The short answer
Check four things before you book: the maximum load per porter (should be capped well under the national 30kg benchmark, not "as much as they can carry"), whether porters are insured for accident, altitude sickness, and evacuation, how many porters are assigned per trekker, and whether wages reach the porter directly rather than through a vague chain of custody. If a company can't answer these four questions specifically, in writing, before you've paid a deposit, that's your answer.
Why this question doesn't have an easy answer online
I've read most of what's out there on this. The loudest voices are NGOs and advocacy pages, and they're right to be loud, but they speak in generalities because their job is to set a standard, not audit every operator in Kathmandu. What they can't do is tell you whether the specific company you're about to send money to actually follows any of it.
And almost no operator publishes their own policy. Not because they're all hiding something. Most just never thought to write it down, because nobody's ever asked. So you end up as a trekker with a real warning ("porters get overloaded, porters get sick, porters get sent home without pay") and zero way to check it against the company in your browser tab. That gap is the actual problem. This post is me trying to close it, at least for anyone evaluating us.
The load limit of Porter, and why it matters more than any other single factor
Nepal's recognised benchmark for a porter's load is 30kg. That's higher than Kilimanjaro's 20kg and Peru's 25kg, which says something about how normalised heavier loads became here before anyone pushed back.
Overloading is the single biggest cause of porter injury on Nepali trails. Not altitude, not cold. Load. A porter carrying 40 or 50kg at 3,500 metres is carrying an injury that just hasn't happened yet, usually to the back or knees, and it compounds year over year because the same person keeps doing the same work.
Our own cap sits at 20kg, the same figure on every route we run, well under that 30kg benchmark, not pushed up against it. And we don't stretch that thin across a group. For every two trekkers, we assign one porter, which keeps the load per person reasonable instead of loading up fewer porters to save cost.
A few years back, on an Annapurna Base Camp trek, one of our porters, a younger guy, maybe his second or third season, kept falling behind the group each day. Gopal was guiding that trek. He's someone who notices things, so by the time he called it in, he'd already ruled out the obvious stuff: pace, water, altitude. He put it down to the porter still building stamina for the work, which is a fair read early in someone's second season, and it's usually the right one.
It wasn't until Gopal walked with him directly, mostly just to keep him company on a slow stretch, that he noticed the load itself sitting wrong on the man's back, pulling to one side with every step. It had been packed unevenly before it ever left Pokhara. Nothing to do with the porter at all.
What struck me, talking to Gopal after, wasn't that he missed it. It's that he hadn't thought to question our own packing, because that's not usually where the problem is. We repacked it properly at the next stop, and the porter kept pace fine the rest of the trek. Now, whoever loads porter bags weighs and balances each one individually rather than hitting a total kg number, so it's not sitting on a guide out on the trail to catch something that should've been right before the group ever left Pokhara.
Insurance, the check almost nobody actually verifies
Porter insurance should cover three things: accident, high-altitude evacuation, and ongoing medical care if something goes wrong on the trail. It's the item most likely to get quietly skipped by cheaper operators, because it's invisible to you as a client right up until the moment it isn't, and by then it's too late to have checked.
We handle this directly rather than outsourcing it to a named third-party provider. If a guide or porter is injured on a trek, our insurance covers them, and they're moved to the nearest hospital or clinic, not just given a day off and sent back down alone.
Direct payment: does the money actually reach the porter
This is the trust gap that comes up over and over in trekker forums and in reporting on the industry here: you pay the agency, the agency is supposed to pay the porter, and there's no way for you to see that second step happen. It's not always exploitation. Sometimes it's just a system with no receipts.
On our treks, the porter's wage is paid directly to them by us, not handed off through a guide or folded into some end-of-trek settlement. Tipping works the same way on top of that: give it directly to the porter or guide, in person, in cash, never assume it's already built into what you paid the agency.
For the full breakdown of guide and porter wages and how that compares to the informal market rate, see what our guides and porters actually get paid.
Where the IPPG guidelines fit into this
You'll see the name IPPG, International Porter Protection Group, come up in most serious writing on this topic. It set five welfare guidelines in the 1990s covering clothing, shelter, insurance, fair treatment during illness, and load limits, and those guidelines are still the reference point most people mean when they talk about ethical porter treatment.
Two things worth knowing: IPPG was never a body registered in Nepal, and its on-the-ground rescue posts in the Gokyo Valley closed in 2020 after a local permitting dispute. IPPG itself still exists as a UK-registered charity and continues supporting porter welfare through partner organisations; it just no longer runs its own facilities on the trail. We don't frame what we do as following IPPG's guidelines, since it isn't an organisation actively operating in Nepal to follow. What we run on our own treks- a load cap well under the national benchmark, direct insurance, wages paid straight to the porter- lines up with the substance of those points without us ever having borrowed the name.
The exact questions to ask any Nepal trekking company before booking
Ask these directly, and expect specific answers, not reassurance:
- What's the maximum load per porter, and how many porters per trekker?
- Who insures your porters, and what does that cover?
- How and when do porters get paid, directly or through someone else?
- What happens if a porter gets sick or injured mid-trek?
- Is tipping already included in what I'm paying, or should I plan to tip separately?
Any operator worth booking with should be able to answer all five without reaching for a brochure.
How HST specifically handles this
We cap porter loads at 20kg, well under the national 30kg benchmark, and assign one porter for every two trekkers so nobody's overloaded to save on headcount. Insurance for guides and porters is handled by us directly. If someone's hurt on the trail, they're covered and get moved to the nearest hospital or clinic. Wages go straight from us to the porter, not through anyone else. And if you want to tip on top of that, hand it to them yourself, at the end of the trek, in cash.
This applies whether you're on Everest Base Camp, Annapurna Circuit, or a restricted route like Manaslu Circuit, where permits are tighter, and the trail is remote enough that cutting corners matters more, not less.
That's the policy, not a pitch.
The checklist
Before you book with any Nepal trekking company, check:
- Load per porter capped well under 30kg, not left open-ended
- Enough porters assigned that no one's carrying more than they should to save on headcount
- Insurance in place for accident, altitude sickness, and evacuation
- Wages paid directly to the porter, not lost somewhere in the chain
- Tips handed to the porter or guide themselves, in cash, at the end of the trek
FAQs
What is a safe load limit for a trekking porter in Nepal?
Around 30kg is the recognised national benchmark. HST caps loads at 20kg, well under that.
Do all Nepal trekking companies insure their porters?
No. It's not legally mandatory in the way permits are, so coverage varies widely by operator, and it's rarely disclosed unless a trekker asks directly.
How can I make sure my tip actually reaches my porter?
Hand it directly to the porter in cash, in person, at the end of the trek. Never route it through the agency, and never assume a "service charge" on your invoice covers tips; it usually doesn't.
How many porters do trekking companies typically assign per group?
It varies. Some cut costs by assigning fewer porters and loading each one more heavily. We assign one porter for every two trekkers specifically to avoid that.
What happens if a porter gets sick or injured on a trek?
With us, they're covered by our insurance and moved to the nearest hospital or clinic. Whether that happens with any given operator depends entirely on whether they actually have insurance in place, which is exactly why it's worth asking about upfront.
Does Himalayan Scenery Treks pay porters directly?
Yes. Wages go from the agency straight to the porter, not through a guide or a separate settlement process. See the full guide and porter pay breakdown for exact numbers.
Is there a difference between a porter and a porter-guide in Nepal?
Yes. A porter-guide carries a load and holds a basic guiding license, earning slightly more than a standard porter but less than a full trekking guide. It's a common first step for porters moving up in the industry.
