North Dakota State Park Entrance Permit for Disabled Veterans

Every vehicle entering a North Dakota state park must display a valid entrance permit year round. The standard rates are seven dollars daily, thirty-five dollars for an annual single vehicle permit and $61.25 for an annual family permit covering two vehicles in the same household. North Dakota veterans with a fifty percent or greater service-related disability, and former prisoners of war, are eligible for a free annual lifetime pass. All other North Dakota veterans with service-related disabilities may buy an annual permit for twenty-eight dollars, which is the same rate as the resident senior discount. Read that second sentence carefully, because it is narrower than it is usually reported. The twenty-eight dollar rate goes to a resident veteran who has a service-related disability below fifty percent, not to any veteran. A North Dakota veteran with no service-connected rating at all is not on either list and pays the standard thirty-five. Proof is specified. For the disability routes, a current Summary of Benefits letter issued by VA. For a former prisoner of war, a DD-214, or for a civilian former prisoner of war, official written proof from the National Archives database attesting to the status. Applications go to the Parks and Recreation Department in Bismarck. One administrative rule matters more for a lifetime pass than for an annual one, and the Department states it plainly: it does not issue replacement annual passes or daily passes for any reason, and if a pass is lost, stolen or destroyed the individual must buy a new one at full price. A veteran who has been given a free lifetime pass and loses it appears to be in exactly that position, so the pass is worth treating as a document rather than as a windscreen sticker. This is an agency program rather than a statutory entitlement. Chapter 55-08 authorises the director to set permit fees and to allow a discount for residents sixty-five and over, and subsection 4(b) lets the director exempt all or part of any park from the permit requirement for any activity or period when the director judges it desirable. The veterans' pass sits under that administrative authority, which means it can be changed without a bill, unlike most North Dakota veteran benefits.