Metropolitan Museum FAQ: New York visitors' questions answered

No. In the museum's own words, "advance tickets are not required", and there is no time slot: the hourly tickets of the 2020 reopening are gone. Buy on your phone on the way or at a desk in the Great Hall. Buying online saves one step, because after security you can walk straight to a gallery entrance. Groups of 10 or more and third-party guided tours are the exception: they must register ahead. More on our admission page.

$30 for an adult, as of September 2026. Seniors 65 and over pay $22, and so do visitors with a disability, who buy in person only. Students pay $17. Children 12 and under, members and the care partner of a visitor with a disability go in free. One price covers both sites, so there is no separate Cloisters ticket. The full table, with the conditions for each rate, is on our admission page.

Only for people who live in New York State, and for students at schools in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. Even then the minimum is one cent. Everyone else has paid the posted price since March 1, 2018. Online, pay-what-you-wish needs a New York State billing address on the card; New Jersey and Connecticut students buy in person with a student ID. A tourist from anywhere else pays the full adult price given in the answer above. Who qualifies, and which proof works, is on our admission page.

For the date printed on it, at both sites, with re-entry. Lunch in Central Park and a second round in the galleries is fine, and so is an afternoon trip uptown to the Cloisters. You pass security again each time, and staff may ask to re-validate the ticket. It does not carry over to the next day: the multi-day validity that some pages still describe ended on September 12, 2020, as our myths page explains.

Included. The museum's wording is that all tickets include exhibitions, and we found no surcharge for any show in its current pages. That covers the Costume Institute's shows too. Reservations for member previews are a membership perk, not an extra fee. Guides from outside firms can't talk inside special exhibitions, so you visit those on your own. Details on our admission page.

Not for everyone. Free entry works through programs, each with its own card and calendar: Bank of America cardholders on each month's first full weekend (Museums on Us), military ID holders over the summer, mid-May to Labor Day (Blue Star Museums), IDNYC, EBT/SNAP cards, the public libraries' Culture Pass and a few more. Free tickets are picked up at a desk on site, not bought online. The list is on our admission page.

No. None of the big city passes includes the Metropolitan Museum. CityPASS offers the Guggenheim and the Whitney as options, and Go City, which sells The New York Pass, writes that the Met "is NOT on our passes". The museum refuses outside vouchers anyway. A pass can still pay off for the rest of your trip; our passes page shows how to do the sum.

Not for general admission. The museum's admission policy says it "does not accept vouchers or passes from any outside ticket sellers", and resale without its authorization is prohibited. Its own tickets can't be transferred, refunded or exchanged, so buy for a date you are sure of. A guided tour sold with "admission included" is a different product, and its operator handles entry. What to check is in our tour guide.

Sometimes, for visitors from far away. The Global level, the cheapest, is only for people living more than 200 miles from the museum; inside that radius the entry level is Individual, which costs more. Both admit the cardholder, a guest and children 17 and under, and add Member Mornings at weekends from 9 am on Fifth Avenue. A family with teenagers can come out ahead on one trip. Members still pass security. The numbers are on our admission page.

No. The Fifth Avenue building and the Cloisters both close every Wednesday, all year, and so do the museum's cafés. Some guides still recommend "Wednesday mornings" as a quiet time, which tells you how old their information is. If Wednesday is your only free day, MoMA and the American Museum of Natural History listed themselves as open daily in September 2026. Our itineraries page has a Wednesday plan.

Fifth Avenue opens at 10 am every day except Wednesday. It closes at 5 pm on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and at 9 pm on Friday and Saturday. At the Cloisters the day runs from 10 am to 5 pm between March and October and ends half an hour earlier, at 4:30 pm, from November through February. It has no late evenings. The museum publishes no last-entry time; we found no source for the "30 minutes before closing" rule some sites repeat. Hours as of September 2026; the current ones are on the museum's visit page, and our hours page covers timing.

Yes on Mondays, since the old Monday closing ended in 2013, except the first Monday in May, when Fifth Avenue closes for the Costume Institute benefit, known as Met Gala Monday. The Cloisters stays open that day. Both sites close on Thanksgiving, December 25 and January 1. Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day were not among the closures in the museum's 2026 schedule, so they keep normal hours unless they fall on a Wednesday. See our hours page.

