Travel to Paris: what a trip costs

How to spend less in Paris

• Go in January. In our sample, a 4-star room cost a median €166 a night that month. In June it was €388, more than twice as much. We read two mostly mid-month nights per month, months ahead. April is not in the sample.
• Look at 3-star hotels. A separate search, filtered to 3-star hotels, gave a median night of €142. In the main list, a 4-star night was €227. The two searches may not show the same mix of hotels, so treat the gap as a rough guide.
• Buy a day pass only if you take a fifth ride. A metro ticket costs €2.55 and the all-zone day pass €12.30. The pass pays off from your fifth ride of the day.
• Eat your main meal at lunch. Guides list set lunch menus and cheap meals at €15 to €28. A mid-range dinner is about €31 per person, but that rests on 2 sources only.
• Compare show and cruise prices. From-prices differ widely. An evening cruise on the Seine starts at €17, without dinner. The Moulin Rouge dinner show starts at €255 per person, dinner included. We found only 2 listings for it.
• Drink your coffee at the bar. The Paris tourist office says a small coffee costs €1 at the bar and €2 sitting down.

We left flights to Paris out of this study, so every total here covers costs on the ground only. For a rough idea, PartirOu, a French fare tracker, put a round trip between Paris and New York at about €600 per person on average. The cheapest fare it found was €339. It worked these out in mid-October 2026 from searches on its site for trips starting in Paris, over the four weeks before. They are its figures, not our measurement. A trip that starts in New York, or in another US city, can cost more or less, and fares change with your dates. So add your own flights on top.

Hotel prices in Paris by month

A hotel room for two in Paris cost a median €227 a night at 4-star, €142 at 3-star and €632 at 5-star in our study. For a 4-star hotel, January 2027 was the cheapest of the 10 months we ranked (€166) and June 2027 the dearest (€388).

We read 2,019 hotel-night prices of 518 hotels on Google Hotels on 24 October 2026. We checked one Tuesday and one Saturday night each month, from October 2026 to September 2027, for 2 adults in one room. April is left out. The nights were mostly mid-month, so holiday and event weeks are not in the sample. We could not confirm whether these prices include taxes, fees or breakfast, or whether you can cancel them. The calculator adds the tourist tax on top. The 4-star figures rest on 310 prices of 104 hotels, and the 5-star figures on 320 prices of 59 hotels. Both come from Google's main hotel list. The 3-star figures come from a second search, filtered to 3-star hotels: 612 prices of 179 hotels. So the three classes are not one like-for-like ladder. The middle half of 4-star nights cost €175 to €313.

€209 Oct*

€216 Nov

€190 Dec

cheapest €166 Jan

€184 Feb

€227 Mar

€339 May

dearest €388 Jun

€322 Jul

€198 Aug

€280 Sep

By month and star class

Google shows a different mix of hotels for each date. So we only compare months within one star class. The cheapest and dearest months are ranked over the 10 months with no note. For 3-star hotels, the filtered search put February and December about equal at the low end (€106 and €107). June was highest (€211). Read that ranking with care: the filtered search shows only the first 3-star hotels Google lists.

About these numbers

Medians per room per night for 2 adults, as Google Hotels showed them. Each month rests on two nights only, one Tuesday and one Saturday. We read every price once, on 24 October 2026, so later months were read further ahead. Prices closer to your dates may be higher or lower. Each month rests on few prices: 36 to 62 at 3-star, 21 to 36 at 4-star and 17 to 44 at 5-star. So treat every month as a rough guide.

Weekends

How we compared weekends

In our sample, Paris hotels did not charge more on a Saturday than on a Tuesday. We did not check other weeknights. For each month, we set one hotel's Saturday price next to its price on the Tuesday before (442 pairs). Only hotels with a price on both dates count. Of these, 145 pairs are hotels without a star class, so the class figures add up to fewer. The median gap was 0 %, and 44 % of hotels asked more for the Saturday. Month by month, the median ran from -10.4 % in February to 7 % in September.

Hotels worth a look (ratings from Booking.com)

• Louvre and Opéra (1st, 2nd, 9th) Hotel des Arts - Cite Bergere

  A hotel on the quiet Cité Bergère lane in the 9th, 260 m from Grands Boulevards metro and a short walk from the Musée Grévin, with a 24-hour front desk.

• Le Marais (3rd, 4th) The People - Paris Marais

  A stay on Boulevard Morland in the 4th, 900 m from the Opéra Bastille, with a shared kitchen and lounge, a terrace, a restaurant and a bar.

• Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain (5th, 6th) Familia Hotel

  A hotel on rue des Écoles in the Latin Quarter, 600 m from Notre-Dame and a 3-minute walk from Maubert-Mutualité metro; some rooms look out on the cathedral.

