How Park Stay WA works: the 180-day window, the Ningaloo exception, stay limits, cancellation fees, the 48-hour grace period, and how to get a site at a campground that's already full.
What Park Stay WA is
Park Stay WA is the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions' online booking system for campgrounds in Western Australia's national parks and reserves. If you want to camp at Lucky Bay, Osprey Bay, Big Lagoon, Conto or Windjana Gorge, this is where you book.
It is not the system for Rottnest Island, for RAC or Discovery holiday parks, or for shire-run campgrounds like Sandy Cape at Jurien Bay. Those have their own sites and their own rules.
This guide is the practical stuff: when bookings open, what the limits are, what cancelling costs, and what to do when the campground you want is showing red.
When bookings open
Most of WA: 180 days ahead, at midnight. For every Parks and Wildlife Service campground outside the Ningaloo Coast, the latest arrival date you can book is 180 days (about six months) from today. A new day opens every night at midnight AWST. If you want to arrive on a Saturday in the January school holidays, count back 180 days and be awake at midnight.
The Ningaloo Coast: monthly, at 10am. Cape Range National Park, Nyinggulara National Park and the Nyinggulu Coastal Reserves release a month of stays at a time, at 10:00am AWST on the first Tuesday of each month, about six months out. There's a queue with randomised positions. See the Ningaloo monthly release explained for dates and tactics.
One knock-on effect: on the first Tuesday of each month, Park Stay WA is closed for bookings for every campground from midnight until 10am, and after 10am you join the same queue as the Ningaloo hopefuls even if you only want a site at Conto. If you can, book the rest of WA on any other day.
Account rules
- You need a free DBCA account. One account per person, one email per account, and you must be 18 or over.
- The name on the account must match ID you can show on arrival.
- A booking must be made from the camper's own account. A friend can sit next to you and help, but can't book for you from theirs.
- Bookings can't be transferred to another person, or to another campground. To change campgrounds you cancel and rebook.
Stay limits and one-site rule
The maximum stay in any park is 14 nights if any night falls in a WA public school break, 28 nights otherwise. (A few parks have shorter limits: Karijini overflow is two nights, Henry White Oval at Yanchep is seven.) The 2027 WA school breaks are 10–26 April, 3–18 July, 25 September–10 October and from 17 December.
A booking is for one campsite only, and you must not hold more than one booking for any night. Friends or family who don't fit on your site book their own. Bookings for the same date from one account are the sort of thing DBCA says it monitors for and cancels.
The number of campers in each fee category can't change part-way through a booking. If two extra people are joining for the weekend only, that's a separate booking for those nights.
What you're paying for
A per-person, per-night camping fee for everyone six and over (infants are free but must be listed). Concession rates apply to holders of Seniors, Age Pension, Disability Support, Carer, Companion and DVA cards, and you may be asked for the card at the campground.
In parks where a vehicle entry fee applies (Cape Range, Cape Le Grand, Francois Peron, Leeuwin-Naturaliste among them) you can pay it with the booking, on arrival, or cover it with an annual park pass and untick the option. Trailers and caravans don't pay entry; the towing vehicle does.
There is no booking fee.
Site selection
Park Stay WA shows each campground's sites individually, with maximum people and which gear is allowed (tent, campervan, caravan). Enter your party and vehicles before searching and the site sorts the list: available sites that fit you first (green "Book Now"), then suitable but taken, then unsuitable.
Some campgrounds work differently. At Lucky Bay, specific sites can't be reserved: you book a place and choose from vacant sites when you arrive. At Conto you pick your site number. The "More details" tab on each campground page tells you which model applies, and it's also where peak periods for that campground are listed.
Changing a booking
Up to 11:59pm AWST the day before arrival, you can change online: arrival date (no earlier than today), departure date, site within the same campground, campers, vehicles and registrations. Date changes depend on availability and the stay limit.
From the arrival date until the day before departure, the only change you can make is to shorten the stay by moving the departure earlier.
A changed booking gets a new confirmation number; the old one shows as cancelled. Note that if you change a booking, the dates you drop are only released to others once your new dates are confirmed.
Cancellation fees
The terms and conditions are more lenient than most people assume:
- You can cancel all nights online any time up to 11:59pm AWST the day before arrival, and you get the fee back less any cancellation fee.
- The cancellation fee is one concession camper fee per date per campsite removed. Removing a date by changing dates counts too, even if the total nights stay the same.
- The fee is waived if you remove the date more than 14 days ahead in a peak period, or more than 5 days ahead at other times.
- There's a grace period: for bookings made three or more days before arrival, you can cancel or change free within 48 hours of booking. For bookings made one or two days out, free until 11:59pm the day before arrival. No grace for same-day bookings.
- Refunds in exceptional circumstances are at DBCA's discretion, in writing, within 28 days of your departure date.
If DBCA closes a park (fire, storm, emergency), you're offered an alternative or refunded for the unused nights with no fee.
The practical consequence for anyone hunting a site: WA cancellations don't pile up at a single deadline the way Victoria's 30-day cliff or NSW's 31-day cliff do. People cancel whenever plans change, because it costs them a few dollars a night at most. Sites reappear at random times, and there's no waitlist.
When the campground is full
Park Stay WA has no waitlist and no notification feature. A cancelled site simply flips from red to green on the availability page, and the first person to see it gets it.
Aussie Camp Alerts checks the Park Stay WA availability for the campgrounds we cover and tells you when any night in your range goes from booked out to bookable. Set a watch with your first and last night; we do the refreshing, and you check the site list for one that fits your party and rig. The free plan gives you one live watch and emails you 15 minutes after we spot an opening. The Summer Pass (A$29 once, 12 months, no auto-renew) gives you up to 10 watches, instant alerts, Telegram and browser push.
We don't book for you, hold sites or touch your account. The link in the alert takes you to the campground on Park Stay WA; you log in and book like anyone else. Which, given DBCA's one-account rule, is the only way it should work.
WA campgrounds we monitor
Cape Range: Osprey Bay, Mesa, Kurrajong, Yardie Creek, Tulki Beach, Neds, North Mandu. Warroora: 14 Mile, Sandy Point, Lagoon. Nyinggulara: South Lefroy Bay, North Lefroy, Winderabandi. Shark Bay: Big Lagoon, Shelter Bay, Steep Point. South coast: Lucky Bay, Le Grand Beach, Four Mile. South-west: Conto. Kimberley: Windjana Gorge.
The full list, with live calendars, is on the Western Australia hub. For what's worth watching, see Best campgrounds in Western Australia.