Two hours for one floor, about four for the highlights of both, six to eight for a full day. Even a full day leaves most of the building unseen: the museum's records list 448 numbered galleries on Fifth Avenue. Two hours covers Egypt, the armor court and the American Wing, or else the European paintings upstairs. Not both. Our route page has three plans with gallery numbers and minutes per stop.

Nobody can tell you with data, because the museum publishes no figures on busy or quiet times. Reasoning from what it does publish: arrive at the 10 am opening on a weekday outside school holidays, or come after 5 pm on a Friday or Saturday. Wet weekends and holiday weeks are the worst bets, and at weekends members are already inside from 9 am. The reasoning in full is on our hours page.

Often, yes. Fifth Avenue stays open until 9 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, which adds four hours and lets you spend the daylight outdoors first. The museum gives no crowd figures for evenings, so treat "quieter after 5" as experience rather than fact. Eat before you go in: most museum cafés closed at 8 pm on those evenings in September 2026 (the museum's dining page has current times). Our itineraries page has a plan for a Friday.

86 St station on the 4, 5 and 6 (the Lexington Avenue line), then three blocks west and four south, about ten minutes on foot. From Times Square the Q train to 86 St on Second Avenue is often more direct, and that station is fully accessible; the MTA rates the Lexington station accessible only for the uptown local platform. The M1 to M4 buses run along Fifth and Madison Avenues. All routes are on our getting-there page.

The main steps at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street lead to the Great Hall and the ticket desks. The 81st Street entrance, just south at street level, is step-free and the one for strollers and wheelchairs; the garage at 80th Street is the other step-free way in. There is no public door on the Central Park side, so if you cross the park you walk around to Fifth Avenue. Every entrance has security. See getting there.

Yes, and on a dry day it is the best part of the trip. Bethesda Terrace is about 15 minutes away on foot, Belvedere Castle about ten, and Grand Army Plaza at 59th Street about 25 minutes along Fifth Avenue. From MoMA allow 30 to 35 minutes; from Times Square or Grand Central most people take the subway. Distances measured along streets and park paths are on our getting-there page.

You can, but the second museum will suffer. The Met and MoMA are about 1.5 miles apart and each can fill a day. The American Museum of Natural History faces the Met across Central Park, a 20-minute walk or a ride on the M79 crosstown bus, and it is another full-day museum. Our rule is one big museum a day, paired with a park walk or a small museum. Day plans are on our itineraries page.

Yes, if it is small and you wear it on your front or carry it. The museum publishes no size limit for general admission. The 11 x 17 inch figure you may read comes from the pages of particular blockbuster exhibitions, where backpacks were banned outright. A day pack that fits under an airline seat is about the most you want to carry through the galleries anyway. The full list of what you can bring is on our rules and bags page.

No. The museum turns away luggage and large bags, and the coat check won't take them either, so there is nowhere inside to leave a suitcase. Leave it at your hotel or a luggage service before you come up to 82nd Street. There are coat checks in the Great Hall and at the 81st Street entrance. The museum's current pages don't say whether they charge, and we found no official fee. More on our rules and bags page.

Yes, without flash and for personal use, in most galleries; some works and loan exhibitions are marked no-photography. Tripods, monopods, selfie sticks and drones need approval in advance. The museum's photo policy also says pictures taken there cannot be published or commercially exploited. For a high-resolution image of a public-domain work, the museum's own file is free under CC0: our Open Access page shows how to find it.

Water only, in a secure bottle. Other drinks and food are not allowed, except for medical reasons; plastic baby bottles are fine. Glass containers are banned too, so bring a plastic or metal bottle. The coffee from the cart outside has to be finished on the steps, and nobody eats or drinks in the galleries. Our rules and bags page has the whole list and a packing table for each season.

In the museum's cafés, which require museum admission and close on Wednesdays with the galleries. Which ones are open changes through the year: in late September 2026 the Petrie Court Café was due back only in October, and The Eatery, the family food hall, was serving on weekends alone. The Met Dining Room is permanently closed. The ticket allows re-entry, so a picnic in Central Park works too. Check the museum's dining page on the day, and our rules page for the food rules.

It is free, on your own phone: stops and transcripts are on the museum's website and in the free Bloomberg Connects app. Find the headphone symbol on a wall label and enter its number. The Highlights Tour exists in ten languages; the rest is in English. We found no paid rental handset. Bring earphones and a power bank, because visitors may not use wall outlets. More on our rules page.

