Travel guides

Is Paraguay expensive? What a trip really costs

The budget for a trip to Paraguay splits into two very different halves: one you can lock in today, with a price in writing, and one nobody can promise you without making it up. Here are the real numbers for the first, and the honest way to estimate the second.

The short answer

What you can fix before you travel is the ground transport: the airport transfer is USD 49 per vehicle and long-distance routes run from USD 347 to USD 517, always per vehicle rather than per person. Everything else, flights, hotels, meals, is somebody else’s price, it moves week to week, and that is exactly why we publish no figure for it and explain how to check instead.

What each transfer costs, route by route

These are the prices from the tariff in force since August 2026, per vehicle and for one to three passengers in a sedan. Fuel, tolls, the border paperwork for the vehicle and driver, and 30 minutes of waiting time are already inside.

The Asuncion to Formosa leg runs sedan only: the border permits do not cover our larger vehicles on that route. A group of more than three passengers wanting to enter through Formosa has to solve it another way, and it is worth knowing before the dates are fixed.

The practical reading of the table is this: a return booked together costs less than two separate legs. Asuncion to Ciudad del Este is USD 347 one way and USD 539 for both, where two separate legs would come to USD 694.

These are the most requested routes, not all of them. We hold fixed prices for 237 destinations across the 16 departments of Paraguay, and our long distance transfers cover any combination between them.

What each day with a programme costs

Tours are priced per vehicle too. The right-hand column is the price for up to three passengers; from the fourth onward, each one adds the amount in the note below.

Additional passenger: USD 49 on the city tour up to 9 people, USD 69 on the Jesuit Missions and the one-day Iguazu tour up to 7, USD 97 on the two-day Iguazu tour up to 7. The panoramic flight is a flat price for the aircraft, which carries three passengers.

On full-day tours the price already covers the driver’s waiting hours, the fuel and the tolls. On the Jesuit Missions it also covers the guide and the entrance tickets to the sites; on the Iguazu tours it does not, because the Brazilian park entrance is paid at the gate and stays outside our price.

The full list with the timings of each one is on our tours from Asuncion.

Three budgets added up for real

These are not estimates: they are the sum of the prices in the table above for three typical trips. All per vehicle, for up to three passengers, and only the part we charge.

Split between three passengers that is USD 343, USD 575 and USD 707 each. Travelling alone, the same vehicle costs the same: which is exactly why a solo traveller gets the least out of this pricing model.

These totals do not include the Iguacu National Park entrance, which is not ours, nor meals, hotels or flights. They do include everything that depends on us: vehicle, driver, fuel, tolls, borders and waiting hours.

To book any of them it is a 30% deposit, USD 100 if the total is under USD 300, USD 150 from there, with the balance paid the day before the service.

What usually escapes the budget

None of these is small print: they are all published. But they are the ones that show up after the sum is done, and that is where a budget breaks.

• The falls park entrance. It is not included in either Iguazu tour and is paid at the gate. As of early 2026 Iguacu National Park charged R$131 for foreign visitors and R$118 for Brazilian and Mercosur nationals, with free entry for children under 6. Confirm the current figure before you travel.
• Waiting beyond 30 minutes. Every transfer includes half an hour of courtesy waiting; after that it is USD 10 per hour. On a day with several stops it works out cheaper to book the driver at your disposal for USD 197.
• The extra suitcase. USD 10 each, or USD 5 on airport runs. The sedan takes three suitcases for up to three passengers; larger vehicles take one per passenger.
• The driver’s overnight. When a service ends outside Asuncion and the driver has to sleep away, it is USD 74 per day inside Paraguay and USD 107 per day abroad. It shows up on long itineraries, not on day transfers.
• The fourth passenger. From the fourth onward each passenger adds USD 20 on transfers, and the group moves to the Hyundai H1 minivan, which seats up to seven. For 8 to 14 we use a Mercedes Sprinter.
• An address outside the zone. The airport base fare covers Asuncion, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Fernando de la Mora, Lambare and Nemby. Outside that the service still runs: only the price changes, and we confirm it before you book.

None of them is a surprise if you ask when booking. The three that come up most are the park entrance, the waiting time and the extra suitcase, and all three are settled with one sentence in the WhatsApp conversation.

