health, phytosanitary
• MINDEF Guatemala — DIGECAM if bringing a firearm from the USA for hunting
• SAT Guatemala — CITES export + customs for scientific samples
• MINEX Guatemala — apostille and document authentication for international research
• Trámites Guatemala — full directory of state trámites