No. The only clothing rule is that shirts and shoes are required. Costumes and masks covering the whole face are not allowed, which mostly matters around Halloween. Shorts, jeans and sneakers are what most visitors wear. Stricter dress rules you may have read about probably belong to the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, a different institution in the Philippines. See our rules page.

Pick one floor and stay on it. On the first: the Tomb of Perneb (gallery 100), William the hippo (111), the Temple of Dendur (131), the Arms and Armor Court (371) and the American Wing. On the second: Vermeer (614), Rembrandt (616), Bruegel's Harvesters (638) and Van Gogh (822). Famous pictures do go off view, so look them up in the museum's collection search the day before. Our route page times every stop.

Yes, as of September 29, 2026. The museum's gallery records marked gallery 131 closed from September 26, with no reason given, and open again on the 29th. Rooms at the Met close for a day or two at short notice, and the temple is no exception. It sits a couple of minutes from the Great Hall, through the Egyptian galleries. Check the museum's closures page on the day, and our route page for fallbacks.

Not in September 2026. It has been shut since October 19, 2025, and the museum has announced a reopening in 2030, larger and one floor higher, as part of the new Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, in its announcement. Any guide or tour that sends you up for the summer view is out of date. For a look at the building from outside, walk into Central Park behind it. The museum's gallery closures page gives the current state, and fallbacks are on our route page.

On September 29, 2026: the Ancient West Asia galleries (400 to 406, formerly Ancient Near East), with new galleries the museum has announced for 2027, so the Assyrian winged guardians are off view; the modern and contemporary galleries, until the Tang Wing opens (the museum's date is 2030); five Egyptian rooms, 116 to 120; the Roman gallery 168; and the roof. A few modern works hang elsewhere meanwhile. Short closures come and go within days, so check the museum's gallery closures page for today's list. Our route page dates each one and suggests fallbacks.

No one sees it all. The museum's records list 466 numbered galleries (448 at Fifth Avenue, 18 uptown at the Cloisters). Its collection runs to more than 1.5 million objects, cared for by 17 curatorial departments, and only tens of thousands are on view at any time. Choose two or three areas and let the rest go. Our museum overview explains the numbers, and the departments map says where each collection sits.

Only in the Costume Institute's exhibitions. Its collection, more than 33,000 costumes and accessories, is never on permanent view, because textiles fade in light. The Gala itself is a private benefit on the first Monday in May, the day Fifth Avenue closes to visitors. Its shows come with the normal ticket, and the museum's exhibitions page says what is on. The Gala's history is on our myths and curiosities page.

Stop before you are tired. Sit down every 45 minutes, even for five; the big courts, such as the American Wing's Engelhard Court, have benches, the painting rooms fewer. Stay on one floor, pick in advance the stop you'll skip if time runs short, and carry water in a closed bottle. The ticket allows re-entry, so half an hour in Central Park and a short second round beat one long march. More on our route page.

Worth it if you want a thread through the building. Most tours on sale are shared highlights walks of about two hours, starting in the Great Hall by the seated pharaoh statue, and the mainstream ones differ little. Choose on three things: the real group size ("per booking" is not a group cap), whether the inclusions actually name the Met ticket, and whether the route relies on a closed gallery. The full method is in our tour guide.

No, because there is no ticket line to skip. Advance tickets aren't required, and an online ticket takes you from security straight to a gallery entrance. The line that exists is security, and tour groups, members and pass holders all go through it. A product sold on beating the queue at the Met can at most save you a few minutes at a ticket desk. See our tour guide.

Yes. The Met runs guided tours that its website presents as free with admission, including highlights tours in nine languages besides English (September 2026). Times change, so check the museum's tours page before you plan around one. The free audio guide covers the rest. What paid tours add, and what they leave out, is in our tour guide.

Yes, if the booking is registered. The museum's group guidelines require third-party guided tours of any size to register in advance, and anyone lecturing in the galleries needs a museum-issued lecture badge. "Unauthorized lecturers will be asked to end their tour immediately." Inside special exhibitions nobody from outside may lecture. A reputable operator will confirm its guides carry the badge if you ask. The rules are in our tour guide.

Mostly European paintings, Egypt and the American Wing. Our reading of every tour on this site: roughly two thirds mention European paintings and three fifths Egyptian art. Not one mentions the Costume Institute or the Rockefeller Wing, and only about one in twenty-five gets to Asian art. If those are what you came for, go on your own. The figures and the method are on our tour analysis page.