The prices we do not publish, and why

Flights, hotels, restaurants, buses and car hire are not ours. We do not set those figures, they move by the week and by the season, and an out-of-date number in an article is worse than no number at all: somebody builds a budget on it and finds out the difference mid-trip.

The honest way to estimate that half is to check at the source, in the same month you travel. Flights on the search engines with your exact dates. Accommodation on the booking platforms, filtered by the neighbourhood you will actually stay in, which in Asuncion moves the price noticeably between the historic centre and Villa Morra. Food, by reading published menus for restaurants near your hotel.

What we can say without inventing anything is this: Paraguay is a destination where ground transport weighs more on a budget than in most neighbouring countries, because there is no domestic flight network running on tourist-friendly schedules between the interior cities. The destinations worth the trip sit between 327 and 370 km from Asuncion, and that distance is covered by road.

That is precisely the part of the budget you can close today, with a price in writing and without depending on the exchange rate of the day. And it is why this article gives an exact figure for everything that is ours and no figure at all for what is not.

When a private vehicle pays for itself and when it does not

The honest answer, which is also what makes the rest of this article worth trusting.

The full comparison between street taxis, apps, car hire and a private transfer, with the scenario each one wins, is in getting around Asuncion.

How you pay, and in which currency

We quote in US dollars because that is the currency our prices stay stable in, but we also take guaranies, Brazilian reais and Argentine pesos at the reference rate of the day. You do not need to change money before you land just to pay for the transfer.

A booking is held with a 30% deposit: USD 100 if the total is under USD 300, and USD 150 from USD 300 up. The balance is paid the day before the service. A credit card is not required, the deposit can be paid by card, bank transfer, digital wallet or crypto.

Airport transfers are the exception: those are paid 100% in advance by link, which is why there is nothing to settle when you land. Cancellation is free up to 24 hours before the service; inside that window the deposit is not refunded, because the vehicle and driver are already committed to you.

There is no night surcharge. An Asuncion airport transfer at 3 AM costs exactly what it costs at midday, and we operate 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Why per-vehicle pricing changes the maths

Almost every tourism price is per person. Ours is per vehicle, and that inverts the arithmetic in a way worth understanding before you compare us with anything else.

The one-day Iguazu tour costs USD 697 for up to three passengers. Travelling alone, that is USD 697. Between three, it is USD 232 each. At four the total goes to USD 766, about USD 192 each, because the fourth passenger adds USD 69. The bigger the group, the lower the per-head figure, up to the limit of the vehicle.

The same happens on the city tour: USD 147 for up to three people, and from there USD 49 per passenger up to nine. A group of nine pays USD 441, or USD 49 a head, the same per-person figure three would pay.

Which is why the solo traveller gets the least out of this model, and we say so plainly. If you are travelling alone and not in a hurry, a private driver in Asuncion booked by blocks of hours usually works out better than separate transfers.

Planning from abroad: where the money actually goes

Most people reading this in English are arriving from outside South America, with no reference points for what anything should cost here. The useful thing to know is the shape of the spend rather than the total: the flight is the biggest single line, the ground transport is the second, and everything else is comparatively small and comparatively flexible.

The ground transport is bigger than travellers expect because of geography, not because of pricing. Asuncion is the base, and the two trips people come for are 330 and 290 km away each way. A day at the Iguazu Falls is 17 to 18 hours door to door for that reason, and the Jesuit Missions run 4 to 5 hours of driving each way.

That also means where you stay matters less than most destinations. The airport base fare covers Asuncion, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Fernando de la Mora, Lambare and Nemby at the same USD 49, so choosing a hotel in one neighbourhood over another does not quietly add a transfer surcharge.

If the itinerary is still open, the piece that decides it is not the budget but the driving times, and those are laid out destination by destination in our Paraguay travel guides. The budget follows from the itinerary, not the other way round.

Frequently asked questions

The ones that actually arrive by WhatsApp when someone is putting a trip budget together.

Lock in the half of the budget that can be locked in

Send us your dates, how many of you are travelling and the destinations you want to see. We send back the whole transport plan with a fixed price per vehicle, so the only thing left to add is what depends on other people.

Per-vehicle prices in force since August 2026, quoted in US dollars. 30% deposit to hold the date.