National Park Lodge Jobs With Housing: Who Hires and How to Apply

Every hotel room, dining room, gift shop and tour bus inside a national park is run by a private company under contract with the National Park Service. Those companies hire thousands of seasonal workers each year, put them in dorms inside the park, feed them in an employee dining room, and charge a small daily or weekly fee for both.

This article lists which company runs which park in 2026, the wages and housing charges each one publishes, the rules on age and background checks, and how the work differs from a federal job on USAJOBS. Every figure comes from an employer posting or a government page, listed under Sources.

Who hires lodge staff in national parks?

Concessioners hire lodge staff, not the National Park Service. The NPS says its more than 480 concession contracts in more than 100 park units range from small family businesses to international corporations. For lodge work, a handful of companies dominate, and the contracts do change hands:

• Yellowstone: Xanterra, as Yellowstone National Park Lodges, hires about 3,000 seasonal workers each summer. Delaware North runs Yellowstone General Stores.
• Grand Teton: Grand Teton Lodge Company runs Jackson Lake Lodge, Jenny Lake Lodge, Colter Bay and Headwaters at Flagg Ranch, and recruits through the Vail Resorts careers site. On June 9, 2026 the NPS selected it for a new 15-year contract starting January 1, 2027. Aramark runs Signal Mountain Lodge.
• Glacier: Xanterra runs Lake McDonald Lodge, Many Glacier Hotel, Rising Sun, Swiftcurrent, the Village Inn at Apgar and the Two Medicine Camp Store, with about 750 seasonal staff from May to September. Pursuit’s Glacier Park Collection runs Apgar Village Lodge and Motel Lake McDonald inside the park, plus Glacier Park Lodge and others outside it.
• Grand Canyon South Rim: Xanterra runs El Tovar, Bright Angel, Maswik, Kachina, Thunderbird and Phantom Ranch with 700 to 900 employees. Delaware North runs Yavapai Lodge and Trailer Village.
• Zion: Destination Zion Lodge, operated by POWDR, the owner of Copper Mountain and Snowbird, took over on January 1, 2025. Xanterra had run Zion since 1972.
• Yosemite: Aramark runs the Ahwahnee, Yosemite Valley Lodge, Curry Village and the Wawona Hotel, with about 1,000 employees year-round and up to 1,500 in summer.
• Sequoia and Shenandoah: Delaware North runs Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia and Skyland and Big Meadows in Shenandoah.
• Denali: a joint venture of Doyon Limited and Aramark runs the park’s buses, retail and food service from May to September, with a fleet of 100 buses.

What jobs do national park lodges hire for?

Mostly hotel and restaurant jobs, and most of them are entry-level. Yellowstone National Park Lodges says it has “many entry-level positions where no prior experience is necessary.” The biggest departments are housekeeping (room attendants, laundry, housepersons), food and beverage (dishwashers, cooks, servers, hosts, café crew and the employee dining room), front desk and night audit, and retail. Behind those sit maintenance, custodial crews and transportation.

Cooks earn more than the entry rate. Yellowstone listed cooks at $19.00 to $22.50 an hour in July 2026, Shenandoah’s line cooks are posted at $19.00, and Zion Lodge’s Line Cook 2 at $18.20. Some jobs that sound entry-level are not: Zion Lodge’s 2026 housekeeping attendant posting says prior housekeeping experience is required.

Skilled trades pay more but come with strings. Xanterra’s September 2026 Yellowstone postings pay carpenters and plumbers $24.35 an hour and electricians $30.05, require applicants to be 21 with a clean driving record, and say housing is not included, so most of those staff live in Gardiner, Emigrant or Livingston, Montana. Driving jobs exist too: Denali’s concessioner runs a 100-bus fleet and Xanterra runs Glacier’s red bus tours and shuttles. Xanterra’s shuttle driver posting at its Cedar Creek Lodge outside Glacier sets a minimum age of 21 and requires pre-employment and periodic drug testing under Department of Transportation rules.

How much do national park lodge jobs pay, and what does housing cost?

In-park housekeeping, dishwasher and front desk jobs posted for 2026 pay $15.70 to $19.80 an hour, and housing with meals costs $16 to $17 a day at the parks that charge by the day. The table uses each company’s own postings and careers pages.

Park	Employer	Season	Posted starting wage, 2026	Housing and meals
Yellowstone	Xanterra (Yellowstone National Park Lodges)	April to end of October	$15.70/hr fall housekeeper and food service worker; cooks $19.00–$22.50	$17/day for a dorm room, utilities, laundry, Wi-Fi and all meals
Grand Teton	Grand Teton Lodge Company	May 1 to Oct 9, 2026	$17.75/hr housekeeper, host, retail clerk; $19.25 lead front desk	Dorm free; meal plan $112/week, mandatory for dorm residents
Grand Teton	Signal Mountain Lodge (Aramark)	May 9 to Oct 12, 2026	Not published	$99/person per week dorm, meals included; $70/person per week triple rooms and RV spaces
Zion	Destination Zion Lodge (POWDR)	Year-round	$17.20/hr housekeeping and dishwasher; $18.20 line cook	$17/day for housing and meals
Yosemite	Aramark	April 1 to Nov 1, 2026	$19.30/hr dishwasher and food service; $19.80 front desk	Rent and utilities under $20/week; meals not included, discounts offered
Sequoia	Delaware North (Wuksachi Lodge)	Seasonal, dates not posted	$17.99/hr housekeeper	$65/week shared dorm with utilities and Wi-Fi; free shift meal; communal cooking area
Shenandoah	Delaware North (Skyland, Big Meadows)	Seasonal, dates not posted	$16.00/hr housekeeper; $19.00 line cook	$100/week dorm with utilities and Wi-Fi; free daily meals for staff in housing
Denali	Doyon/Aramark Joint Venture	May 7 to Sep 23, 2026 (retail)	Not published	$16/day for housing and meal plan

Sources: Xanterra 2026 Yellowstone FAQ and CoolWorks profile and postings; Vail Resorts postings for Grand Teton Lodge Company and TetonEmployee.com; Signal Mountain Lodge and Aramark Yosemite CoolWorks profiles; POWDR, Aramark and Delaware North careers postings. All accessed Sep 13, 2026.

