Komodo National Park snorkelling and manta rules for 2026: what a boat guest must follow

This note sticks to one question: how a boat guest should behave in the water in Komodo National Park. Park fees and quotas, drones and parties on board are covered elsewhere.

We went through six sources on 28 October 2026. Two are news reports, one on the park tariffs and one on the daily visitor cap. The others are a fisheries ministry decree, a WWF-Indonesia note and two research pages from the Manta Trust. Every rule below comes with its source, its date and a status. Where no source gives a rule, the status is not stated, and we say so.

Keep one distinction in mind throughout. A rule is something the park authority or the ministry has set; guidance is advice from a conservation body or a research paper. Several numbers people quote as park rules turn out to be guidance, and some come from the Maldives rather than Komodo. We label each one.

On 26 October 2024 the regional edition of Antara reported that the park authority was briefing operators on new tariffs under government regulation PP 36/2024, effective 30 October 2024. The report says the entry ticket includes trekking, wildlife viewing and snorkelling. Diving needs a separate ticket per activity, because it needs special skills and equipment.

So for snorkellers, the report states that a valid entry ticket covers snorkelling from a Sea Familia boat. The report does not describe any extra snorkelling permit, a snorkelling zone map or a limit on snorkellers per site. For the amounts, the Park fees page uses IDR 250,000 for a foreign visitor and IDR 50,000 for an Indonesian citizen on a weekday, per person. Komodo National Park tickets and ranger fees are never part of the fare.

Status: rule, sourced. Source: Antara Kupang, 26 October 2024.

Decree 4/KEPMEN-KP/2014 of the Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries was signed in Jakarta on 27 January 2014. It gives the oceanic manta, Manta birostris, full protection across its life cycle and for its body parts. The one exception in the text is research and development.

Read closely, it's a rule about catching, keeping and trading the animal. It lists nothing that visitors do and sets no distance for people in the water. It also names only one species, while two manta species are recognised today, so we don't stretch it further than it goes.

Status for visitors: the law protects the animal; a distance or a touching rule is not stated in the decree. Source: Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, decree 4/2014, dated 27 January 2014.

The clearest guidance comes from WWF-Indonesia, in a note dated 3 March 2016. It reports that mantas are present all year at sites such as Karangmakassar, mostly from May to October, with fewer sightings from June to August. It lists boats passing too close and people chasing or touching mantas as disturbances, and it records a December 2015 workshop with the ministry, the park and operators.

Its advice on encounters is short and written mainly for divers. Stay at least three metres away. Do not touch, because touching can strip the protective mucus layer. Do not chase. Avoid sudden movements. Limit flash photography. That's advice from a conservation body, not a park regulation, and it's ten years old.

Two research pages from the Manta Trust, a UK charity, point the same way, with a caveat: both studied the Maldives, not Komodo. A 2016 dissertation by Ella Garrud filmed 431 encounters at five feeding sites. Watching passively cut strong reactions, and being within three metres raised avoidance. A 2019 paper by Murray and colleagues found only 44 percent of observed encounters followed existing guidelines, and that obstructing or chasing mantas disrupted feeding. The dissertation also recommends keeping inexperienced snorkellers away from diving down near mantas.

Guests ask about all of these. None of the six sources states a rule on any of them.

• A binding minimum distance from mantas for snorkellers in the park: not stated. Three metres is guidance.
• Sunscreen: not stated. We advise reef-safe sunscreen anyway, as a habit, not as a rule.
• Gloves: not stated.
• Standing on reef: not stated by these sources. We'd never suggest it; the reef is what people come to see.
• A guide in the water: not stated. Operators describe Manta Point as a guided drift snorkel, but that is operator practice, not a published rule.
• Snorkelling zones or a snorkelling permit beyond the entry ticket: not stated.
• A maximum number of snorkellers at one manta: not stated.

One more fact belongs here. On 14 April 2026 Antara reported that the park authority had capped visits at 1,000 a day from 1 April 2026, and that it gave degrading coral reef health as a reason. The same report gives a combined capacity of 116,813 visitors for 23 underwater sites, without making the period clear. The cap is about visitor numbers, not snorkelling conduct.

Nothing in these sources affects when you sail. What they shape is how you behave once the boat reaches a manta site.

• Hold your ticket on the day you enter the park. It covers snorkelling.
• Keep at least three metres from a manta, do not touch it, do not chase it and do not swim down at it. It's guidance, but it's guidance worth following.
• Mantas are often seen in season and never promised. Our operator notes put the best months at roughly December to February and July to September. WWF-Indonesia in 2016 put most sightings from May to October, with fewer in June to August. The sources disagree, and neither is a guarantee.

There's one question worth asking before you pay: who leads the snorkel at Manta Point? On a private charter the guide and the photo and video documentation are not included; both are available on request and quoted separately. On an open trip the guide is included. Ask for the answer in your written quote, with the guest-to-guide ratio if you have children. The Manta Point page and the Park fees page cover the rest.