Skiing in North Macedonia: Resorts, Costs & Season

North Macedonia has two ski resorts worth planning a trip around: Mavrovo, on Bistra above Lake Mavrovo, and Popova Šapka, high on the Šar mountains above Tetovo. On their latest published price lists an adult day pass costs 1,500 denars at Mavrovo and 1,200 to 1,400 denars at Popova Šapka, roughly €20 to €24. January and February are the dependable months, and the law, not the weather, decides your car: winter tyres or chains are compulsory on every road from 15 November to 15 March.

That price is the whole pitch: small ski areas at about €20 to €24 a day. What you trade for it is size, lift speed and snow you can’t take for granted.

Mavrovo or Popova Šapka: the numbers

Both resorts lie off the same motorway west of Skopje, and they suit different skiers. Mavrovo is the lower, tree-lined one, with its lifts rising from the lakeside village. Popova Šapka is higher and barer, with a fast six-seat chairlift and a backcountry scene that draws freeriders from abroad.

Read the price rows with their dates in mind. Popova Šapka’s figures come from its 2025/26 list, posted on its website in January 2026. Mavrovo’s come from the last list the resort put online, and its ticket shop was still showing the 2025/2026 season in early October 2026. Neither had published 2026/27 prices by 3 October 2026, so check both before you book.

Mavrovo: lakeside lifts and night runs

Mavrovo’s operator advertises three chairlifts and eleven surface lifts serving pistes between 1,255 and 1,860 m. It quotes 25 km of runs, but on the ski database that counts 18 km at Popova Šapka, Mavrovo comes to about 15.5 km, so measured the same way, it’s the lakeside resort that has the shorter piste map. Night skiing runs every Friday and Saturday, and on the resort’s last list it cost 900 denars for an adult. The senior rules pull in opposite directions: Mavrovo charges skiers over 70 just 600 denars for a whole season but prices a 65-year-old as an adult, while Popova Šapka’s senior season pass, from age 63, costs 10,000 denars.

The lifts start by Mavrovo village on the lake shore, and from the capital it’s under two hours by way of Gostivar. The Mavrovo ski resort guide has the full price table, the pass rules, the ski school and the lift-by-lift detail, and Skopje to Mavrovo compares the bus, the drive and a transfer. Outside winter, the same mountains belong to Mavrovo National Park.

Popova Šapka: height, a fast chair and snowcats

Popova Šapka’s base is at about 1,710 m, 18 km up an asphalt road from Tetovo, and the ski database skiresort.info puts the top lift at 2,380 m. That height is its argument: its runs start and top out four to five hundred metres above Mavrovo’s. The lift that matters is the six-seat Leitner express from 2019; the two older double chairs, Sin Vrv and Sveti Ilija, and a handful of drag lifts fill in the rest.

Popova Šapka’s weekday price is worth planning around: Monday to Thursday costs 200 denars less than the weekend rate, and the weekend starts on Friday.

Eskimo Freeride, which dates its snowcat operation to 2005 and calls itself the first in Europe, takes guided groups into 32 square kilometres of open bowls, trees and couloirs above the lifts, and Tetovo-based Shar Outdoors sells multi-day cat-skiing packages too. Our Popova Šapka resort guide covers passes, hotels, the snowcats and the road up. Our guide to things to do in Tetovo covers the town at the bottom of the mountain road.

Two resorts in one trip

Neither area will fill a week on its own, so a longer trip splits its days between them. The two sit about 80 km apart by road, through Tetovo and Gostivar. Skopje works as a base for Popova Šapka, about 1 h 10 min away in good conditions; for Mavrovo, at about 1 h 45 each way, sleep near the lifts.

Multi-day passes work differently at the two resorts. At Mavrovo, the last published list charges an adult 3,700 denars for three days, on consecutive days only, against 4,500 for three single days. At Popova Šapka, three weekday days at 1,200 denars with the 15% consecutive-day discount come to 3,060 denars, about €50, while three days that run into the weekend cost more.

