Visiting the Guggenheim Museum in New York: tickets, hours and the spiral
Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., $30 for adults, pay what you wish on Tuesday and Sunday from 4 p.m. We checked on 3 November 2026, and only 2 of the 17 tours here include entry.
The Guggenheim Museum in New York is one spiral ramp coming down from a glass skylight, at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of 88th Street. Adult admission is $30. The doors are open every day from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on Tuesday and Sunday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. you pay what you wish. That is the short version, with a warning attached: hours and prices change with the season, and old articles still describe a Saturday-evening slot that no longer exists.
We checked everything below on 3 November 2026. We are an independent site, not affiliated with the museum or the foundation, and the tours we list are sold by third-party providers. The story of how the building came to exist is on our Guggenheim in the United States page; this one is about getting in and getting round.
The price list is the part that moves most. Since the old pay-what-you-wish evening has gone and the museum's hours have changed more than once, we give the dates of every closure we could find up to the end of the year and a plain statement of what each of the 17 tours sells. If you are comparing us with a competitor's page, compare the dates first: a guide that does not say when it checked is not worth the click.
Inside the rotunda
The spiral, level by level
The rotunda has six levels, and a continuous ramp winds around its central space up to a glass skylight. Wright's building went up between 1956 and 1959, and in 2019 UNESCO added it to a list of eight of his buildings, alongside Fallingwater, Robie House and Taliesin West.
Most museums send you through rooms. Here the floor is the route. You see a work, take a few steps along the curve, and the next one arrives. Your view across the open center keeps changing, so you often catch a glimpse of a piece you have not reached yet, or one you left behind, from a different level.
Which way to walk is the question visitors ask most. We have no official guidance to quote on whether the museum prefers you start at the top or the bottom, and we will not guess; ask the staff at the entrance, who will say how the galleries are being routed that day. We also will not give a length or a gradient for the ramp. Figures circulate, they disagree with each other, and we have not found one from the museum.
A ramp has no corners, so a visit can feel shorter or longer than the clock says. Plan by what you want to see, not by the minutes.
Electric Pedicab NYC Tour With Flexible Stops, Times Square to Fifth Avenue
The driver is the guide and the route is open: riders add or skip stops between Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
Guided Pedicab Tour of Celebrity Homes and Film Locations Around Central Park
Guides point out who lived where around the park, from the Dakota to the Essex House, and which scenes were shot at the Boathouse, Bow Bridge and the Plaza.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour With Walking Stops, 1 to 3 Hours
A private pedicab ride through Central Park with 5-minute walking stops at Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Fountain and Bow Bridge, in 1, 2 or 3 hour versions.
Self-Guided New York City Tour via App: Central Park to Brooklyn Bridge
An app supplies navigation and audio for this self-paced New York route, and the tour can be downloaded to work offline. Stops include Central Park and DUMBO.
Spanish-Language New York Contrasts Tour: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn
Spanish-guided 8:00 AM departure from Midtown to the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, with Yankee Stadium, street murals and Williamsburg. Ends near Ground Zero.
Upper East Side Architecture Walking Tour of Gilded Age Mansions and the Guggenheim
Gilded Age town houses and Wright's Guggenheim on a two-hour architecture walk from the Frick Collection, with a guide and individual headsets for each guest.
Bustronome NYC Glass-Roof Double-Decker Bus with Multi-Course Lunch
A multi-course lunch with drinks served on a glass-roof bus, driving past Times Square, Madison Avenue, Columbus Circle and Central Park in Manhattan.
Manhattan Tour in Spanish: Central Park to Wall Street and Battery Park
Spanish-guided Manhattan tour that ends at the Wall Street Bull around 1:00 PM, next to Battery Park. Covers Strawberry Fields, Fifth Avenue and the Flatiron.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour: Carousel, Bethesda Terrace, Deluxe and VIP Routes
A private pedicab ride that starts at the Carousel and Wollman Rink, with Deluxe and VIP routes adding Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Midtown landmarks.
Guggenheim Museum New York Entry Ticket: Permanent Collection and Exhibitions
Entry ticket covering the Guggenheim's permanent collection and its temporary exhibitions, in the Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue, New York.
