Half Dome Permit Lottery Statistics

Sunday: 16% Monday: 14% Tuesday: 12% Wednesday: 12% Thursday: 13% Friday: 15% Saturday: 18%
This chart shows Half Dome preseason lottery applications by day of the week.

On this page, you can find various statistics relating to the Half Dome permit lotteries to help you make an informed decision when you apply for the lotteries. While the statistics give you a sense of which days have lower or higher odds, they don't necessarily predict success rate this year.

The chart to the right shows the distribution of the preseason Half Dome permit lottery requests by day of the week.

The set of bar graphs below show how many permits have been requested for each date during the last Half Dome season. This graph shows actual number of permits requested for each day (225 permits are available each day). This graph shows the worst-case scenario for each day because each application will have only one of its permit dates filled (applications can have up to seven different dates requested).

 

Preseason Lottery Requests per Day (2023)

 
Graphs showing number of Half Dome permit lottery requests per day. Weekend are much higher and early and late season dates are less popular
 

Daily Lottery Success Rate per Day (2023)

 
Success rate for each day, which is generally 5% to 30% (lowest on weekends)
 

Other Statistics

Season

May 19 through October 11, 2022 (early start due to less snow)

Preseason Lottery (2023)

Applications: 35,289 (37,702 in 2022)
Application success rate: 22% (21% in 2022)
Weekday choices success rate: 1.2% (1.2% in 2022)
Weekend choices success rate: 0.9% (0.9% in 2022)

Note: Application success rate was calculated based off entire application (all choices). Weekday & weekend success rate was calculated based on all individual choices in every application.

Daily Lottery (2023)

Applications: 29,292 (27,215 in 2021)
Application success rate: 19% (25% in 2021)
Weekday success rate: 23% (30% in 2021)
Weekend success rate: 12% (18% in 2021)

 

Yearly Summaries

 
Bar graph showing the success rate for applications in the Half Dome Preseason lottery from 2012 to 2021
 
Bar graph showing the success rate for applications in the Half Dome daily lottery from 2012 to 2020
 

¹ Starting in 2014, significantly more day use permits were available due to changes in the preseason lottery cancellation policy.

² The Ferguson Fire closed the cables for almost 2 weeks, cancelling many daily lotteries. Further, smoke impacts before and after the closure discouraged visitation.

³ Daily quota was reduced for COVID-19 considerations, reducing the success rate substantially.

Still reading? Maybe you're interested the technical details of how Recreation.gov lotteries work.

Last updated: June 26, 2024

Park footer

Contact Info

Phone:

209/372-0200

Contact Us