Is the Paris Pass 2023 worth it? We review prices and value here

1. Paris Pass – This includes a Paris Museum Pass on 4-day and 6-day passes, a Paris Attractions Pass on ALL passes, and a public transportation pass for the length of the main pass.
2. Paris Museum Pass – This includes only admission to nearly every major museum in Paris.

The main Paris Pass that we are discussing here actually includes the museum pass, but as of 2023 it’s only included in 4-day and 6-day Paris Passes. The 2-day and 3-day Paris Passes only include the Attractions Pass that gets you onto the hop-on, hop-off bus tour, the Bateaux Parisiens River Cruise, the wine tasting experience (including a free bottle of wine), and many other top sights.

Paris Pass 2023 prices

New in 2023, the 2-day and 3-day Paris Passes no longer include a Paris Museum Pass

2-day passes

• 2-day Adult Paris Pass: €90
• 2-day Child Paris Pass (ages 4 to 11): €55

3-day passes

• 3-day Adult Paris Pass: €108
• 3-day Child Paris Pass: €70

4-day passes

• 4-day Adult Paris Pass (including a 4-day Museum Pass): €199
• 4-day Child Paris Pass: €74

6-day passes

• 6-day Adult Paris Pass: (including a 6-day Museum Pass) €229
• 6-day Child Paris Pass: €84

• Get 10% off all Paris Passes

Use coupon code: PPPOT10 – Look for “promo code?” in Step 4 of checkout)

>>>Click here and use promo code PPPOT10 for a discount of 10% off all orders of Paris Passes. If a larger discount is available anywhere, you’ll get the lowest price using this link.

Palace of Versailles: €18

Built during the 1600s and 1700s, the Palace of Versailles is one of the largest and most famous palaces in the world. Always one of the most popular attractions in the Paris area, it’s outside of town and it takes 60 to 90 minutes to reach, depending on your starting point. Admission is included with a Paris Museum Pass and you’ll have to make a reservation as well.

Louvre Museum: €17

Obviously you can visit Paris and not visit the Louvre, so it’s good that it’s included in the Paris Pass. You now have to make reservations for your visit, but it’s an enormous place so that is usually simple. The building itself is a historic palace that would be worth a tour even if it didn’t contain the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, among thousands of other important pieces.

If you are an art fanatic, feel free to spend 4 or 6 hours in the Louvre or even visit twice. But honestly for most people, it gets overwhelming after an hour or maybe two. When I bring new people to Paris I walk them to the Mona Lisa and then to the Venus de Milo. By that time we’ve passed by thousands of paintings and sculptures and been there 45 minutes. After that we look around at anything else that has caught our eye, and then exit through the gift shop. A focused hour is more enjoyable for most people than wandering around for four hours unsure of what you are looking at. It’s also always pretty crowded.

Musée d’Orsay: €16

Located across the Seine from the Louvre in a gorgeous former train station, the Orsay Museum is actually more enjoyable for most people because it’s far more compact and yet also filled with super famous pieces. Here, along with smaller crowds, you’ll see one of Van Gogh’s Starry Nights, Whistler’s Mother by Whistler, and Bal du moulin de la Galette by Renoir. Honestly, you’ll probably recognize at least 10 or 12 famous paintings and you won’t wear out a pair of shoes in doing so.

Arc de Triomphe: €13

You already know what the Arc de Triomphe looks like, and it’s definitely worth going up to the observation deck on top because you’ll get many of your best Paris photos from there. Most people will climb the 234 stairs, but they also have an elevator for anyone who doesn’t look like climbing 234 stairs is possible (or a wise move). The HOHO buses stop here and it’s a good place to get off for a visit because many other people also get off so there will be empty seats on top when you want to get back on. That isn’t true of several other stops.

Sainte-Chapelle: €11.50

Conveniently located just a short walk from Notre Dame cathedral, the Sainte-Chapelle church will be another unexpected highlight of your Paris visit. This 800-year-old church has easily the world’s most impressive and beautiful stained glass windows in several different rooms. It’s breathtaking when you first see it, and one other great feature is that it’s small enough that you can easily enjoy it in less than an hour. The Paris Pass allows you to pack in many smaller and quicker attractions like this without worrying about going broke in the process.

• Eiffel Tower Elevators – 2nd floor elevator: €18.10, 3rd floor elevator: €28.30
• Catacombs of Paris: €18.00

The Paris Pass DOES now include a guided walk up the 700 steps to the 2nd Floor including expert commentary, but obviously the climb isn’t ideal for everyone.

