Eiffel Tower stairs tours are guided climbs of the 674 steps to the second floor — the cheapest way into the monument, a shorter queue, and half an hour inside the ironwork rather than past it.
674 steps to the second floor with a guide, from Rue Buenos-Ayres facing Entrance 1. The highest-volume ascent captured here. Summit by lift if you add it at checkout.
From $53 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
A guided climb with entrance tickets to the first and second floors in the fare, from Avenue Charles Floquet. Some options add a Seine cruise ticket; read the option name before you pay.
From $54 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Ninety minutes, all of it at the tower, with a local guide picking out Montmartre and Invalides from the platform. Meets on Avenue Silvestre de Sacy. Latecomers are not refunded.
From $52 per person
Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.
Every route up is compared with the Eiffel Tower tours and tickets.
674 steps to the second floor, the cheapest ticket the monument sells, and a guide who stops on the way to explain what you are inside.
Check availabilityA guided climb of the 674 steps from the ground to the second floor, in two flights with the first floor between them. You go up inside the ironwork rather than past it, and you come out at 115 metres having spent twenty to thirty minutes in the structure itself.
The staircase does not reach the top. The last 161 metres are by lift for everybody, which is why the summit appears on these fares as a lift option you tick at checkout. What the stairs give you is the cheapest way into the monument and, most people say afterwards, the better half of the ascent.
The official stair ticket is the cheapest entry the tower sells, and the saving holds all the way up: the stairs-then-lift route to the top is €28.00 against €36.70 for the all-lift version of the same view.
Blue kiosks for the stairs, green for the lift. The blue ones take fewer people, and you are not waiting on a lift's capacity.
A stair ticket routes you through the level at 57 metres that almost every lift passenger skips — the one with the glass floor on it.
Half an hour inside 18,038 pieces of iron held together by two and a half million rivets. It is a different visit from a lift ride, and it is the one people describe afterwards.
Both routes end on the same platform at 115 metres. What differs is what you pay, what you see on the way and what it asks of you.
| By stairs | By lift | |
|---|---|---|
| Official adult fare, second floor | €14.80 | €23.50 |
| Official adult fare, on to the top | €28.00 | €36.70 |
| Kiosk | Blue | Green |
| Booking window | 30 days ahead | 60 days ahead |
| Time to climb or ride | 30–45 minutes | Minutes, plus the queue |
| Passes the first floor | Yes, both ways | On the way down only |
| Wheelchair access | No | Yes |
| Best for | Reasonably fit visitors and anyone cost-conscious | Anyone else |
The one that surprises people is the second row. If the top is your destination and you are able to climb, the stairs-and-lift combination reaches it for €8.70 less a head. The full comparison is in the post on stairs or lift.
You get the stair ticket, a guided climb and, on every tour here, your own time on the platforms afterwards. Where the summit is offered, it is by lift and as a booking option.
You don't get skip-the-line access. The listings here name it in their own exclusions, which is unusually straight of them, and the monument states that every visitor clears both security checks whatever they hold. What a booked ticket removes is the ticket desk. The detail is on what to expect.
Price band. From about $52 to about $55, with the €14.80 ticket inside it — so the guiding is costing roughly $37.
Fitness. Expect a listing to ask for a moderate level. If you manage a metro staircase without stopping, you will manage this with a pause or two, and the first floor is a natural halfway rest.
Booking window. Stair e-tickets go on sale 30 days ahead rather than 60. From 29 September 2026 an advance reservation becomes compulsory for the stairs, which ends the option of turning up and climbing. Guided fares already book ahead and are unaffected.
What to wear. Shoes with grip and a layer. The descent is where people find out what their footwear is like, and every platform is open to the wind.
The stair ticket underneath these fares is €14.80, and the climb is the half of the ascent people describe afterwards.
Check availabilityWheelchair users and anyone on crutches. The stairs are closed to you, and so is the top, for evacuation reasons. The lift to the second floor is the route and carries priority access at the desks and the pillars.
Anyone with a toddler or a non-folding stroller. There is no way to switch to the lift halfway, and nowhere on site to leave anything. The lift fares are the answer, and the post on visiting with children works through the rest.
Anyone short of time. The climb is thirty to forty-five minutes before you are on the platform at all.
Anyone whose destination is 276 metres and who would rather not climb at all. The summit tours take the lifts the whole way and include the top in the fare.
The step-by-step comparison is in the post on stairs or lift, the security detail on what to expect, and every fare on Eiffel Tower Paris Tours.