Metropolitan Museum rules, New York: bags, photos and what to bring

The Metropolitan Museum's rules fit on one screen. Small backpacks are allowed, worn on the chest or carried. Luggage and large bags can't come in, and the coat check won't take them either, so a suitcase has nowhere to go. Water is fine in a secure, closed bottle; other drinks and food are not. Non-flash photos for personal use are allowed in most galleries, but tripods, selfie sticks, monopods and drones stay outside. You can sketch in pencil. There is no dress code beyond shirts and shoes. Everyone, members included, goes through a security check at the door.

This page covers the Fifth Avenue building, and the same guidelines apply at the Met Cloisters. It quotes the museum's own visitor guidelines (last edited by the museum on January 27, 2026) and its photo and video policy (March 18, 2026), and it ends with a packing list for each season of a New York museum day.

There is no ticket line you have to stand in if you bought online: the museum says an online ticket lets you go straight to a gallery entrance. The line you cannot avoid is security. The guidelines say it plainly: "all visitors and members must pass through a security check", and they ask you to plan for lines at the entrances. Tour groups, members and pay-what-you-wish visitors all go through the same check. This is why a tour that promises to skip the line cannot deliver much here; our guide to choosing a Met tour explains what a tour does buy.

What slows the line down is bags. Every item on the prohibited list below is something a guard has to find and send back out. If you arrive with one small bag, water in a closed bottle and nothing else, you are the easy case. Keep your ticket after you get in: you may be asked to show it again when you leave and re-enter the galleries.

A backpack, yes, if it is small. The wording is: "Small backpacks are allowed but must be worn on your front or carried in your hand." The museum doesn't give a reason, but it isn't hard to guess: a pack on your back swings into cases and people every time you turn around.

A suitcase, no. Some travel sites tell you to check wheeled luggage at the coat check, and the museum says the opposite:

Large bags, luggage, musical instruments, electronics, and oversize camera equipment are "not allowed in the building or at coat check". If you arrive with a suitcase, you will have to store it somewhere else before you go in.

So if you are coming straight from a hotel checkout or heading to the airport after the visit, solve the bag first: leave it at the hotel, or use a luggage storage service before you ride up to 82nd Street. There is no locker room to fall back on.

How big is "small"? The museum does not publish a size for general admission. A limit of 11 x 17 x 5 inches (28 x 43 x 13 cm), with backpacks banned outright, has appeared only on the pages of specific blockbuster exhibitions (Karl Lagerfeld in 2023, Van Gogh's Cypresses in 2024). Treat it as the rule for a crowded show, not for the museum. A day pack that fits under an airline seat is usually the most you want to carry through two million square feet of galleries anyway.

There is a coat check in the Great Hall, and a separate one at the 81st Street entrance (the museum lends wheelchairs from it). Members have their own members-only coat check in the Great Hall.

Whether it costs anything is a question the museum's current pages do not answer. Exhibition pages from 2023 and 2024 said "free bag and coat check is available"; no general page we found in September 2026 says free or paid. Some visitor blogs quote a fee per item, paid in cash; nothing from the museum supports that. We will not tell you it is free until the museum says so again. What is certain: coat check will not take luggage, large bags or large camera gear, and the photo policy warns that if you bring big camera equipment "you will not be able to enter."

In winter the coat check line can be the second queue of the day. If you can manage with a coat you are happy to carry, you skip it.

Yes. Strollers and front-facing baby carriers are welcome. The exceptions are the big ones: no jogging strollers, no wagons, nothing oversized, and a few exhibitions keep all strollers out. With a stroller, use one of the two step-free doors, on Fifth Avenue at 81st Street or through the 80th Street garage. Everything else about visiting with small children, from changing tables to the free 81st Street Studio, is on our page for the Met with kids.

Water, yes, in a secure bottle. Nothing else. The guidelines list "Water is allowed in a secure bottle. No other liquids are permitted." Food and drink are banned unless they are for medical reasons, and the accessibility guide adds that visitors will be asked to dispose of food and drinks before entering. That coffee from the cart on Fifth Avenue has to be finished on the steps.

Glass containers, jars and aerosol cans are also on the list, which matters more than it sounds: a glass water bottle is technically out. Bring plastic or metal. Plastic baby bottles are allowed. Even with permitted items, eating and drinking are not allowed in the galleries.

