Offshore marine protected areas (“MPAs”) are vital for conserving highly mobile marine species such as seabirds, yet their effectiveness depends on the degree of spatial overlap with species’ at-sea distributions. The Galápagos Islands are an important nesting habitat for seabirds, but the level of protection provided by existing MPAs has not been evaluated. Here we analysed 13 years of GPS and satellite tracking data from seven seabird species, encompassing over 1.2 million locations, to quantify overlap between their breeding-season utilisation distributions and the Galápagos Marine Reserve (“GMR”) and Hermandad Marine Reserve (“HMR”). Near-coastal foragers, including Blue-footed Boobies Sula nebouxii and Swallow-tailed Gulls Creagrus furcatus, had over 95% of their core and home ranges within the GMR, whereas the widely-ranging pelagic species Waved Albatross Phoebastria irrorata and Galápagos Petrel Pterodroma phaeopygia had less than 10% overlap with MPAs; the HMR (created in 2022) added minimal coverage. Five of the seven species had <25% overlap with the combined areas of the MPAs. These findings indicate that although current MPAs adequately protect inshore and short-ranging species, they offer limited coverage for widely-ranging pelagic seabirds, underscoring the need for expanded spatial and temporal conservation planning to enhance outcomes.