Eiffel Tower: free audio guide, opening hours and tickets

The Eiffel Tower is the iron tower that Gustave Eiffel’s company built on the banks of the Seine for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. It stood 312 m tall when it opened and reaches 330 m today with its antennas, and visitors can go up to 3 levels: 57, 116 and 276 m. This free audio guide lasts about 4 minutes and is made for the queue and the ride up.

What the audio guide covers

Press play while you wait at security or on the way up, and listen at your own pace. It has 6 stops:

Put your headphones on before you join the queue: the audio covers the time between the security check and the lift, so you reach the first platform knowing what you are looking at.

Opening hours and tickets

The tower is open every day of the year. In the official calendar for autumn and winter 2026, the site opens at 9.15am and the lifts run from 9.30am to 11pm, with the last access to the site at 10.45pm. The stairs close at 5.30pm from Sunday to Friday, but stay open until 10.45pm on Saturdays, on public holidays and during school holidays (until 1 November, on 10 and 11 November and from 5 to 7 December 2026). From 18 to 30 December the stairs stay open until 11.45pm and the lifts run until midnight, and on 31 December it closes at 7pm.

The price depends on how high you go and how you get there. Adult tickets:

• Second floor by the stairs: €14.80 (youth 12-24 €7.40, child 4-11 €3.80).
• Second floor by lift: €23.50 (youth €11.80, child €6).
• Top, stairs to the second floor and then the lift: €28 (youth €14, child €7).
• Top by lift: €36.70 (youth €18.40, child €9.20).
• Under 4s: free, but they still need a ticket. Disabled visitors and 1 companion pay the child rate.

Lift e-tickets go on sale up to 90 days ahead and stair e-tickets up to 60 days ahead; if nothing is left online, the ticket offices in the pillars sell tickets for an immediate visit. New prices apply to visits from 11 January 2027, so check the official rates if your trip falls after that date.

What to see, floor by floor

• The esplanade and gardens: free, no ticket needed. Standing between the 4 pillars is the best way to feel the size of the structure.
• First floor, 57 m: the largest platform, 4,415 m², with the glass floor, the exhibition space and the Madame Brasserie restaurant.
• Second floor, 116 m: 1,430 m² and the best level for picking out the monuments of Paris, because from higher up the city flattens out. Le Jules Verne restaurant is here.
• The top, 276 m: 250 m², the glassed-in platform, the champagne bar and the reconstruction of Gustave Eiffel’s office.

5 lifts carry visitors from the ground to the second floor, and 2 pairs of duo lifts go on from there to the top. The top can close at short notice because of bad weather or crowds, and on busy days you may wait on the second floor for the lift up.

The tower in 5 moments

1887-1889, a record build. Work began on 26 January 1887 and ended on 31 March 1889: 2 years, 2 months and 5 days. The idea came from 2 engineers in Eiffel’s firm, Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier, and the architect Stephen Sauvestre gave it its shape. It was assembled from 18,038 iron parts and 2,500,000 rivets, and for 4 decades it was the tallest structure in the world.

The numbers. The metal structure weighs 7,300 tonnes, 10,100 tonnes in all, on a base 125 m wide on each side. It is repainted every 7 years with 60 tonnes of paint. There are 1,665 steps from the ground to the top, but the public can only climb as far as the second floor; the spiral staircase that once ran on up to the top, 1,062 steps, was never open to visitors and was taken down in 1983.

1909, saved by the radio. The tower was built with an end date: the concession ran out in 1909 and it was due to come down. Its use as an antenna for radio saved it, and it still broadcasts.

2022, 330 m. A new radio antenna added in March 2022 took it to its current height of 330 m.

Today. More than 6.3 million people a year go up, which makes it one of the most visited ticketed monuments in the world.

Getting there, security and access

The address is Champ de Mars, 5 avenue Anatole France, 75007 Paris. The quickest ways in are Metro line 6 to Bir-Hakeim, under 10 minutes on foot from entrance 1, and the RER C to Champ de Mars – Tour Eiffel, about 5 minutes away; Metro lines 8 and 9 and buses 42 and 82 also stop nearby.

You go in through entrance 1 (south) or entrance 2 (east), where the first security check takes 10 to 20 minutes. If you have a ticket, be in the “Visitors with tickets” queue under the tower at the time printed on it, so arrive at the entrance 15 to 20 minutes earlier. The lifts have a second security check.

The esplanade, the second floor’s lower platform and the first floor are accessible for wheelchair users, with step-free access to the lifts in the West and North pillars and a lift for people with reduced mobility in the East pillar. The top and the stairs are not open to people with reduced mobility, for evacuation reasons.

Best time to go

According to the tower’s own figures, October, November, January and February are the quietest months, and the peak runs from late June to early September. Saturdays and Sundays are the busiest days; outside holidays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the calmest. Through the day, after 5pm and above all after 8pm is when the queues drop. French school holidays and long weekends bring more people: 7 to 11 November, Thanksgiving weekend (26 to 29 November) and 6 to 8 December 2026.

If you are seeing more of Paris, these audio guides are also free:

Free audio guideNotre-Dame de Paris
Free audio guideLouvre Museum
Free audio guidePalais Garnier (Paris Opera House)