Eiffel Tower guided climb to 2nd floor: €38

This is an exclusive deal for Paris Pass holders and it’s not for everybody, but it will be the highlight of your Paris trip for many. This is a climb of the 674 stairs up to the 2nd Floor (out of 3) with interesting live commentary and explanations in English. It takes 3 to 4 hours in total, so you won’t be racing up. If you are fit enough this will be amazing. And honestly, the 3rd floor isn’t much higher and it’s so high that all of your best photos will be from the 2nd Floor anyway.

Wine Tasting: €35.00 (includes free full-size bottle of wine for each person)

If you want to learn more about wine and try a few interesting French bottles then this is perfect. It’s a long block from the Louvre but an easy walk along the Seine, so it’s an ideal activity to schedule for after your Louvre visit. You get an English-language mini tour in a historic cellar explaining the key aspects of wine making, and then samples of three different wines near the end. They even send each visitor away with a full bottle of French wine to take with you, so it’s a hard one to pass up.

1-day Big Bus Paris hop-on, hop-off tour: €42.00

This is a full-day hop-on, hop-off pass on the double-decker bus that goes by and stops at almost every major tourist attraction in Paris in about a 3-hour loop. You can use it as transportation to get from one attraction to another, but I highly recommend starting early and doing the full loop once before hopping off. I’ve done at least 25 similar HOHO bus tours in major cities and the Paris one is easily my favorite. Paris is compact enough that the loop isn’t too long, and all of the main sights are clustered on either side of the Seine, so you don’t waste much time driving through random areas.

Whether you buy a Paris Pass or not, I highly recommend you take the HOHO bus tour on your first full morning in the city, and you will have seen all of the main sights and know how to get back to them later before noon.

Bateaux Parisiens River Cruise: €18.00

In my opinion, this is the other must-do tour in Paris, whether you buy a Paris Pass or not. These large boats with plenty of top-deck outdoor seating leave from near the Eiffel Tower on a frequent basis, but they are popular so it’s wise to get there a bit earlier than you want to depart. The trick is to select a departure right around sunset. Paris is stunning as it is lighting up for the evening, and you pass under 18 bridges that are each lit up in a unique way. By the time you get back to the Eiffel Tower an hour later, it will also be gorgeously lit up for amazing photos.

Parc Astérix: €55

This large theme park in the northeast suburbs of Paris is based on the Astérix comic book and characters, so it’s a great option and compromise if you are traveling with young ones. The places has many roller coasters and other thrill rides to go along with the character themed attractions. There are buses that leave from central Paris that take you to the park for a fee. You can also take the RER train to Charles de Gaulle Airport and then a special shuttle from that train station to the park.

Montmartre & Sacré Coeur walking tour: €36

Leaving three times per day (10AM, 2PM, 5PM), this 90-minute walking tour is a highly recommended way to get to know perhaps Paris’ most interesting neighborhood. Especially gorgeous at night (so the 5PM tour could be perfect), Montmarte is the city’s most famous art district and community. At its center is the namesake hill with the stunning Sacré Coeur cathedral perched on top. This will be one of your favorite stops in Paris and some of your favorite photos as well.

Grevin Wax Museum: €26.00

This is the French equivalent of Madame Tussauds and it’s far more enjoyable than most people expect. With a central location close to several other included attractions, the Grevin Wax Museum is in a gorgeous building filled with over 450 characters that look so lifelike that you keep expecting them to move. There are obviously many French historical figures, but also international historical figures and athletes and actors and pop stars. You’ll know scores of them. While it’s true that you might not normally pay €26 to visit a wax museum, it’s great with the Paris Pass because you can just pop in for an hour or so in between other places. Most people are very impressed.

On your first visit to Paris you definitely want to visit the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and hopefully the Palace of Versailles (a bit outside the city center), but you also want to have a good look at the city of Paris itself.

Whether you buy the Paris Pass or not, you’ll want to strongly consider taking the Paris Big Bus Tour (included in the Paris Pass) as well as the Seine River Cruise. Both of these offer an excellent and efficient look at all of the famous places you might want to visit later, and you can do both of them in half a day. Take the hop-on, hop-off bus tour as early in the day as you can, and plan on doing the Seine river cruise just after sunset in order to see how beautifully lit the bridges and famous buildings are at night.

As of 2023, the Paris Pass no longer includes a Paris Museum Pass with the 2-day and 3-day Paris Passes, and they also lowered the price quite a bit to compensate for it. This is probably actually a better deal for most people because the museums are mostly around €17 each and there are only so many of them you can squeeze into a shorter visit to Paris. Especially if you have a Paris Pass, you may not want to spend half a day at the Louvre (which gets tiring in 2 hours anyway), and then miss the hop-on, hop-off bus tour or the wine tasting experience.

If you are interested in visiting the Louvre, Musee de Orsay (highly recommended), Palace of Versailles, and the Arc de Triomphe, then you can pay as you go or buy reserved tickets in advance, or buy a 2-day Paris Museum Pass for €55 to cover all of them.

