Free Things to Do in Paris: 6 Picks That Cost Nothing

1. Notre-Dame: free to enter, best for history

Notre-Dame is free to enter, and it fills a morning with no ticket. The cathedral's own booking page offers free visiting slots. It warns that no third-party platform is allowed to sell them, so a site that charges for a "ticket" is not the cathedral.

The bell towers are different. They are a separate paid visit, with a full ticket of €16 sold online only, run by the national monuments centre, and they are free only on certain first Sundays, as the towers' practical page explains for November to March. Free slots there are released a few days before.

If you want the story of the Gothic symbols and the restored interior, a guide helps. The Notre-Dame guided tour is from €5 per person and meets at Place Louis Lépine, 75004. Its listing says the cathedral entry itself is free, so the price pays for the guide. Are churches free? Yes for two of them: Notre-Dame (book a free slot) and the Sacré-Cœur basilica in pick 2 are both free to enter. The Notre-Dame towers and the Sacré-Cœur dome are paid extras. Saint-Eustache and Saint-Sulpice publish no entry fee or visiting hours on their official sites, so check them before you go. No other church rule is published in the pages read. Free viewpoint: the Montmartre hill in pick 2. Paid views are the towers at €16 and the Sacré-Cœur dome at €8, a climb of about 280 steps with no lift. The Galeries Lafayette and Printemps rooftop pages could not be opened, so this guide does not list them. For what else a Paris trip costs, see our travel to paris cost guide.

2. Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre: free basilica, best for views

The Sacré-Cœur basilica is free to visit, and the neighborhood around it costs nothing to walk. The basilica's official site says the visit is free and the doors are open every day from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. On the first Thursday of the month it closes at midnight.

The dome has its own tour page on the same site. Check its price there, because no price is printed on the main page.

Streets and squares around the hill are free too. A guide adds the painters and the stories. The Montmartre small-group walk lasts 135 minutes and is from €21.34 per person, in groups of up to 10. The listing says wheelchair users should skip it.

Pro Tip Go to the basilica early in the morning, when it opens at 6:30 a.m., and the Montmartre streets are quiet before the walking tours start.

3. Luxembourg Gardens: free, best for a slow afternoon

The Luxembourg Gardens are free to enter, and they are the best place in Paris to sit down without paying. The Senate, which runs the park, lists the entry as free ("entrée libre") on its practical information page. The gates are at Place Edmond Rostand, Place André Honnorat, Rue Guynemer and Rue de Vaugirard.

Opening hours change with the seasons. The Senate updates them on the 1st and the 16th of each month, so look up the day before you go. For the full picture of the palace, read our guide to the Luxembourg Gardens.

A few rules catch visitors out. Walking on the lawns and picking plants are banned. Bikes and scooters are not allowed. Dogs on a leash are allowed only in the south-east zone.

Free park confirmed here: the Luxembourg Gardens, and no other. The City of Paris pages read name no other free park, and the City's own parks page and the Parc de Belleville page could not be opened on 24 October 2026. For any other park, check the City of Paris website before you go.

4. The city's own museums: free permanent collections

The permanent collections of the City of Paris museums are free for everyone, whatever your age. The City of Paris names three exceptions: the Catacombs, the Archaeological Crypt of the Île de la Cité and the Palais Galliera.

Its list of free museums includes the Petit Palais, the Carnavalet history museum, the Musée d'Art Moderne, the Maison de Victor Hugo and the Musée Cernuschi. The City of Paris free-museums page says the free rule at Carnavalet, Cernuschi and several others applies except during temporary exhibitions. Five more museums are free all year: Atelier Brancusi, Musée Curie, Le Plateau, the Musée de la Préfecture de police and the Mémorial de la Shoah. Three small museums, the Chasse et de la Nature, Gustave Moreau and Henner, are free on the first Sunday of the month. The Musée des Arts et Métiers is free on Fridays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The City page also lists free permanent collections at Bourdelle, Zadkine, Maison de Balzac, Cognacq-Jay, the Libération de Paris museum and the Vie romantique museum. On the first Sunday, under-18s enter free at Cluny, Picasso, Guimet and Quai Branly. Opening days are on each museum's own site, and this guide does not list them. The City pages state no opening days and no closing day. Many readers pair a free city museum with a paid blockbuster on another day. The Louvre and Orsay free days are in pick 5.

Here is each museum with its free rule in one place:

• Free every day (permanent collections): Petit Palais, Carnavalet, Musée d'Art Moderne, Maison de Victor Hugo, Musée Cernuschi, Bourdelle, Zadkine, Maison de Balzac, Cognacq-Jay, Libération de Paris and Vie romantique.
• Free all year: Atelier Brancusi, Musée Curie, Le Plateau, Musée de la Préfecture de police and Mémorial de la Shoah.
• Free on the first Sunday of the month: Chasse et de la Nature, Gustave Moreau and Henner.
• Free on Fridays, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Musée des Arts et Métiers.
• Free on the first Friday of the month after 6 p.m. (not July or August): the Louvre.
• Free on the first Sunday (confirm on the museum's site): Orsay and Orangerie.
• Not free: the Catacombs, the Archaeological Crypt of the Île de la Cité and the Palais Galliera. Temporary exhibitions can charge at any museum.