It is the museum's branch for medieval European art: about 2,000 works in a building of 1938 assembled around parts of French and Spanish monasteries, with gardens above the Hudson and the seven Unicorn Tapestries. Go if you like medieval art or have already seen Fifth Avenue. On a first, short trip to New York, the main building has medieval galleries of its own. Everything else is in our Cloisters guide.

No separate ticket: any Met ticket admits you to both sites on its date. Its hours are 10 am to 5 pm, Thursday to Tuesday, cut to 4:30 pm in the winter months (November to February). It closes on Wednesdays, Thanksgiving, December 25 and January 1, but stays open on the first Monday in May, when Fifth Avenue shuts. Hours as of September 2026; the museum's Cloisters visit page has the current ones, and our Cloisters guide the rest.

Take the A train to 190 St, leave by the elevator and walk about ten minutes north through Fort Tryon Park, or take the M4 bus for a short ride. Avoid the 1 train: its stations are down on Broadway, below the ridge. The museum's step-free route is the A to 181 St, then the M4 seven stops north. The M4 also runs direct from Madison Avenue at 83rd Street, about 1 hour 25 minutes by the museum's estimate. Routes on our getting-there page.

Yes, on one ticket, but go to the Cloisters first: it closes earlier and never opens late. Be there at 10 am, leave around 12:30 and give Fifth Avenue the afternoon, ideally on a Friday or Saturday when it stays open to 9 pm. Allow about an hour between the two by subway (A train to 190 St, then the walk through Fort Tryon Park); the direct M4 bus takes about 1 hour 25 minutes. In winter, if you start on Fifth Avenue, leave by 2 pm. Adding MoMA to the same day is too much. Plans in our Cloisters guide.

Children 12 and under are free, and the rules say they must stay with an adult. The museum works for families who treat it as three or four rooms: Egypt, the armor court, the American Wing and the musical instruments. The free 81st Street Studio, for ages 3 to 11, needs no museum ticket, and Ancient Playground, a block north in Central Park, was designed with the Temple of Dendur in mind. Our family page has a two-hour loop.

Yes, and front-facing baby carriers too. Leave jogging strollers, wagons and extra-large models at home, and expect a few exhibitions to turn strollers away. Use the step-free entrance at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street, which also leads to the 81st Street Studio. The Cloisters is harder with a stroller: cobblestones, then about 60 stairs, unless you take the free shuttle to the step-free entrance. See our family page.

Yes, at Fifth Avenue, through the step-free entrances at 81st Street and the 80th Street garage. The museum's interactive map shows step-free routes and elevators. Manual wheelchairs, standard and wide, are lent at the 81st Street entrance, first come, first served, and visitors with disabilities can borrow a stool. A visitor with a disability pays the reduced rate, bought in person, and a care partner goes in free. Details on our accessibility page.

Partly. The museum's Cloisters accessibility guide calls access "somewhat limited": cobblestones outside, then roughly 60 steps inside between the entrance and the ticket desk. Ask for the free shuttle to the step-free entrance, or arrange a car drop-off in the courtyard. By public transport take the A to 181 St and the M4 bus, not 190 St, which the MTA doesn't rate accessible. See our accessibility page.

Not for most visitors. The idea dates from decades when the posted price was a suggestion for everyone. Since March 1, 2018 the pay-what-you-wish option has been limited to New York State residents and to students in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; everyone else pays the full price. Children 12 and under are free. Old forum threads still say otherwise, and our myths page traces how the rule changed.

Neither exists under those names. The Met Breuer, the museum's third building on Madison Avenue, closed in 2020, and the building passed to the Frick Collection. The Sackler name was removed from the wing of the Temple of Dendur on December 9, 2021, with no replacement, so ask for the Temple of Dendur, gallery 131. Pages that use either name as current are out of date. Both terms are in our glossary.

No. It is the largest art museum in the United States. By floor area the Louvre is bigger: the Fifth Avenue building has more than two million square feet (roughly 186,000 m²), against the 244,000 square meters of flooring the Louvre reports. The museum's own texts have used several different superlatives over the years, which doesn't help. Our myths page sets them side by side.

No. metropolitan.museum is an independent guide with no affiliation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We check facts against the museum's own pages and date them, but for tickets, same-day notices and closures, use the museum's website, metmuseum.org, or its desks. The tours listed here are sold by outside operators, not by the museum. The starting point for planning is our visit planner.