Read the units. Yellowstone, Zion and Denali quote a day rate for room and board together, Signal Mountain and Delaware North quote a week, and Grand Teton Lodge Company splits a free room from a weekly meal charge. Yellowstone deducts housing through biweekly payroll, and its postings note that no Wyoming state taxes come out of your check. Delaware North’s Yellowstone General Stores charges $50 a week for a dorm and $75 a week for meals. For how employer housing works in other outdoor jobs, see seasonal outdoor jobs with housing.

What is employee housing like in a national park?

A shared dorm room with a roommate or three, down the hall from a communal bathroom. Xanterra says most of its employee housing is dormitory style with common rooms and communal restrooms, and that each dorm room or shared cabin holds 2 to 4 people. Yellowstone adds that you will have at least one roommate, that sheets, blankets and toilet paper are provided, and that Grant Village has some cabins while Roosevelt has only cabins. At Signal Mountain each staffer shares a room and bathroom with one other person. Aramark tells Yosemite applicants to expect 2 to 3 roommates and very basic accommodations such as canvas tents and rustic cabins.

Meals come from an employee dining room, served cafeteria-style three times a day. Xanterra offers vegetarian options but warns that strict vegan or allergy diets may not be accommodated, and most of its locations do not allow cooking in dorm rooms. Sequoia’s Wuksachi housing has a communal cooking area instead.

Xanterra’s house rules are a good baseline. No pets in dorms, though pets are allowed at employee RV sites. Only employees live in dorms, so no kids. Couples housing is limited; put your partner’s name on your application. You can request a specific roommate but not count on getting them. Bring a car if you want to leave the park on days off; Yellowstone says most housing is within walking or biking distance of work. If you own an RV, Grand Teton Lodge Company gives self-contained RVs a full-hookup site for free.

What are the age, background check and drug test rules?

Plan on being at least 18, and 21 for anything involving alcohol or a company vehicle. Xanterra says minimum hiring ages vary by state labor law, but you must be 18 or older to live in employee housing. Grand Teton Lodge Company sets the same rule for its dorms, and its 2026 summer postings list a minimum age of “at least 18 years of age.” Zion Lodge’s dishwasher posting and Sequoia’s housekeeper posting also require 18. Xanterra’s bartender posting at Mount Rushmore National Memorial requires 21, and its Yellowstone trades jobs and a Glacier-area shuttle job require 21 with a clean driving record.

Expect a background check. Yellowstone National Park Lodges runs pre-employment background checks, which include a motor vehicle record check for some positions, and says all Yellowstone employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, with pre-employment tests for some jobs. Grand Teton Lodge Company runs its background check after you sign the offer letter and says it takes 1 to 14 days.

You need proof you can work in the United States. Xanterra hires international applicants only if they are enrolled university students sponsored through a J-1 partner agency such as CIEE, CCUSA or Intrax. Relocation is on you: Yellowstone does not pay travel costs but provides free rides from Bozeman on arrival and departure dates.

When should you apply for a summer lodge job?

Between October and March, with January through March the peak. CoolWorks says summer employers can start recruiting as early as October of the year before and keep going into May or June, and suggests applying before the holidays and following up after New Year’s if you have a favorite park. Hiring is fast once you apply: Yellowstone interviews by phone and schedules most interviews within a week.

Availability wins jobs. Yellowstone says an early start in March or April, or a late finish in September or October, makes an application stand out, along with flexibility about which position you take. Apply to several jobs at once; Xanterra encourages it. If you miss winter, watch for the second round: CoolWorks notes summer employers often hire again to finish the season, and Yellowstone posted fall housekeeping and food service jobs in July and August 2026 for work through late October.

Check park news first. After a flash flood on August 29, 2026 damaged the Transcanyon Waterline, the NPS halted overnight lodging at the Grand Canyon from August 31, and Xanterra’s careers page said it was not hiring for any South Rim positions. Open listings are at lodge staff jobs, and by state at Wyoming and Montana.

How are concession jobs different from National Park Service jobs?

NPS jobs are federal jobs with federal pay tables, federal hiring rules and a separate application on USAJOBS. The NPS posts all seasonal vacancies there and accepts applications for summer positions from October through February. Glacier’s NPS page says summer recruitment begins in December and may run into March, the park hires about 350 summer seasonals, and entry-level grades run from GS-3 to GS-5 or WG-03 to WG-09.

Federal pay follows the General Schedule, or the Wage Grade system for trades. OPM’s 2026 Rest of U.S. table, which includes a 1% raise, pays $15.54 an hour at GS-3 step 1, $17.45 at GS-4 and $19.52 at GS-5. A December 2025 announcement for Pacific West seasonal park rangers doing preventive search and rescue, including 18 Yosemite vacancies, paid $19.42 to $36.28 an hour at GS-5 and GS-7, capped work at 1,039 hours, required an EMT certification, U.S. citizenship, a background check and a drug test, and was set to close on December 29, 2025 or at the first 350 applicants.

Housing differs too. Glacier says it can normally house its seasonals, mostly in shared quarters, at $60 to $160 every two weeks. Concession hiring is simpler: no citizenship requirement beyond work authorization and, at Xanterra, a phone interview usually scheduled within a week of applying. A summer in a lodge is also a way to learn a park before applying for NPS seasonal jobs the following winter.