Key Takeaway The Petit Palais and the Carnavalet museum cost nothing for their permanent collections, so a rainy Paris day can be free.

5. Free days at the big museums and monuments

The big museums are free only on set days or for set ages, so plan the date before you queue. The Louvre has no free first Sunday. It is free for everyone on the first Friday of the month after 6 p.m., except in July and August, and on 14 July, according to the Louvre's own page.

Monuments run by the national monuments centre, such as the Arc de Triomphe, Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre-Dame towers, are free on the first Sunday only from November to March. Versailles is free on the first Sunday from November to March too. Free tickets still need a reserved slot, and quotas apply.

The Musée d'Orsay's ticket FAQ lists the first Sunday as free, with a slot to book. One City of Paris list shows that day free for under-18s only, so confirm on the museum's own site. On any other day, a timed ticket saves guessing. The Musée d'Orsay tickets page shows the paid options, and the Orsay ticket with audio guide is from €27 per person with a flexible same-day entry time.

Age rules help too. Under-18s enter free at the Louvre, Versailles, Orsay, Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the Notre-Dame towers and the Arc de Triomphe. The free rule for ages 18 to 25 covers residents of EU and EEA countries, so most US visitors don't qualify.

6. Free walking tours: what they really cost

A free walking tour has no ticket price, but the guide asks for a tip at the end. So the tour costs whatever you decide to give, and you decide at the end. That is the whole trade.

So is a tour worth it? Pick a tour if you want the stories behind what you see or a set meeting time. Go on your own if you only want to walk into a free sight, because Notre-Dame, the basilica and the gardens need no guide. The Notre-Dame tour at €5 buys a guide for a sight that is free to enter. A tip-based walk is the cheapest guide, but it stays outside the rooms. A fixed-price walk tells you the cost first. Here is the trade in numbers. Your own visit to Notre-Dame, the basilica and the gardens costs €0. A guide adds €5 to €21.34, and the walks run 45 minutes to 135 minutes. Three of the four listings offer free cancellation, so the risk is small.

The rule on guides matters for what you can see. In France, only holders of a guide-lecturer card may lead commercial guided visits inside museums and historic monuments, says the French Ministry of Enterprise. Street walks are not restricted. So a free street walk shows you streets and squares from outside, not the rooms inside.

Best Things to Do in Paris' count of GetYourGuide listings on 24 October 2026 found 54 of 601 per-person Paris listings starting under €20. A paid walk is cheap, and the price is fixed. The Dark Heart evening walking tour is from €15 per person and meets at 15 Place du Pont Neuf, 75001. It is not suitable for wheelchair users or people with reduced mobility. It has no hotel pickup. Its listing says City Wonders Ltd. runs it and that cancellation is free. The Notre-Dame tour is run by SMART CITY TOUR and lists free cancellation. The Montmartre walk is run by Parifiane Tours, meets at Place Blanche and lists free cancellation. Neither lists hotel pickup. The Dark Heart walk lists no group size. A tip-based walk lists no meeting point here, so read its booking page. The Orsay ticket has no on-site guide and no earphones. Its listing says Global Tours And Tickets sells it and that it is not refundable.

Four free walks are backed by the pages read for this guide:

• Montmartre: the streets and squares around the Sacré-Cœur hill. The basilica sits at the top, and it is free to enter.
• Luxembourg Gardens: the garden paths. Enter at Place Edmond Rostand, Place André Honnorat, Rue Guynemer or Rue de Vaugirard.
• Notre-Dame: the outside of the cathedral, and the free visit inside with a booked slot.
• A tip-based walking tour: you pay what you choose at the end. This guide names no company, fixed route, start point or tip amount, because no official page sets one. Read the guide's reviews on the booking page first.

No official page here names a riverbank walk, so this guide lists none.

For a free or paid walk that suits your day, compare a Paris free walking tour with a fixed-price one. A tip-based tour can be just as good, so judge by the guide's reviews.

How to choose free things to do in Paris

Pick by what you want from the day, then check the opening day. Free sights cost nothing to enter, but a few extras do. Here is the short version.

Some of the best things in a big city cost nothing, but they still need a plan.

For a free view, the Sacré-Cœur hill is the pick here, and the dome climb costs extra. Free sights do not make the whole trip cheap, because hotels and food are the big costs. Is $1,000 enough for a week? It depends on your hotel and food. No official page here prices them, and our hotel list gives no nightly price, so seven nights cannot be added up. No official source here gives a dollar rate, so the sums stay in euros. The free picks cost €0. The paid extras for one adult are Louvre €22 (EEA residents) or €32, Notre-Dame towers €16 and Sacré-Cœur dome €8, which is €46 or €56. All four listed tours add €68.34 on top. So $1,000 is enough only if your hotel, food and transit fit in what is left after those. The weekly transit pass price was not readable. For the full budget, start with the cost guide in the first pick. Opening days and free-entry rules also change, and every fact here is as the official pages stated it on 24 October 2026.