Epic Passes Debut for 2025-26 With Higher Prices; Verbier 4 Vallées Joins Local Pass
On Tuesday, Vail Resorts announced its suite of Epic Pass products for the 2025-26 winter season. Access will remain similar to last year, meaning Epic’s terms will likely continue to undercut its main competitor, the Ikon Pass, although prices have increased across all levels of passes.
The top-of-the-line Epic Pass, which offers unlimited access with no blackouts to all resorts owned by Vail, will start at just $1,051—an increase of 7%, a slightly lower rate hike than last year. The lower-level 2024-25 Epic Local Pass, which contains holiday blackouts and limited access at some resorts, starts at $783—also a 7% increase from last year. Both products are likely to remain cheaper than their Ikon Pass competitors. Regional Epic products, such as the Northeast Value Pass and Tahoe Local Passes, remain available for a lower price; these products typically come with more restrictive blackouts than the full Epic and Epic Local Passes.
The Epic Day Pass product, which is essentially a flexible 1-to-7-day lift ticket, will continue to be offered in the same three price tiers as last year—but with a much steeper 25-30% price hike, depending on the tier. The upper “All Resorts” tier starts at $118 for a 1-day non-holiday pass. The “32 Resorts” tier, which excludes high-caliber destinations such as Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Park City, and Whistler, starts at $91 for a 1-day non-holiday pass, while the base “22 Resorts” tier, which completely excludes all mountains outside New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest, now starts at $56.
Epic has not gained or lost any major North American partners for the upcoming winter. However, a few additions have occurred overseas. The pass suite will expand access to Verbier 4 Vallées, Switzerland, with 5 consecutive days of access on the Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Epic Australia Pass, Epic Adaptive Pass, and Epic Australia Adaptive Passes. Notably, Verbier is still absent from the Epic Day Pass product.
Epic is also continuing to offer no-interest payment plan for their 2025-26 pass products. Pending creditworthiness, pass purchasers will be able to lock in a 6-month installment plan, with $49 down, no interest, and remaining payments starting in mid-September. The payment plan continues to be unavailable to Iowa and West Virginia residents.
All 2025-26 Epic Pass products are on sale now on the Epic website.
Our Take
As with last year, the 2025-26 Epic Pass suite is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Besides the addition of Verbier on the full Epic and Epic Local Passes, the upcoming 2025-26 Epic Pass suite is essentially the same as the 2024-25 one. That being said, those planning a trip to Europe shouldn’t sleep on Verbier 4 Vallées as a resort destination; the ski dominion offers a vast footprint comparable in size to the largest North American resorts plus some of the most extreme in-bounds ski terrain in Europe. Those planning to visit Verbier 4 Vallées with a full Epic Pass last year needed to book an expensive hotel to use the pass days, making it all but impossible to use for budget-conscious travelers, but with that restriction gone, the resort is now much easier to make use of with an Epic product. And while Verbier is still absent from the Epic Day Pass suite, its lift tickets—even at the window—are still quite a bit cheaper than the price one would have to pay if using one of these flexible pass products.
We expect Epic’s pass suite to undercut Ikon price-wise for the fourth year in a row, and some Ikon customers eligible for renewal discounts may pay less if they switch to an equivalent Epic product—although we won’t know for sure until Ikon releases their 2024-25 passes (which will likely happen some time in the next week or two).
Epic has lost ground in certain North American regions compared to Ikon in recent years, and Telluride and the Canadian RCR resorts on the full pass remain the only North American mountains not owned by Vail. However, in addition to the expanded Verbier access we mentioned earlier, Epic continues to offer competitive European offerings in Crans-Montana, Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis, Les 3 Vallées, Skirama Dolomiti, and Ski Arlberg—although the latter three are still only available on the full Epic Pass, and access to the latter is conditional on booking a (typically very expensive) partner hotel.
We’re excited to see how the Epic Pass suite stacks up against the 2025-26 Ikon Pass suite, which has not debuted yet. We’re watching to see whether Ikon maintains a status quo similar to Epic or decides to shake things up with more radical access changes—last year, there weren’t too many shakeups on either side.
For more information on resorts on the Epic Pass, see our Epic Pass mountain reviews as well as our Colorado, Tahoe, Utah, Vermont, and Washington rankings.