Ski hire isn’t on either resort’s pass list, so ask for the rate when you book: at Popova Šapka both ski-centre hotels rent equipment, and Mavrovo’s resort website listed a rental shop just below the ticket office.

The small hills, and one closed resort

Beyond the big two, North Macedonia’s skiing is local: short lifts that matter to the nearest town and make a pleasant half day if you’re already there with snow on the ground.

• Nižepole, above Bitola. Built in 1984 and run by Bitola’s public enterprise Strezhevo, it has three ski lifts on Baba mountain between 1,300 and 1,610 m, 15 km of asphalt road from Bitola, with a season from early December to the end of March. It sits on the edge of Pelister National Park, and Bitola makes the base.
• Kopanki, inside Pelister National Park. A small ski area sits by Hotel Molika, with a chairlift up from the hotel and a ski lift above it. Hotel Molika’s website posted a ski price list for the 2026 season, and the centre’s management announced the end of that season in early March 2026.
• Stanič, above Kruševo. A chairlift climbs from town through the beech forest to three short ski lifts, most of it unchanged for about fifty years, and a private company now runs it. Its snow cannons have been handed over to Kavadarci, so it relies on natural snow. The town itself is worth the trip: see the Kruševo travel guide.
• Kožuf, near Gevgelija. This one is closed. It opened in 2007, its new access road was shut as unsafe in 2014, a year after it opened, and the company then spent years in bankruptcy; its lifts were sold in 2023 and its land in April 2025. A restart has been talked about; until the owners announce a season, plan as if it’s shut. On the Kavadarci side of the same mountain, a small new area called Mihajlovo opened on 1 January 2025.

When the snow is reliable

Official season dates are generous. Mavrovo’s national park describes a season from 15 November to about 1 April, with the peak from 25 December to 31 January; Nižepole’s operator gives early December to the end of March. In practice, anything before mid-January or after early March is a gamble: in the 2025/26 winter Popova Šapka’s six-seater turned for sightseers on 26 December without enough snow to ski, and skiing there didn’t start until 11 January.

If your dates are fixed, book mid-January to late February, and if they’re flexible, wait for a cold spell and go midweek. Don’t count on height alone in a warm winter: Popova Šapka sits higher, but Mavrovo’s operator advertises skiing on machine-made as well as natural snow, so check the latest snow news for both before you pick one. Month-by-month temperatures are in the North Macedonia weather guide.

Driving up: winter tyres are the law

From 15 November to 15 March, winter equipment is compulsory on all roads, according to the Ministry of Interior’s notice for the 2025/26 winter. For a normal car that means winter tyres on all four wheels with at least 4 mm of tread, or summer tyres of at least 4 mm plus snow chains for the drive wheels; four-wheel-drive vehicles need 6 mm winter tyres, or summer tyres of at least 4 mm plus chains. Look for MS, M+S or M&S on the sidewall together with the three-peak snowflake symbol; studs are illegal.

From central Skopje it’s about 63 km to Popova Šapka along the A2, with the last 18 km a mountain road from Tetovo, and 96 km to Mavrovo by way of Gostivar. If you’re flying in, Skopje Airport is about 92 km from Popova Šapka by road. Confirm in writing that a rental car comes legally equipped, and ask where the chains are before you leave the car park. The wider rules are in driving in North Macedonia and renting a car in North Macedonia.

Winter sports and your policy

Check your policy before you book a lift pass, not after. Standard travel policies usually leave winter sports out, the UK Foreign Office warns, so look for winter-sports cover by name, and if you’re booking a snowcat day, check that guided off-piste skiing is covered too; the travel insurance guide goes through the wording. Eskimo Freeride says it follows the procedures of HeliCat Canada, the association it’s an associate member of, but the cover for you on that terrain still has to come from your own policy.

Read also

• Browse everything in attractions in North Macedonia
• Work out the numbers: North Macedonia trip cost
• The same mountains in summer: best hikes in North Macedonia
• From the airport into town: Skopje Airport to the city centre