Hoover Dam tours

The three official Hoover Dam tours

Everything inside the dam is run by the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that owns it, and its guides lead the tours. They are not National Park Service rangers; the park service runs Lake Mead around the dam, not the dam itself.

The Dam Tour is the Power Plant Tour with more added, so you never need both. What the extra $15 buys is the part of the dam the public doesn't otherwise see: a walk into one of the original inspection tunnels inside the concrete, a view down to the river through a ventilation shaft, and a ride to the top in the original elevator. It runs an hour against the Power Plant Tour's 30 minutes.

The catch is how it's sold. In the Bureau of Reclamation's words, Dam Tour tickets "CANNOT be purchased online, and are only sold on-site, in person, on a first come-first served basis," and everyone in your group has to be there when you buy. It also says the tours "routinely sell out." I'd aim to be at the ticket counter close to 9am if the Dam Tour is the reason you're going.

For the other two tickets, the tour page links to an online ticket shop and marks the tickets "upgradeable on-site." The Hoover Dam home page, though, showed its ticket button as "not currently available" when checked on October 17, 2026. Check usbr.gov the week you go. If online sales are off, you buy at the Visitor Center like the Dam Tour.

Some things that catch people at the counter. Interagency passes, including America the Beautiful, are not accepted, and no senior, military or group discount is listed. Visitors under 16 can't tour alone. The Dam Tour doesn't allow strollers or motorized wheelchairs, and its ventilation shaft stop isn't reachable in a manual wheelchair; the Power Plant and Visitor Center tours take wheelchairs, scooters and strollers. Wheelchairs rent for $5 at the parking garage. Websites that quote $30, $15 and $10 for the three tickets are working from old prices.

When to go

The Visitor Center and tours run daily from 9am to 5pm. Doors close at 4:15pm and the last tour leaves at 4:10pm; a "3:45pm last tour" figure that turns up in search summaries is the end of the afternoon quiet window, not the cutoff. The Bureau of Reclamation says the Power Plant Tour is least busy from 9 to 11am and from 2:30 to 3:45pm. Tours are closed on Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26, 2026) and Christmas Day (Friday, December 25, 2026). The dam site itself is open 5am to 9pm.

Tours can be cancelled without notice, with refunds. The most recent full closure was short: all visitor access shut on July 27, 2026 after a cableway carriage moved unexpectedly during maintenance, and reopened July 31.

Which tours from Las Vegas go inside

Most tours sold as "Hoover Dam tours" are a ride out, a walk on top and a stop at the bridge. That is a fine half day, but it isn't a tour of the dam. The listings below say plainly whether a Bureau of Reclamation ticket is in the price. The ones that go inside all use the Power Plant Tour.

No tour on this list includes the full Dam Tour. If a listing promises the "generator room," that is the Power Plant Tour, which anyone can buy for $25.

The cheapest way inside with someone else driving is the Ultimate VIP Tour with Lunch, $59 with 287 reviews at 4.8 stars. The Power Plant ticket alone is $25 and parking is $10, so I'd call it hard to beat, as long as you can live with a bus and a fixed lunch stop. In a small van, the Half-Day Tour caps groups at 10 and the Tunnels & Power Plant Tour at 13, and both cost more. The Half-Day Tour's catch: its listing says that if the Bureau of Reclamation restricts the generator room on your day, you get the bridge and a Boulder City museum instead.

Among the outside-only tours, the 3-Hour VIP Mini Tour has by far the most reviews and is the shortest. It walks the bypass bridge, stops at a Lake Mead overlook and gives you about 25 minutes on top of the dam. Its listing mentions a "Hoover Dam entry ticket," but the itinerary never goes through security, so don't book it expecting the generators. The Express Tour listing still says the inside of the dam is closed because of Covid-19. That's out of date (the tours are running), but the Express Tour doesn't go in either way.

Two operators, the Inside VIP Exploration Tour and the raft tour, say no bag the size of a small backpack is allowed. That's their rule. The Bureau of Reclamation's own rules allow cameras, purses and small backpacks and set no size limit.

The dam from the water

Two tours skip the concrete and look at the dam from below or from the lake. Neither includes a Bureau of Reclamation ticket.

