Eiffel Tower Tours: Frequently Asked Questions

Guided ascents start at about $53 for a stair climb to the second floor and run to roughly $153 for a small-group tour with the top floor included. A guided lift ascent with the ticket pre-booked sits around $65. The wider Paris tours that pass the tower rather than going up it start at about $37.

No. The monument sells its own timed tickets directly, and going up alone is a perfectly good visit. A guided departure buys you three things instead: a ticket already bought and timed, somebody who knows which pillar and which queue, and the story of what you are standing inside.

The second floor at 115 metres is where the views of individual monuments are sharpest, and it is where the tower's own pages send you for them. The top at 276 metres is higher, colder and further from the city, and it needs a second queue for a second lift. Book the top if the height itself is the point; book the second floor if the view is.

The tower opens at 9.30am every day of the year. Its own calendar published 09:30 to 23:00 for the day this page was last checked, and it publishes each day separately. The monument itself does not empty until about 11.45pm, and in summer that stretches to 12.45am.

10.45pm, on the tower's own published figure. That is the moment the lifts and the stairs stop taking anyone new, and it is the only closing time that changes whether you get up at all. Check the official calendar for your date, because the hours move with the season.

Lift tickets go on sale 60 days ahead and stair tickets 30 days ahead. Book as early as you can for June to September, school holidays and public holidays, which is the tower's own advice. Top-floor slots are the ones that go first, especially around sunset.

Allow two hours for the second floor and closer to three if you are going to the top, and add 15 to 20 minutes before that to clear the entry security. Guided departures run 1 to 2 hours and most leave you free on the platforms afterwards. The lift queue between the second floor and the top is the part that varies most.

About 674 steps take you from the ground to the second floor, in two flights with the first floor in between. Some of the climbing listings ask for a moderate level of fitness, and there is no shame in stopping at the first floor. The stairs do not go to the top: that last stage is by lift for everybody.

The top closes in high wind, in bad weather and sometimes at capacity, and the tower says so plainly. Most operators refund the summit portion of the fare when that happens, and several state it in their own listing. Your second-floor access is unaffected, so the visit still happens.

Allow 15 to 20 minutes to clear the entry check before you are even beneath the tower, and expect a second check before you enter the pillar. Both are compulsory and neither is skippable, whatever ticket you hold. Your ticket time is the time you must already be in the ticketed queue, not the time you arrive at the gate.

No. There are no lockers, no storage and no cloakroom in or near the tower, and a luggage sizer at the security check turns away anything over the limit. Leave large bags at your hotel or a station left-luggage office before you come. This catches people out on their last day in Paris more than anything else does.

Children under four go free but still need a free ticket, issued when you book or at the tower. Reduced rates run to age 11, and there is a youth rate for 12 to 24 on proof of age. Anyone 12 or under has to be with an adult.

The first and second floors are, by lift, and wheelchair users get priority access to the desks and the pillars. The top and the stairways are not, for evacuation reasons, and the tower is explicit about it. Book a lift ticket to the second floor, which is where the best views are anyway.

The tower's own recommendation is that you come in the evening, and it is right. Fewer people arrive after 8pm, the golden lighting comes on at nightfall, and the tower sparkles for the first five minutes of every hour until it closes. Book an evening slot and you get both the daylight view and the lit one if you time it near sunset.

Most of the tours listed here refund in full up to 24 hours ahead, and each card says which policy it carries. The exceptions are a final sale, or half the fare back at 24 hours. Check the line on the card before you pay, because those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

The monument's own published adult rates are €23.50 for the lift to the second floor, €36.70 for the lift to the top, €14.80 for the stairs to the second floor and €28.00 for the stairs plus the lift to the top. Youth 12 to 24 pay roughly half and children 4 to 11 about a quarter. These are the tower's figures, not ours, and it sets and sells them itself.

