Guides
Photography and drone etiquette
Information as of 2026-09-21
Photographing or filming police, police escorts or military personnel is illegal and can lead to arrest and a fine, with the amount set by the court according to the seriousness of the offence and the offender's income.
In Buddhist monasteries, permission must be asked before taking photographs, and sacred images and objects must not be touched.
Several Ulaanbaatar museums charge a separate photography fee on top of admission, and the fee can exceed the ticket price by a wide margin.
Bogd Khan Winter Palace: admission 8,000 MNT, photography fee 50,000 MNT. National Museum of Mongolia: adult admission 20,000 MNT, photography fee 12,000 MNT
Photographing people, their gers and their animals is a matter of consent rather than law, and falls under the same hospitality etiquette as everything else about a ger visit.
Rules for flying drones in Mongolia are administered by the civil aviation authority, but no published English-language drone regulation could be retrieved and confirmed from its portal for this file. Travellers planning to fly a drone should contact the authority in advance and should assume that border zones, military sites, airports and government buildings are prohibited.
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- Put the camera away entirely around police, checkpoints, military vehicles and border areas; this is the one photographic rule with legal teeth.
- Ask before photographing anyone, and show them the result; in herding families this turns a transaction into a visit.
- Budget for museum photography fees or leave the camera in the bag, because the fee can be several times the entrance price.
- Never fly a drone over a ger, a herd or a monastery without asking; livestock scatter and the noise is genuinely disruptive.
- Confirm drone rules with the Mongolian civil aviation authority before you fly, and carry any written permission with you.
- Dust is the main threat to camera gear on unpaved roads; change lenses inside the vehicle, not on the steppe.