• Eiffel Tower area (7th, 15th) YOOMA Urban Lodge Tour Eiffel

  A hotel on the Quai de Grenelle in the 15th, 1.1 km from the Eiffel Tower, designed with Daniel Buren, with a restaurant, a lounge bar and some rooms with beds and capsules designed by Ora Ito.

Each of these scores 8 or more on Booking.com. We did not price them, so no price is shown. Which area is cheapest? Outside the centre, for the 4-star rooms we could compare by area. In our sample a 4-star room for two in the north and east (10th, 11th, 18th to 20th) cost a median €145 a night. In central Paris (1st to 8th) it cost €263, so the north and east was about 45% cheaper. In the south (13th to 15th) it was €180. In our default mid-range trip the room is the biggest line: €906 of €2,211. So the area you pick shows in your total. We placed each hotel by its map position, so the areas and their arrondissement names are rough. The samples are small: 35 prices from 11 hotels in the north and east, and 40 prices from 13 hotels in the south. The star class is the other big lever: a 3-star night cost a median €142, and a 4-star night €227. For a budget stay, our guide to where to stay in Paris points to simple hotels in Montmartre and to rooms with a kitchen, such as The People in Le Marais. A kitchen lets you skip some meals out, and a cheap meal costs about €21 per person (3 sources, €15 to €28).

Booking.com ratings and hotel notes as shown on 24 October 2026.

How much food costs in Paris

A cheap meal in Paris costs about €21, dinner at a mid-range restaurant about €31 and an upmarket dinner about €100 per person. The mid-range figure rests on 2 sources only, and one of them gives the price of a main dish, so it is a thin guide. Upmarket dinners in the sources run from €68 to €400, a wide spread.

These figures are cited, not measured by us. Guides and food-tour sites publish them, and we quote them word for word. The pages show no date, so we give the day we read them, 24 October 2026. The calculator uses the middle figure of each group, with each source counted once.

Drinks

A beer in a Paris bar costs €5.50 to €7.50, a coffee about €1.50 and a glass of wine about €5.63, by published prices. The beer prices all come from one bar guide (1 source), so they are a thin guide.

Tap water is free in restaurants if you ask for a carafe d'eau. The calculator does not count breakfast or drinks.

How much a rental car costs in Paris

Rental and travel sites put the average rental car in Paris at €55 to €72 a day.

These are cited figures from 3 rental and travel sites, not our own. Their bases differ: one is an airport branch, one a small car, one a plain average. So read them as a rough guide. The calculator uses the low figure for budget and mid-range and the high one for comfort. Insurance, fuel, tolls and parking are not included.

• €55 a day: On average, car rentals in Paris cost around €55 per day roadgenius.com
• €40–€70 a day: middle a compact rental car in Paris typically costs around €40–€70 per day vivastour.com
• €72 a day: Average Daily Price EUR 72 /day hertz.co.uk

Advertised minimums, not typical prices: from €29 a day (easyterra.com) · from €26 a day (francecarrental.fr).

Compare rental cars at CDG airport

You rarely need a car in Paris itself. The metro and RER trains reach the main sights, and a car helps most for trips into the countryside.

Key findings of the 2026 Paris Travel Cost Study

1. 110 % Restaurant and hotel prices across France were 110 % of the EU average in 2024, according to Eurostat's price level index (EU = 100). This is a national figure, not Paris alone.
2. €227
   In our sample of 2,019 Google Hotels hotel-night prices (518 hotels, stays from October 2026 to September 2027, April 2027 left out), a 4-star night in Paris cost a median €227 per room for two adults (310 prices), with the middle half between €175 and €313. A 5-star night cost a median €632 (320 prices); a 3-star night, from a separate search filtered to 3-star hotels, €142

   (612 prices).
3. €388 In our sample, 4-star rooms priced for one Tuesday and one Saturday in June 2027 had a median of €388 a night, against €166 in January 2027, the cheapest of the 10 months we could compare (134% more). All prices were read on 24 October 2026, months ahead of the stay.
4. 0 % In our sample, Paris hotels showed no Saturday premium: comparing the same hotel on a Saturday and the Tuesday before it (442 pairs, one Tuesday and one Saturday per month, only hotels priced on both dates), the median difference was 0 %, and 44 % of hotels charged more on the Saturday.
5. €15 Guides and food-tour companies publish prices of €15 to €28 for a cheap meal, €18 to €48 for dinner at a mid-range restaurant, and €68 to €400 per person for fine dining.
6. €55 Published average prices for a rental car in Paris disagree widely: 3 car-rental and travel sites state between €55 and €72 a day, on different bases (an airport branch, a typical compact car, a general average). The real price depends on the dates, the car, insurance and fuel.
7. €2,211 Our calculator puts a mid-range trip of 4 nights for two at about €2,211: one shared 4-star room at the all-year median, two meals out a day each, two tours at their from-prices, a daily public-transport pass, the airport ticket both ways and the tourist tax at the 3-star rate. Flights, breakfast and drinks are not included.

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Sources