The museum has several cafés and a family food hall, but which ones are open, and on which days, changes through the year. In late September 2026, for example, the Petrie Court Cafe was due to reopen only in October, and The Eatery, the family food hall, served on Saturdays and Sundays alone. Check the museum's food and drink page on the morning of your visit. Dining requires museum admission.

For yourself, yes. Non-flash photography and video for personal use are allowed in most galleries, with hand-held cameras and phones. Look for signs: some works and some galleries, often in loan exhibitions, are marked no-photography.

What is not allowed:

• Flash, anywhere.
• Selfie sticks, tripods, monopods and drones, and professional video equipment, unless the Communications Department has approved it in advance.
• "Unauthorized photoshoots and staged photography": the museum names photo and film shoots, modeling shoots and engagement shoots.
• Filming a guided tour without the guide's say-so; the policy leaves it to each guide.

There is a catch that few visitors know about. Photos and video taken at the Met "cannot be published, sold, reproduced, transferred, distributed, or otherwise commercially exploited". The word "published" is on that list, so read it broadly: the policy is aimed at commercial use, but if you want to put a photo in anything beyond a personal album or feed, write to the museum's Rights and Permissions office first. If you want a high-resolution image of a public-domain work, the museum gives hundreds of thousands of them away through its Open Access program; our page on Open Access images shows how to find and use them.

One more line from the guidelines: visitors may themselves be photographed or filmed by the museum, and by visiting you grant it permission to use those images.

Yes, with a pencil. The museum's answer starts with an exclamation mark: "Yes! Feel free to write, draw, or take notes with pencil." Paint, charcoal and markers are not allowed, and neither are adhesives or glues. A small sketchbook and two pencils pass security without a question. An easel does not: large objects, frames and artwork are all on the banned list. Artists who want to copy a work at scale apply to the copyist program, which has its own rules.

Keep doorways and stairs clear while you draw, and do not sit on the floor; it is one of the conduct rules. There is seating in most galleries.

Yes. A ticket gives all-day entry, re-entry included, to both Met locations for the date printed on it. Lunch in Central Park and back in for the afternoon is fine, and so is a trip uptown to the Cloisters with the same ticket. You go through security again each time. The ticket is valid for that date only; the old rule that let a ticket run over several days ended in 2020. Prices and who pays what are on our admission page.

No. The only clothing rule is "For health and safety reasons, shirts and shoes are required." Shorts, sneakers and jeans are what most people wear. Costumes are banned, including masks that cover the full face, which mostly matters around Halloween.

Found a stricter answer when you searched for "Met museum dress code"? Look at which museum the page describes. The same searches turn up the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, a separate institution in the Philippines with its own rules. The New York museum has no dress code to speak of.

Most of the list is common sense, but a few entries catch travelers out. The museum does not allow pets or emotional support animals (service animals are welcome), bicycles, scooters, skateboards and helmets, plants and flowers, and tools or craft knives. It also bans using electrical outlets, so you cannot charge a phone from a wall socket in the galleries. Children twelve and under must be with an adult at all times, and you may not carry anyone on your shoulders.

"Electronics" on the large-items list does not mean your phone: the photo policy explicitly allows personal cellular devices and hand-held cameras. Read it as bulky equipment. If you are unsure about an item, the security team decides at the door, and the guidelines give it the last word on anything that could put art or visitors at risk.

A museum day in New York is two climates: the street, which follows the season, and the galleries, which do not. The building is climate-controlled for the art, so it feels cool in July and warm once you have walked in from a January wind. The answer in every season is layers you can carry without a big bag, because the big bag is the one thing you cannot bring.

The core kit does not change: a small bag worn on the front, a plastic or metal water bottle, a compact umbrella, your ticket on your phone, a portable charger (the audio guide streams on your phone and wall outlets are off limits), earphones, and a pencil if you like to draw. Comfortable shoes matter more than anything on the list. The table adds what each season needs, with the average high and low for Central Park from NOAA's 1991-2020 climate normals, a weather station about half a kilometer west of the museum, inside the park.

Two small things save a lot of hassle. First, if you plan to use the audio guide for two or three hours, start with a full battery and bring the power bank; streaming drains a phone faster than people expect. Second, if you are carrying anything that might be questioned at security (a medical food, a mobility aid, a camera bigger than a phone), read the museum's accessibility guide first or call ahead. Our accessibility page covers wheelchairs, stools and step-free routes.