Take the stairs ticket if you are happy on stairs and want the cheapest way up, and the lift to the second floor if you are not. Add the top only if the height is the reason you came. The stairs-plus-lift combination is the cheapest route to 276 metres by a clear margin.

The tower keeps selling at its on-site ticket offices for an immediate visit, and it says so on every page of its own site. You can also find same-day e-tickets, sometimes for the next 30 minutes, on the official online office. A guided departure is the third route, because the operator has already bought the ticket.

There are two: entry 1 on the south side and entry 2 on the east. Each has separate queues for ticketed and unticketed visitors, so look for the ticketed one. Several guided departures meet on a street corner nearby rather than at the gate, and the instruction on those is to go to the meeting point first.

Green is the lift and blue is the stairs. Once you are through the first security check and on the esplanade, the colour tells you which boarding area your ticket belongs to. It is the single most useful thing to know before you walk in.

It is the time you must already be beneath the tower, in the queue for visitors with tickets. It is not the time to arrive at the gate. Allow 15 to 20 minutes on top of it for the entry security, and bring some ID, because each e-ticket is personal and may be checked.

Anything that could be a weapon, a pocket knife included, and the security teams cannot hold it for you. Large bags and luggage are refused at the sizer, and so are drones, glass objects, non-folding strollers, walking sticks and padlocks. Both security checks apply to everybody.

Bir-Hakeim on line 6 is the closest at about 11 minutes on foot, and Champ de Mars – Tour Eiffel on RER C is nearer still at about 5. École Militaire on line 8 is 16 minutes and Trocadéro on line 9 is 22, though Trocadéro gives you the view on the way. Buses 82, 30, 42, 69 and 86 all stop within a ten-minute walk.

Line 6 is being modernised, so the section between Charles de Gaulle – Étoile and La Motte-Picquet – Grenelle is suspended on seven Sundays: 6 and 20 September, 4, 11 and 18 October, and 8 and 22 November 2026. A replacement bus runs on those days. Trocadéro on line 9 and École Militaire on line 8 are unaffected.

The gardens and the esplanade beneath the piers are, and so is the walk through the Belle Époque parterres on the way in. What is not free is any floor of the tower: there is no free entry to the Eiffel Tower itself, and every level is ticketed. Watching the tower sparkle from the Champ de Mars costs nothing at all.

Yes, on three levels. Madame Brasserie sits on the first floor under Michelin-starred chef Thierry Marx, Le Jules Verne holds a Michelin star of its own on the second at 125 metres, and buffets run on the esplanade and both floors. There is a macaron bar on the second floor and a champagne bar at the top.

A restaurant booking carries its own lift access, so you do not queue for a separate ticket. What it does not do is take you higher than the floor you are eating on — a first-floor lunch booking names the second and third floors among its exclusions. Add a tower ticket if you want to go up as well as eat.

There is, built into the structure at 276 metres, serving rosé or white by the glass with alcohol-free drinks as well. It opens daily from 11am to 10.30pm in low season and to midnight in July and August. The tower also sells tickets that bundle a glass in at a set rate.

For the first five minutes of every hour, from nightfall until the monument closes. The golden lighting and the beacon come on at nightfall on sensors, and the sparkle runs on top of that. The tower's own worked example: night falls at 8.35pm, the lights come up within ten minutes and the first sparkle runs at 9pm.

It is, and every ticket reaches it — on the way up or down with a stair ticket, and on the way down with a lift ticket. The glass floor is there, so is the outdoor walkway on the tower's history, and so is a smartphone experience with Gustave Eiffel. Most people ride straight past it and regret it afterwards.

From that date any group of more than nine people, the guide included, has to buy online through the tower's professional platform rather than at the ticket office. A guide may accompany only one group of up to eight visitors per 30-minute slot. Stair tickets also start requiring an advance reservation on the same day.

The top does close in high wind and severe weather, and the monument says access there may be restricted at peak times too. The lower floors keep running in the rain. If you have booked the top and it shuts, most operators refund that portion — check the line on your own card.