Musée d’Orsay tickets and opening hours

The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30am to 6pm, and until 9:45pm on Thursdays. It is closed every Monday, and on May 1 and December 25. The Louvre closes on Tuesdays, which makes Tuesday a good Orsay day.

Don’t arrive at closing time. On a normal day the last admission is 5pm (5:15pm for exhibitions) and rooms start closing from 5:30pm. On Thursdays the last admission is 9pm and rooms close from 9:15pm. Check the official site for your date.

When we checked, the museum had not yet published hours for December 24, December 31 and January 1. January 1 is not one of its regular closing days, but wait for the museum to confirm before you plan around it. The rest of that week is on our Paris in January page.

The Thursday late opening is the smart slot: it has its own cheaper rate for visits starting from 6pm.

Book a timed ticket online unless you are happy to gamble. The reception area is under renovation from March 10, 2026 to summer 2028. The museum stays open, and all collections remain accessible. It calls online booking “strongly recommended” and asks you to arrive 15 minutes before your slot.

A slot is mandatory for Paris Museum Pass holders and official-reseller ticket holders (both book it free), and for everyone on the free first Sunday. You can still buy at the museum, at the cheaper price. Check the official site for your date, as these rules may change during the works.

Entrance 1 or Entrance 2

• Entrance 1, Quai (Seine side): timed tickets, and Paris Museum Pass holders with a slot.
• Entrance 2, Parvis (forecourt): visitors without a ticket, reseller tickets with a slot, groups, priority and reduced-mobility visitors, and anyone with luggage.

Avoid fake ticket sites

The museum warns about copycat sites, “skip-the-line” offers and street sellers. For a plain ticket, use only billetterie.musee-orsay.fr. A guided tour is a different product: you pay for the guide, and entry comes with it.

The free first Sunday

Free for everyone on the first Sunday of the month, with a reserved slot only. Slots go fast: on October 26, the November 1 slots already showed as fully booked. Groups of seven or more are not admitted that day. The Thursday evening rate is often the easier deal.

Bags

The cloakroom is free, subject to space. You have to leave large backpacks, helmets and cabin cases up to 56 × 45 × 25 cm there. Anything bigger is refused.

To just see the paintings, the museum ticket is far cheaper. A guide is worth it if you want the stories behind the works or would rather not plan a route. All four tours we checked include entry and offer a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours ahead. Card prices are the lowest listed option.

Babylon Tours’ semi-private option caps the group at six. A family option is private, and an “essential” option runs to 12, so check which one you are booking. Meet at 5 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur. The permanent collections are included; temporary exhibitions are not. It is not set up for wheelchairs.

The same operator’s “premium” listing has the same meeting point and the same from-price. The difference is that it also offers private tours in several languages and for families, plus a Thursday evening option. Book it if you want the guide to yourselves; it is only wheelchair-friendly as a private tour. Otherwise it is the same visit as above, and the from-price may be a shared option.

Memories France’s expert tour runs about 1 hour 45 minutes with tickets and headsets, and the listing says entry is pre-reserved through a special entrance. Shared groups go up to 20, or choose the six-guest option. Meet at 2 Rue de la Légion d’Honneur.

Walks - France is the budget option: two hours, fully guided in English, ticket included, with groups capped at 20 and a private option. It is not suitable for wheelchairs or strollers. It has the lowest score of the four: fine, not exceptional.

Most first visits are about one floor. Level 5 holds the Impressionist Gallery. Some works are always off view, so download the floor plan from the official site on the day.

1. Go straight up to Level 5 for Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Cézanne, Pissarro and Morisot. Until January 24, 2027, rooms 29 to 35 also host “I Spend My Life Painting,” a Monet centenary display.
2. Van Gogh is in rooms 36 and 37, at the end of the gallery. Room 37 holds the Paul Gachet collection.
3. Carry on along Level 5 to Seurat and Signac, Gauguin and Pont-Aven, then Redon and the Nabis.
4. The clock. Café Campana, at the exit of the Impressionist Gallery, faces one of the museum’s outdoor clocks. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30am to 4:45pm (8:45pm on Thursdays). You need a museum ticket to get in.
5. If time is left, the floor plan puts Rodin and Art Nouveau on Level 2 and Courbet and Millet on the ground floor.

The exhibitions are included, subject to availability. “Mary Cassatt. Being Independent” runs to January 31, 2027. With only two hours, pick one show at most.

If you love Monet, Van Gogh or Degas, pick Orsay. You can take it in during an afternoon. It gets about 3.7 million visitors a year, against the Louvre’s 9 million, and every adult pays the same price. For the Mona Lisa and antiquity, go to the Louvre, which charges non-EEA visitors more; see Louvre tickets.

Doing both is easy: Orsay closes Mondays, the Louvre Tuesdays. Do them on different days, with our two-hour Louvre route or private Louvre tours.

Getting there

Esplanade Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, 7th arrondissement. Take metro line 12 to Solférino or RER C to Musée d’Orsay. The Batobus stops nearby at Quai de Solférino, a natural link to Seine cruises, and the hop-on hop-off buses stop here too. Visiting soon? See Paris in November.