The midday cruise is on Lake Mead Cruises' Desert Princess, a paddle-wheeler, and it's for people with a car: there's no pickup from the Strip. Its listing excludes the Lake Mead entrance fee, so plan on paying the park service's $25-per-vehicle pass (good for seven days) at the entrance. The raft tour has round-trip bus transport from Las Vegas but no hotel pickup, and drives you from Hoover Dam Lodge down to the river at the foot of the dam in a permitted vehicle, then floats for about an hour and a half. It has the lowest rating on this page, and the newest reviews visible on its listing are from 2024, so I'd treat it as the pick only if being on the river is the point.

Driving to Hoover Dam yourself

From the middle of the Strip the Visitor Center is about 38 miles and about 45 minutes with no stops. The Bureau of Reclamation describes the dam as 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, a general figure rather than a distance from the Strip. Take I-11 South (US-93) through Boulder City to Exit 2, then Nevada State Route 172, the Hoover Dam Access Road, down to the dam.

Before the dam you pass a security checkpoint on the Nevada side, where your vehicle may be inspected; refuse and you turn around. Semi-trucks, box and rental moving trucks, trailers and buses carrying luggage aren't allowed through. Firearms, drones and fireworks are banned at the dam, and knives of any size, pocketknives included, can't go into any building. Bring bottled water if you like, but food (other than sealed packages), gum and drinks in cups stay in the car. Pets stay in the car too; service animals are allowed.

Parking is $10 in the Nevada-side garage beside the Visitor Center. On the Arizona side, Lot 9 is also $10, and Lots 13 and 14 are free. RVs and anything with a trailer have to park in Arizona. The Visitor Center and its garage are on the Nevada side, so I'd use the free Arizona lots on a visit that stays outside.

One routing trap: the road over the dam no longer continues into Arizona. If you're heading on into Arizona, to Grand Canyon West for instance, you have to drive back into Nevada and take I-11/US-93 over the bypass bridge. The Bureau of Reclamation's tour line is (866) 730-9097, and traffic and checkpoint updates are on 1-888-248-1259 or 1610 AM.

Walking the bypass bridge

The Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge carries I-11 and US-93 across the canyon just downstream of the dam. It opened to traffic on October 19, 2010. The roadway is about 890 feet above the Colorado River and the bridge is about 1,900 feet long. Drivers on the roadway can't see the dam; the pedestrian walkway on the upstream side is the only place on the bridge with a view of it.

To walk it, park in the bridge lot on the Nevada side, past the security checkpoint. It has roughly 65 to 70 spaces, and the Bureau of Reclamation posts no fee for it. Stairs and ramps lead up to the walkway. Out to the middle and back is roughly 1.3 miles with no shade, which in summer is a reason to go early. The walkway, like the top of the dam, is closed to pedestrians after dark.

Which clock your tour runs on

The dam sits on the Nevada–Arizona line, and the intake towers on the lake side carry two clocks, going by visitors' photos: one labeled Nevada Time and one labeled Arizona Time. Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time and Nevada does, so the clocks agree from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November. This season, they read the same until Sunday, November 1, 2026; from then until Sunday, March 14, 2027, the Arizona clock is an hour ahead. A tour operator's blog that ranks for this says the hour's difference happens during daylight saving time. It's the other way round.

For tickets this matters less than it sounds. The Bureau of Reclamation gives its hours in Pacific time, so the 4:10pm last tour is 4:10pm on a Las Vegas phone. In winter that's 5:10pm in Arizona. Grand Canyon West, if you drive on there the same day, posts its hours in Arizona time.

Lake Mead from the dam

Lake Mead read 1,037.43 feet on October 16, 2026, by the Bureau of Reclamation's daily report. The lake set a new record low in early August 2026 and has kept falling since; it was 1,038.50 feet on September 16. The dam's high-water line is 1,229 feet, so the water is about 192 feet below it. That gap is the pale band on the canyon walls above the water, the "bathtub ring" you'll see from the top of the dam and from the bridge. The dam itself is 726.4 feet tall from foundation rock to the roadway on top.

Hoover Dam on a Grand Canyon day

Many Grand Canyon West tours from Las Vegas stop at the dam on the way, and none of these three goes inside. The small-group Grand Canyon West tour with the Skywalk includes a guided walk on the dam, and so does the small-group tour that adds Seven Magic Mountains; on the cheaper breakfast coach tour, Hoover Dam is a photo stop. The Grand Canyon tours from Las Vegas guide compares them, and the Skywalk guide covers which tickets include the glass.

For more half-day trips, see day trips from Las Vegas; for flights, see the helicopter tours guide.