Free Museum Days In Paris: The Full 2026 Calendar

Paris does not have one free museum scheme. It has four, and they follow different calendars, different booking rules and different exceptions. The City museums are free every single day. The national museums are free on the first Sunday of the month, but only some of them, and two of the biggest make booking compulsory. The Louvre has quietly replaced its Sunday scheme with a first-Friday evening one that most old guides still get wrong. And the national monuments, the Pantheon, the Arc de Triomphe, Sainte-Chapelle, run free Sundays only in the five winter months.

Getting any of this wrong does not just cost money. At the Musee d'Orsay a free Sunday without a booked slot means being turned away at the door, because the museum refuses walk-ups once it is at capacity. That has happened to real visitors, and it is the single most common way a free museum day in Paris goes wrong.

This page lays out all four systems, museum by museum, with the booking rule attached to each one, and it suggests free walking tours that pair naturally with each free day. The walks are run by independent local guides and listed on GuruWalk, they are not this site's own product, and they follow the same model as the museums' free days in one sense: reserving a place costs nothing, and at the end each walker gives the guide what they think the walk was worth.

Which Paris Museums Are Free Every Single Day?

Eleven of the fourteen Paris Musees sites keep their permanent collections free on every opening day, with no booking, no first-Sunday condition and no ticket at all, and this is the best free museum deal in the city. The three that charge are the Catacombes at 31 euros (checked September 2026), the Palais Galliera and the Crypte archeologique. Walk into the Petit Palais, the Musee Carnavalet or the Musee d'Art Moderne and you simply walk in.

This is the scheme that beats every monthly free day, because it needs no planning. The Petit Palais, opposite the Champs-Elysees through the Rond-Point, holds its permanent collections free Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, with last entry to the free rooms at 17:15 (checked September 2026). The Musee Carnavalet, the museum of Paris itself in the Marais, is free Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, last admission 17:15 (checked September 2026). The Musee d'Art Moderne de Paris is free Tuesday to Sunday and keeps its permanent collections open until 21:30 on Thursdays (checked September 2026), which makes it one of the few genuinely free evening museum visits in the city.

Two catches are worth knowing before you plan a day around them. First, temporary exhibitions inside these same buildings are ticketed, often 9 to 15 euros (checked September 2026), so check whether the show you want is the permanent collection or the exhibition before assuming it is free. Second, one of the eleven has suspended its free entry for 2026: the Maison de Victor Hugo on Place des Vosges is charging for everything, permanent collection included, from 11 June to 22 November 2026 for its architecture exhibition. The free list below is otherwise stable.

If you are building a whole free day rather than a single visit, the eleven-museum rule is the backbone. The Petit Palais plus the Champs-Elysees is a free afternoon; Carnavalet plus the Marais is a free half-day with two of the best free churches nearby, covered street by street in our guide to free churches in Paris. The Musee Curie sits in the Latin Quarter, five minutes from the Pantheon, though note its 2026 closure calendar: it shuts completely from 1 August to 1 September and again from 20 December to 5 January (checked September 2026).

Which Museums Are Free On The First Sunday Of The Month?

The free first Sunday is real at the Musee d'Orsay, the Musee Picasso, the Musee du quai Branly, the Musee des Arts et Metiers, the Musee Gustave Moreau and the Musee Jean-Jacques Henner, but not at the Louvre, which has no Sunday scheme at all, and at the Musee Rodin only from October to March. Booking rules split the list in half: Orsay and quai Branly require a booked free ticket, Picasso refuses bookings outright, and Rodin needs nothing.

The rule that decides your day is the booking rule, not the price. At the Musee d'Orsay the museum's own rates page states that on the first Sunday of the month entry is free for all and the reservation of a visit slot is mandatory (checked September 2026). Free Sunday slots there genuinely sell out: visitors have found the next day's free tickets gone online and been told the museum would not sell at the door because it was at capacity. Book the moment the slots open, and do not count on a walk-up.

The Musee Picasso is the exact opposite. Standard entry is 16 euros (checked September 2026), but on the first Sunday entry is free without reservation, and the museum states plainly that it is not possible to book a free ticket: free-entitled visitors go straight to access control with proof. The Musee du quai Branly, 14 euros full and 11 euros reduced (checked September 2026), is free the first Sunday but requires a timed ticket for all visitors. The Musee Rodin, 14 euros (checked September 2026), offers free first Sundays only from October to March, with no advance booking required, so a summer first Sunday there is a full-price day (see Which Company Offers The Best Free Walking Tours In Paris?).

One resolved confusion deserves a line because it trips up so many visitors: the Musee des Arts et Metiers stays open late every Friday until 21:00, but that late opening is an opening hour, not a price. The museum's own tariff page gives free entry on the first Sunday of each month only, and its first-Sunday free tickets are issued at the box office only, they cannot be reserved online (checked September 2026). A Friday evening visit there is a paid visit.

A free museum day also needs the streets between the museums, and that is where a free walking tour earns its place. A first-Sunday Orsay morning pairs naturally with a walk through the historic centre or the Marais afterwards, and the perfume museum walk below covers the Opera quarter that sits between the two big train stations. These are free tours run by independent local guides and listed on GuruWalk: booking costs nothing, and at the end each walker pays the guide what they choose.

What Can You Do For Free In Le Marais On A Museum Day?

The Marais gives you the Musee Carnavalet free every day, the Musee Picasso free on first Sundays, the Musee Cognacq-Jay free every day, and Place des Vosges free forever, which makes it the densest free-museum neighbourhood in Paris. The one thing to avoid is assuming the BHV rooftop is a free viewpoint: since 2026 it is a paid restaurant terrace, not a public one.

Carnavalet is the anchor. It is the museum of Paris itself, free every opening day, and it sits on Rue de Francs-Bourgeois in the middle of the Marais, a street that also holds the Musee Cognacq-Jay, whose permanent collections are free too, though parts are screened off during temporary exhibitions. On a first Sunday you can add the Musee Picasso a few minutes north, free that day with no booking possible, and the Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature, which runs a free first Sunday that even covers its temporary exhibition, an unusually generous rule (checked September 2026).

The streets between those museums are the reason to slow down. The Marais has the largest intact pre-Haussmann fabric in central Paris, the Place des Vosges, the Rue des Rosiers and the Hotel de Sully passage, and a guide who knows the courtyards changes the walk completely. The Crowd-Free Marais, 7 Stops walk is a free walking tour run by an independent local guide and listed on GuruWalk: it runs 1 hour and 30 minutes, is rated 4.8 across 517 reviews on GuruWalk (checked September 2026), meets at 10 Rue des Nonnains d'Hyeres in the 4th, and deliberately routes around the heaviest crowds. The exact meeting point is confirmed when you reserve a place, and you pay the guide what you want at the end.

For more on the neighbourhood itself, our free things to do in Le Marais guide covers the parks, the churches and the street-art spots that fill the hours between museum visits. And if you are stretching a whole cheap day in Paris, the picnic and tap-water tactics that work everywhere in the city apply to the Marais as much as anywhere.

Is The Louvre Ever Free?

The Louvre is free for all visitors on the first Friday of the month after 18:00, except in July and August, and on 14 July, but it has no first-Sunday scheme at all, despite what years of outdated guides still claim. Booking for the free Friday evening is mandatory and uses its own booking page, with slots released only a few days ahead.

The museum's own admission page lists every free category, and no first Sunday appears anywhere on it. The all-visitor free window is the first Friday evening, and the museum's own help centre words the 14 July case carefully: free unless 14 July falls on a Tuesday, which is the Louvre's closing day. In 2026 that is exactly what happened, and there was no free Bastille Day visit. The next 14 July that is not a Tuesday falls in 2027.

The other free routes into the Louvre are age and residence based. Under-18s of any nationality enter free with ID, and so do 18 to 25 year olds who are citizens or residents of a European Economic Area country, with a residence permit longer than 90 days where relevant. Art teachers from EEA countries, jobseekers resident in the EEA and disabled visitors with a companion are also free. Everyone else pays the two-tier price introduced on 14 January 2026: 22 euros for EEA nationals and residents, 32 euros for everyone else (checked September 2026). Beyond the Louvre, a full day with children stays affordable in Paris, where eleven City museums are free every opening day and children under 4 ride public transport free (see Free Paris With Kids).

The free Friday evening has its own operational reality. Tickets are released on a dedicated booking page only a few days before each date, and they go fast: in late August 2026, visitors on a Paris travel forum refreshed repeatedly until the free slots for the first Friday of September appeared, then watched the remaining seat count tick down. Booking is mandatory for that evening, unlike ordinary visits where it is merely recommended. If you want the free Louvre, plan to be at a screen a few days ahead, not a month ahead.

Even the paid Louvre has a free layer around it. The Tuileries Garden, which the museum runs, is free, and the Louvre's own courtyards, Cour Napoleon and Cour Carree, are free and open late, until 22:00 and 19:45 respectively (checked September 2026). Our dedicated guide to whether the Louvre is free goes deeper on every free category, the two-tier prices and the fake-ticket warnings.

Which National Monuments Are Free On Winter First Sundays?

The national monuments run a free first Sunday in January, February, March, November and December only, which covers the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon, Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre-Dame towers, while the Conciergerie runs the same scheme with one oddity: it excludes December. From April to October there is no free Sunday at any of them, so summer visitors pay full price.

The five-month window is the national Centre des monuments nationaux rule for 2026, and it is the reason a summer trip cannot use it. The prices below are the rest-of-the-year rates, and all carry the two-tier exception: Sainte-Chapelle charges 22 euros to visitors who are neither EEA nationals nor residents, against 16 euros for those who are (checked September 2026). The Pantheon and the Arc de Triomphe kept a single price grid.

The Conciergerie's missing December is real and checkable on the monument's own practical-information page, and it is the detail every aggregator flattens out. The Notre-Dame towers follow the national rule for their free Sundays, but note that the towers are a separate ticketed product from the cathedral itself: the cathedral is free to enter, always, and the towers are 16 euros with compulsory reservation even for free-entitled visitors (checked September 2026). Free-entitled tower tickets are released daily across the open slots, and each slot has a free quota, so book ahead.

A winter free Sunday pairs beautifully with the monuments cluster. A first Sunday in November can take in the Arc de Triomphe in the morning, free, and the Pantheon in the afternoon, also free, with the Latin Quarter between them. The Pantheon's dome panorama is closed for works, so the ticket covers the nave and crypt only, and the free day does not change that.

How Do You Fill The Gaps Between Museums In The Historic Centre?

The historic centre between Concorde, the Louvre, the Ile de la Cite and the Marais is walkable end to end, and two free walking tours cover it from opposite ends: the Every-Side Centre Walk from the Arc de Triomphe, rated 4.96 across 476 reviews on GuruWalk, and the Bilingual Centre Walk from the Fontaine Saint-Michel, rated 4.9 across 2,481 reviews, both pay-what-you-want (checked September 2026).

The first starts where the winter free Sundays start. The Every-Side Centre Walk, 7 Stops is a free walking tour run by an independent local guide and listed on GuruWalk: 2 hours and 30 minutes, in English, meeting at Charles de Gaulle-Etoile by the Arc de Triomphe. If you have just used a free first Sunday at the Arc, this walk is the natural continuation, and the exact meeting point is confirmed when you reserve. The rating figures are GuruWalk's own, published on its platform.

The second covers the other bank of the centre. The Bilingual Centre Walk, 9 Stops runs 2 hours and 15 minutes in English and Spanish from the Fontaine Saint-Michel, the same fountain where several free tours meet, and it is rated 4.9 across 2,481 reviews on GuruWalk (checked September 2026). It is a strong fit for an Orsay or Sainte-Chapelle day, since the walk's territory, the Ile de la Cite and the right bank, sits between them. Watch the meeting-point choreography at Saint-Michel: different operators gather there with different umbrellas and vests, so check your guide's stated sign before joining a group.

Neither of these walks, nor any free walking tour, can guide you inside Notre-Dame with the guide talking. From 1 July 2026 every guided tour of the cathedral led by an external guide requires prior booking and cathedral-hired audio headsets, regardless of group size. The cathedral itself is free to enter on your own, and the best way to tour Notre-Dame question has a full answer elsewhere on this site.

Which Museums Stay Free In The Evening?

The Musee d'Art Moderne keeps its permanent collections free until 21:30 every Thursday, the Louvre runs its free first-Friday evening until 21:00 in the months it applies, and the Musee Jean-Jacques Henner opens late to 21:00 on second Thursdays from September to June. Free evening museum time in Paris exists, but it is thin and it is mostly Thursdays and Fridays.

The Thursday nocturne at the Musee d'Art Moderne is the best of them because it needs no booking and no ticket at all for the permanent collections (checked September 2026). The building sits by the Seine in the 16th, a short walk from the Eiffel Tower's free gardens and esplanade, so a free Thursday evening can combine the two. The Louvre's first-Friday evening is the other genuinely free night, with the booking caveats covered above.

The paid-but-cheap evening options are worth knowing alongside. The Musee d'Orsay's Thursday late opening from 18:00 costs 12 euros online or 10 euros on site (checked September 2026), roughly a quarter of the standard ticket for two to three hours of a calmer museum. The Musee Jean-Jacques Henner, free on first Sundays, also runs a second-Thursday late opening to 21:00 from September to June, and its 8-euro ticket is shared with the Musee Gustave Moreau and valid seven days, so one ticket covers two small museums (checked September 2026). The Arts et Metiers stays open until 21:00 on Fridays at normal prices, which is an opening hour, not a free evening.

One annual evening event deserves its own line. The Nuit europeenne des musees, one Saturday each May, is free across the participating Paris programme; in 2026 it fell on 23 May, with the Musee Guimet open free from 18:30 to midnight. The City's own museums join, though the Catacombes and the archaeological crypt stayed closed that night in 2026. If your trip includes a May Saturday, check that year's programme early, because the popular slots book out.

How Do You Book A Free Museum Day Without Getting Caught Out?

Book the Orsay and quai Branly free Sundays the moment slots open, never try to book a free Picasso Sunday because the museum forbids it, grab Louvre first-Friday tickets from the dedicated page a few days ahead, and treat the Arts et Metiers first Sunday as a box-office-only visit. The booking rule, not the price, is what separates a free day that works from one that ends at a closed door.

The failure modes are documented by visitors, not invented. Orsay free Sundays sell out and the museum refuses door sales at capacity. The Louvre's free Friday slots appear only days ahead and vanish within hours. The Arts et Metiers cannot issue its free Sunday tickets online at all. And the biggest trap of all is calendar drift: advice that says the Louvre is free on first Sundays, or that Rodin is free every first Sunday in summer, or that the Pompidou is free on first Sundays, is describing schemes that either never existed in that form or no longer run. The Centre Pompidou building has been closed for renovation since 22 September 2025 and is due to reopen in 2030, so any list still carrying its free Sunday is years stale.

A practical sequence for a well-built free museum weekend in the cooler half of the year: Saturday, the Musee Carnavalet and the Marais walk, all free; Sunday, a booked Orsay free slot in the morning and the quai Branly or Picasso in the afternoon, both free that day; then in the following week's first Friday, the Louvre nocturne if your dates align. In summer you lose the monument free Sundays and the Louvre Friday, but the eleven City museums keep going every day, which is the quiet constant of free Paris.

And whatever the museum calendar gives you, the walks fill the rest. Every tour on Free Things To Do In Paris is free to reserve, run by independent local guides and listed on GuruWalk, and you decide the price at the end. For a deeper comparison of the operators, our are free walking tours in Paris worth it piece sets out the model honestly, including what a fair tip looks like according to the operators themselves.

The questions below cover the four schemes in short form: the daily-free City museums, the first-Sunday national museums with their split booking rules, the Louvre's first-Friday evening, and the winter-only monument free Sundays. Each answer states the rule and the booking requirement together, because the booking requirement is what actually decides whether a free day works.

Common Questions About Free Museum Days In Paris