French Museums Set to Raise Ticket Prices for Non-EU Visitors
169June 11, 2025
Reckoning with rising restoration costs and deep government budget cuts to the arts sector, several large cultural institutions in France will increase the price of admission for visitors from outside the European Union beginning next year, according to French dailyLe Monde. TheLouvrein Paris and theChâteau de Versailleswill raise ticket prices from €22 (roughly $25) to €30 (about $35) for non-EU attendees starting January 1, 2026, with prices similarly rising at Paris’s Arc de Triomphe, Conciergerie, and Opéra Garnier, as well as at the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley.
While the European Commission rules assure all EU citizens equal access to public museums, those from non-member European nations enjoy no such guarantee, with the result that visitors from Norway, Switzerland, Türkiye, and the UK will also have to pay the upcharges.
“Think about what this symbolizes,” an unnamed curator at the Louvre told Le Monde. “Can you imagine charging an Iraqi more than a Belgian to see the Code of Hammurabi, which comes from Iraq? Charging Africans extra so they can view, at the Pavillon des Sessions, objects that their countries might one day ask to have restituted?”
The move is expected to generate up to €20 million ($25 million) annually for the Louvre, which is facing an estimated €400 million ($450 million) in repairs over the next fifteen years. Among the problems the storied institution must deal with are a leaky roof and climate control issues. Versailles, which receives about eight million visitors per year, could also stand to benefit handsomely, as 42 percent of its attendees are from outside the EU. The Château de Chambord, by contrast, attracts a whopping 90 percent of its visitors from inside the EU but is nevertheless considering raising prices from €19 to €29 for those from outside the union in an effort to fundraise for a projected €100 million in renovations over the next ten years.