If you are lucky enough to have 3 or 4 full sightseeing days in Paris you might consider getting a 2-day Paris Pass for €90 and a 2-day Museum Pass for €55. That would cover everything in 3 or 4 days, and be cheaper than a 4-day Paris Pass for €199.

If all of the above seems confusing, you are in good company. These ‘city cards’ can be a great tool for many first-time visitors to destinations, but in some cases they cost too much or disrupt your trip in other ways. Before a trip it’s easy to plan 4 or 5 museums and attractions for each day, but once you arrive that always feels too ambitious. A big part of what makes Paris so incredible is the gorgeous city itself, not just the museums and main sights.

Another thing to consider is that if you lock in your sightseeing expenses before you arrive there will be the temptation to just rush from one thing to the next to get the most from your money. If you happen to have a day when you only get to one or two attractions, you might have a sense of guilt over missing your pre-trip goals.

On the other hand, if you prefer to pay in advance and then challenge yourself to make sure you see all the amazing sights that Paris has to offer, then the Paris Pass can be a great deal. If you are mostly interested in the museums then the Paris Museum Pass is probably the better deal, but if you also want to take a bus tour or a river cruise or do the wine tasting then the Paris Pass is the way to go.

For great value hotels check out our recommended Paris hotels section, which gives you 5 excellent choices without the hassle of going through nearly two thousand hotels in the area.

>>>Best 2-Day and 3-Day Paris Pass itineraries for maximum value and best sights

After using so many of these city passes through the years, and also getting some comments from customers who don’t feel like they got good value out of the Paris Pass, I can reveal two important bits of advice for Paris Pass holders.

1. Start early in the day, at least on your first couple days using the pass

The number one struggle for those who regretted buying a Paris Pass is starting early enough. Especially on your first couple of days using the Paris Pass you are strongly encouraged to leave your hotel by 09:00 or so, and go to the most popular attractions first. Places like the Louvre or the bus tour tend to not get too busy until 11:00 or so, which means that if you start on those things right after breakfast you will have time to do TWO top attractions before lunch. After that you’ll have the rest of the day to do one, two, or three more activities, and you’ll still have the whole evening free to have a long dinner and wander the beautiful neighborhoods.

Some people complain that by the time they got to their first attraction of the day, the place was packed, so they started on a bad note and then felt rushed the rest of the day trying to catch up.

2. Plan your day and route before you leave your hotel

The Paris Pass comes with a very helpful booklet that shows all of the attractions on a map, with hours of operation. If you spend some time before you leave your hotel for the day, planning an efficient route that connects the attractions you want to see that day, it will all seem easy and you’ll get the most out of your Paris Pass.

If you aren’t able to plan ahead like this then maybe the Paris Pass isn’t ideal for you. If you aren’t able to spend a bit of time planning ahead, chances are you’ll be racing around and wasting a lot of time, and you’ll be unhappy with the Paris Pass.

The Paris Pass is ideal for:

• First-time visitors to Paris who want to cover most of the main sights in a few days
• Travelers who want to see and do as much as possible on a short trip
• Visitors who want to orient themselves with the bus tour and Seine river cruise

The Paris Museum Pass by itself is ideal for:

• Culture vultures who plan on visiting at least 2 museums each day but don’t care about tours or anything else
• Budget travelers coming during busy season who want to skip the ticket queues

Visiting with no pass is ideal for:

• Visitors spending more than 7 days in the city who might prefer to see only one sight per day
• Backpackers and other extreme-budget travelers

• Get 10% off all Paris Passes

Use coupon code: PPPOT10 ( – Look for “promo code?” in Step 4 of checkout)

>>>Click here and use promo code PPPOT10 for a discount of 10% off all orders of Paris Passes. If a larger discount is available anywhere, you’ll get the lowest price using this link.

There are plenty of free things to do in Paris, many of which should be high priorities for first-time visitors, including strolling the Champs-Élysées, exploring the Montmartre neighborhood, and admiring the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumphe from the street, so spending a lot of money on museums and attractions isn’t necessarily the key to enjoying the city.

Also, remember that there are only so many hours in the day, and you can only do one thing at a time. The Louvre itself takes at least 3 hours even for a “quick” visit, and while you are inside it doesn’t matter if you get 50 or 100 other “free” things included, you’ll only have time to do a few per day at the most.

However…

The Paris Pass is a popular and efficient way for first-time visitors to see all the best sights in a short time, with little stress and almost no time wasted in ticket queues. Whichever way you decide to visit Paris, you will have a good time. If you can get a discount on the Paris Pass, it’s obviously a better deal and worth considering.