Private Stretch Limousine Tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn with Guide, up to 6
A stretch limousine reserved for your group, with a driver and a separate guide, door-to-door pickup and a customizable route. Up to six passengers per vehicle.
Film and Fiction Walking Tour of Carnegie Hill, Met Steps to the Guggenheim
Two hours of movie locations and celebrity homes along Museum Mile, from the Met steps at 82nd Street to the Guggenheim at 88th Street. Up to 15 travelers.
Manhattan Walking Tour from Wall Street with Guggenheim Museum Entry, 5 Hours
Three hours on foot from Wall Street through Chinatown and Little Italy, then two hours inside the Guggenheim on your own, with the entrance ticket included.
When Harry Met Seinfeld: Private 2-Hour Film Locations Tour with Actor Guide
A local actor guides this private two-hour route past filming locations on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, the part of Manhattan north of Times Square.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour with Home Alone 2 and Gossip Girl Film Stops
A private pedicab ride past Central Park spots from Home Alone 2, Friends, Spider-Man and Gossip Girl, with photo stops and the park's history from the guide.
4-Hour Van or Mini-Bus Sightseeing Tour of Manhattan with Live Commentary
Van or mini-bus tour from Midtown, with stops at Strawberry Fields, Little Italy, Chinatown and Liberty Park. Live commentary in German, English or Italian.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour with Flexible Pickup, Sheep Meadow and Literary Walk
A private pedicab tour picked up at 59th Street and 6th Avenue or a requested point, then Sheep Meadow, Literary Walk, Bethesda Terrace and Tavern on the Green.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor and Tiqets
Guggenheim Museum New York tickets, hours and closures
The museum's own discount and visit pages give a clear price list, and it is shorter than the one on most booking sites. Here it is, in dollars, as read on 3 November 2026.
| Who | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Adults | $30 | Regular hours, daily |
| Students and over 65 | $19 | With ID |
| Visitors with disabilities | $19 | A companion comes in free |
| Under 12 | Free | |
| Members | Free | |
| Pay what you wish | Suggested $10, minimum $1 | Tuesday and Sunday, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m.; booking ahead strongly recommended |
The pay-what-you-wish window is the one people get wrong. It is Tuesday and Sunday, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m., which is 90 minutes. The museum strongly recommends booking ahead, and only a limited number of tickets are sold at the door. Two late-December dates, the 28th and the 30th, move the slot to 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. Older articles and some booking pages describe a Saturday evening instead, and some list Monday and Saturday. The museum's discount page does not.
Where the museum and a third-party guide disagree, we believe the museum.
The museum's visiting FAQ says there is no time limit on a visit. We could not confirm that the same holds for the pay-what-you-wish slot, but with the doors closing at 5:30 you are working with 90 minutes at best, and the last tickets go about 15 minutes before closing.
Other discounts exist and are listed on the museum's page: a $3 AAA reduction for up to four adults, reduced rates for US military, and free entry for students and staff of five CUNY colleges, SNAP or EBT cardholders (up to four people) and holders of Culture Pass or Cool Culture cards. Read the conditions there; we do not repeat them all.
| Date | What changes |
|---|---|
| Monday 9 November | Closes at 3 p.m. |
| Tuesday 10 November | Closed |
| Saturday 14 November | Closes at 3 p.m. |
| Thursday 26 November (Thanksgiving) | Closed |
| Thursday 24 December | Closes at 4 p.m. |
| Friday 25 December | Closed |
| 26 to 30 December | Open 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. |
Notice what that table does to the free slot: 10 November is a Tuesday, so that week has no pay-what-you-wish hour on Tuesday at all. Check the date you want before you plan around it.
What is on in the galleries
Three temporary shows and one permanent collection were listed on the museum's pages on 3 November 2026. The program after 14 March 2027 has not been published, so we will not describe summer 2027.
| Exhibition | Dates |
|---|---|
| Taryn Simon, Father Country I Do Love You | 18 September 2026 to 14 March 2027 |
| Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now | 5 June 2026 to 10 January 2027 |
| Collection in Focus: Modern European Currents (Goncharova, Kandinsky, Marc) | 15 July 2025 to 10 January 2027 |
| