Visiting the Louvre at Night

The Louvre stays open until 9pm on Wednesdays and Fridays, the only two evenings you can spend inside. You need a timed ticket, the right entrance and an hour in hand before last entry. If you are weighing up louvre night tour tickets, start with the days and the times.

Opening hours and the two late nights

On a late night you can enter until 8pm, and the rooms start clearing at 8:30pm, half an hour before closing. On the other days the museum closes at 6pm and stops admitting at 5pm, so an evening start is only possible on a Wednesday or a Friday. Every Tuesday the museum is shut.

On Wednesdays and Fridays some rooms on Level 2 open only at 10:30am, which makes no difference to an evening visit. The Pyramid courtyard, the Cour Napoléon, stays open from 7:30am to 9pm, so you can still walk round the lit Pyramid when you come out.

What a ticket costs in 2026

Since 14 January 2026 the museum has charged two prices. If you are a citizen or resident of the European Economic Area you pay €22; everyone else pays €32. Book a time slot online even if you go free: the museum asks every visitor to, and the slots on a late night go first.

Museum tickets cannot be changed, exchanged or refunded, and you pay in euros only. Every guided tour listed here puts the ticket in the fare and books the slot for you. On the family tour the fare covers the adults, because children under 18 go in free.

What a guided evening costs

A guide is optional. What you pay for is a route through a building of some 73,000 square metres and 35,000 works on display, with someone who knows where the crowd is. The tours are priced in US dollars and the museum's own options in euros, so the two columns are never converted.

The private fares are quoted a person for a party of two, and the price for each person falls as your group grows towards six. The museum's own Friday tour is the cheapest guided evening: €32 plus €12 for a non-EEA adult, in a group run by the museum.

Which entrances are open after 6pm

Four entrances, and two of them shut before the museum does. The Porte des Lions, on the river side, closes at 6pm. The Passage Richelieu stops taking guided groups at 7:30pm. After that it is the Pyramid, or the Carrousel entrance under the shopping arcade at 99 rue de Rivoli.

Your guide will pick the entrance. If you go alone with a ticket, the Carrousel entrance is usually quicker than the Pyramid queue in the evening. The meeting points and the entrances are plotted on the entrances and meeting points map.

Getting there

Take the metro to Palais-Royal – Musée du Louvre (lines 1 and 7) or Pyramides (line 14). The museum reckons ten minutes on foot from the metro to the Pyramid, and fifteen more for the lockers and the toilets. Buses 21, 27, 39, 67, 68, 69, 72, 74, 85 and 95 stop nearby.

Taxis drop you at the Carrousel roundabout and pick you up on place André Malraux. The car park at 1 avenue du Général Lemonnier leads into the Carrousel gallery. The Batobus river shuttle stops on quai François-Mitterrand.

Is it dark when you come out?

That depends on the month. From late September to March the sun sets well before 9pm and you walk out to the Pyramid lit against the night. From April to August the evening is still light at closing. The times below are approximate, for the middle of each month in central Paris.

So if the lit Pyramid is the photograph you want, come between October and March. A 6pm start is in daylight for most of the year; the museum is the point, not the dark.

Bags, security and what to leave at the hotel

You cannot bring a bag larger than 55 × 35 × 20 cm, and suitcases are refused. Free lockers under the Pyramid take anything bigger and are emptied the same day. Everyone goes through a security check, which is part of the time a two-hour tour spends getting in.

Photos for your own use are fine in the permanent collections, but not with flash, a selfie stick or lighting. You cannot eat or drink in the rooms, and any exit is final, so use the toilets under the Pyramid before you go up.

Access and mobility

A lift in the centre of the Pyramid takes wheelchairs and pushchairs down to the hall. The assistance desk lends wheelchairs, walking-stick stools, rolling chairs and pushchairs for free, and disabled visitors get priority access. Say at the start of a tour if stairs are a problem, so your guide plans the route round the lifts.

The Musée du Louvre

The Musée du Louvre is at Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris. For a question on the day, such as whether a room is open, the museum's number is +33 (0)1 40 20 53 17. The museum does not sell or answer for the tours listed here.

Asked before you go