Guide
Yes, your photographer needs a permit. Here is how to check.
Commercial photography on Hawaii state beaches requires a DLNR permit, pulled per beach. In Wailea and Makena that rules out more beaches than most visitors expect.
The short answer
The permit is your photographer's job. Checking it is yours.
Commercial photography on Hawaii state beaches requires a permit pulled through the DLNR, and only certain beaches are available. That applies in Wailea and Makena the same as everywhere else on the island.
On this side of the island, the beaches I shoot are Polo, Keawakapu and Maluaka. Wailea Beach, Ulua, Mokapu, Makena Cove, Big Beach, Little Beach, Makena Landing and La Perouse are not on my permitted list, and I do not book sessions on any of them. The list is short on purpose: permitted, uncrowded at the hour you are on it, and workable in the wind.
The permit is about commercial photography, meaning someone being paid to photograph you. It is the photographer’s to pull, not yours. Your part is asking.
How it actually works
Four things worth knowing.
- 01
Permits are pulled per beach
There is a specific state website for vendors to do business on the beach legitimately, and only certain beaches are available on it. A photographer working properly pulls a permit for your location before your session. “I have a permit” is not the same sentence as “I have a permit for this beach.”
- 02
A permit can cover one end and not the other
It is possible to hold a valid permit and still be in the wrong place. At Polo, mine covers both ends, which is why I can move when one end fills up.
- 03
Officers do come and check
DLNR officers turn up at beaches and ask. If your photographer does not have the permit, the session stops. There are fines attached, and the photographer pays them, but you lose the evening.
- 04
Very cheap usually means unpermitted
Not always, and there are genuinely affordable photographers doing it properly, often newer ones building a portfolio. But a price far below everyone else on the island is usually explained by a permit and an insurance policy that do not exist.
What it costs you
A shutdown lands on you, not on them.
Think about what a shutdown actually means. A child who was cooperating, light you planned the day around, a family that got dressed for this. Forty minutes in, it stops. There is no do-over that night, only a reschedule, if your trip has room for one.
On the west side, the beach that catches most visitors out is Kaanapali, where commercial photography is not permitted on the beach itself. In Wailea and Makena the trap is quieter: beautiful beaches that simply are not on a given photographer’s permit.
Before you book anyone
Two questions, thirty seconds.
Ask any photographer: are you licensed and insured, and which beach permit are we shooting under? The answer to the second should be a specific beach, and ideally which end of it. A working professional answers both instantly. Hesitation is the flag.
I’m both, and have been since I went full-time in 2022. If you book someone else, book someone else. Just ask first. The full permit guide
Frequently asked
Permit questions
Your photographer does. Commercial photography on Hawaii state beaches requires a DLNR permit, pulled per beach. Ask which beach permit they are shooting under before you book.
Polo, Keawakapu and Maluaka. Those are the south-side beaches on my permitted list, and the only ones I book on this side of the island.
You can be stopped mid-session and asked to leave, and the photographer can be fined. You do not get a do-over that evening. You get a reschedule.
Next step
Tell me where you are staying.
I will come back with a beach, a time and the reason for both — usually inside the hour.