How to Get a National Park Disability Pass for Anxiety

You can get a national park disability pass for anxiety if a licensed physician determines that your condition is permanent and severely limits at least one major life activity. The America the Beautiful Access Pass is free, lasts for life, and covers entry to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. The program’s definition of disability explicitly includes permanent mental impairments, so anxiety disorders, PTSD, depression, and similar conditions can qualify on the same footing as physical ones.¹

Does Anxiety Qualify You for the Access Pass

The Access Pass is open to any U.S. citizen or permanent resident who has a “permanent physical, mental, or sensory impairment” that “severely limits one or more major life activities.”¹ The program does not publish a list of qualifying diagnoses. Instead, it uses a functional test borrowed from Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act: does your condition severely limit something like caring for yourself, working, concentrating, sleeping, or breathing?²

That framework tracks how the Americans with Disabilities Act treats mental health conditions. The EEOC has said that major depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and OCD “should easily qualify” as substantially limiting when they make concentrating, interacting with others, regulating emotions, or sleeping harder than they are for most people.³ An anxiety disorder that produces those kinds of limits fits the same functional standard.

There is no minimum severity percentage, and your condition does not need to be rated at 100%. What matters is that a physician can describe it as permanent and can point to concrete ways it limits daily functioning.

What Documentation You Need

You must present a valid photo ID along with one of three types of proof:⁴

A letter from any licensed physician, including a psychiatrist, stating that you have a permanent disability, confirming that it severely limits one or more aspects of daily life, and describing those limitations.
Federal agency documentation: proof of Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or a VA disability award letter or Summary of Benefits. VA award letters must state a disability percentage.¹
A document from a state vocational rehabilitation agency or similar body attesting to the disability.

Handicap parking placards, applications for placards, and SSDI “Notice of Benefit Increase” letters are not accepted.¹ Receiving SSDI or SSI does not itself get you the pass; the benefit paperwork is simply one accepted form of proof that a medical determination has already been made.⁴

The Psychiatrist or Physician Letter

For anxiety and other psychiatric conditions, the physician letter is often the easiest route. There is no government template. The letter needs three things: a statement that you have a permanent disability, confirmation that it severely limits one or more daily life activities, and a description of those limitations.⁴ A psychiatrist’s letter carries the same weight as any other physician’s letter.

Existing paperwork can work if it already contains those elements. Mental Health America notes that one person who obtained the pass for PTSD and major depressive disorder successfully used a psychiatrist’s letter originally drafted for an emotional support animal, because it happened to meet the three criteria. Physician statements should be recent; they are generally considered invalid after one year.⁵

How to Apply

You have three options:

In person, free of charge, at any of more than 1,000 federal recreation sites that issue passes. Bring your photo ID and disability documentation, and the pass is issued on the spot. The National Park Service recommends this route. If you show up without documentation, you can sign a Statement of Permanent Disability affidavit (Form 10-597) at the site. That affidavit option is only available in person.⁴²
Online through the USGS Store at store.usgs.gov. There is a processing and handling fee, and delivery takes up to three weeks. Your order receipt is not a substitute for the pass.¹
Digital pass through Recreation.gov. As of January 2026, you can obtain a fully digital Access Pass and save it to a mobile device for immediate use. If you also want a physical card mailed to you, the shipping fee is $7.50.⁶⁷

What the In-Person Exchange Actually Looks Like

Handing mental health paperwork to a ranger at a gate can feel exposing, and that worry is common enough to be worth addressing directly. In practice the interaction is administrative, not medical. Rangers check that the documentation contains the three required elements. They do not evaluate your diagnosis.

Janelle Gonzaga, writing for Mental Health America, described applying at Great Falls Park in Virginia using a psychiatrist’s letter documenting her PTSD and major depressive disorder. She asked the ranger about the Access Pass, presented the letter with her ID, and the ranger approved the application. She signed a form with her name and pass number and received the pass, calling the process “smooth.”⁵ If you would rather skip the exchange entirely, the digital pass through Recreation.gov and the mail-order route through the USGS Store both work.

What the Pass Covers

The Access Pass is valid for the holder’s lifetime and is honored at sites managed by six federal agencies: the National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and Army Corps of Engineers.⁸ It does not cover state, city, or county parks.

At sites charging a per-vehicle entrance fee, the pass admits you and everyone in a single private vehicle. At per-person sites, it covers you plus three additional adults; children under 16 always enter free. The pass also covers two motorcycles.¹

You also get a 50 percent discount on some expanded amenity fees, such as camping. The discount does not usually extend to fees charged by concessioners or to special recreation permits.⁹ Only the Access Pass and the Senior Pass carry the camping discount; the standard annual America the Beautiful pass does not.¹⁰

1
USGS. Access Pass
2
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Statement of Permanent Disability, Form 10-597
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Depression, PTSD, and Other Mental Health Conditions in the Workplace: Your Legal Rights
4
National Park Service. Interagency Access Pass
5
Mental Health America. How to Get a Free U.S. National Parks Access Pass as a Person With a Psychiatric Disability
6
National Park Service. Department of the Interior Announces Modernized, More Affordable National Park Access
7
Recreation.gov. America the Beautiful Passes
8
Department of Veterans Affairs. Disabled Veterans Eligible for Free National Park Service Lifetime Access Pass
9
National Park Service. Passes
10
USGS. Frequently Asked Questions