The Eiffel Tower Second Floor and Summit: What Is on Each Level
Four levels, three of them ticketed, and a €13.20 gap between the two that most people are choosing between. Here is what is actually on each one, how high it is, and which one you want — then the Eiffel Tower tours and tickets that reach each.
The esplanade and the first floor, 57 metres
The ground beneath the piers is free. You clear a security check to get onto it, walk through the Belle Époque gardens, and stand under 10,100 tons of iron without paying anybody. A great many visitors come only this far, and on a first evening in Paris that is a perfectly good decision.
The first floor at 57 metres is the one people ride straight past, and it is the one built for lingering. It has the glass floor, which is exactly as unsettling as you hope. It has an outdoor walkway that tells the tower’s own story along the exterior passageway, smartphone experiences that put Gustave Eiffel in front of you when you scan their codes, the Pavillon Ferrié shop, and Madame Brasserie.
Every ticket reaches it. A stairs ticket takes you through it on the way up or the way down, and a lift ticket takes you through it on the way down. Nobody has to pay extra for the first floor, and almost nobody stops.
The second floor, 115 metres — the floor the views are on
This is the one to plan around. At 115 metres you are high enough to see the whole city and low enough to tell one building from another, and the tower’s own pages name what you pick out: the Louvre, the Grand Palais, the bends of the Seine, Montmartre, Invalides and Notre-Dame. From the top, 161 metres higher, those same buildings are shapes.
The floor is 4,692 square feet across two levels. Le Jules Verne is up here, one Michelin star under Frédéric Anton, and so is the Macaron Bar with two recipes Pierre Hermé made for the tower. On the lower level, Champ-de-Mars side, a second smartphone experience runs an overlap-reality sequence when you stand about a metre and a half back from the railings.
It is also the last stop before the top. The lifts to the summit leave from here, and they are a separate pair of lifts with a separate queue — which is the wait travellers mention more than any other part of the ascent.
The top, 276 metres
Two glass-walled lifts climb the last stretch. The top has two levels, one open to the sky and one enclosed, and 820 square feet of floor between them. It is the smallest platform on the tower and the one people queue longest for.
Bring a layer. The monument’s own page puts it plainly: it is always windy on the third floor. Whatever the weather did at ground level, 276 metres up it is doing something else.
What is actually up there
Gustave Eiffel’s office
Restored to its original condition, with wax figures of Eiffel, his daughter Claire and Thomas Edison, and the gramophone Edison brought as a gift.
The panoramic maps
They place you, then give the direction, the distance and the height of major monuments around the world — with a reference line for this tower, so you can see what it beats.
The 1889 model
A 1:50 scale model of the top as it was built, painted in the original red-brown, so you can see what the summit was originally planned to look like.
The champagne bar
Built into the structure itself, serving rosé or white by the glass and alcohol-free drinks as well, from 11am to 10.30pm and to midnight in July and August.
Second floor or the top: the €13.20 question
| Second floor | The top | |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 115 m | 276 m |
| Official adult fare, by lift | €23.50 | €36.70 |
| Official adult fare, stairs then lift | €14.80 | €28.00 |
| Queues | One, on the ground | Two — the second at 115 m |
| Closes in high wind | No | Yes |
| Wheelchair access | Yes, by lift | No |
| What you see | Named monuments, sharply | The whole basin of Paris |
Do the arithmetic yourself. The top costs €13.20 more than the second floor, or €8.70 if you climb the stairs first, and it costs you a second queue that on a busy evening runs longer than the first one. What it buys is 161 metres and the office, the maps and the champagne bar. If the height is the point, that is a good trade. If the view is the point, the second floor is the better floor and the cheaper one.
Want the top guaranteed rather than optional?
Most of the tours listed here put the summit behind a checkout option, and a few include it outright. The chip on every card says which.
When the top closes, and what happens to your ticket
The top closes in high wind and severe weather, and access can be restricted at peak times as well. That is the monument’s own wording and it is not unusual — several traveller reviews here describe arriving to find it shut.
You are not stranded. Your second-floor access is unaffected, so the visit still happens, and most operators refund the summit portion of the fare when the top is closed. Some of the listings here state that in their own terms. Check the line on the card before you book if you are travelling in a windy month, and if that risk matters to you, the weather page sets out which months carry it.
Frequently asked questions
Should you book the second floor or the top?
What happens if the top is closed when you arrive?
Is the first floor worth stopping at?
Is there really a champagne bar at the top?
Is the Eiffel Tower wheelchair accessible?
Where to check these figures
Every figure above comes from the monument’s own published pages, listed below. Hours and rates move, so check yours before you travel.
The practical detail is on visiting the Eiffel Tower and what to expect on the day. The two kitchens up there are on the restaurants page. Every fare is compared on Eiffel Tower Paris Tours.