What does it cost to visit Les Invalides?

What exactly you are paying for

The Hôtel des Invalides is a site, not a building, and it runs on two regimes. On one side a public space: the esplanade, the moats and their cannon, the great courtyard, the cathedral of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides where services are still held. You walk in, you walk through, nobody asks anything. On the other a museum complex run by the Army Museum, and that is the part you pay for: the Dôme and the tomb, the permanent collections, the relief maps, the Order of the Liberation, the Charles de Gaulle Historial.

The pleasant surprise, and it is a real one: all of that sits on a single ticket. Plenty of visitors go hunting for a “Napoleon's tomb” price and never find it, because it does not exist. What the ticket covers is set out on its own page, and where the free/paid line falls on the free-access page.

Who does not pay

The list is long and follows the national-museum rules. Free entry applies to under-18s; to 18-25s who are nationals of an EU country or lawfully resident in France; to disabled visitors and their companion; to jobseekers; to serving military personnel and veterans; to teachers holding the Pass éducation. In other words a family with two teenagers and a twenty-year-old student pays for one entry. Bring the identity document or card that proves it: the exemption is justified at the desk, not verbally.

And one date belongs on the list: on 14 July, entry to the collections, the tomb and the exhibitions is free for everyone. What that does to the crowds is described on the Bastille Day page.

What makes the spend vary

Three levers, and none of them needs arithmetic. The first is format. The entry ticket alone suits the great majority of visitors; a small-group tour or a skip-the-line tour adds a guide, not extra spaces. The honest comparison is on this page.

The second: if you are doing several monuments on the same Paris trip, Les Invalides is covered by the Paris Museum Pass, which changes the arithmetic of the whole journey. I explain the collection point and the day counting on the pass page. The third: the multimedia guide, which is taken on site and is not included in the ticket.

What makes no difference at all: the hour, the season, the day of the week. A Tuesday in February and a Saturday in July buy the same ticket. What changes is the number of people around you, and that I write about on the best-time page.

One ticket for four museums

I will say this without a figure and stand by it: measured against what you see — a royal church by Hardouin-Mansart, an emperor's tomb, several centuries of arms and armour, Louis XIV's scale models of fortified towns and two museums of the Free French — the Les Invalides ticket is one of the fullest in Paris. People compare it to the great national museums and expect five separate entries; there is only one.

Getting your ticket

Day-by-day availability for the entry ticket is below. The comparison of all six formats is on the bookings page, and what this ticket opens exactly on the ticket page.

A reminder: what you book above is the ticket that opens the Army Museum, the Dôme and the tomb. The great courtyard and the Saint-Louis cathedral stay free to enter, with no ticket at all.

Frequently asked questions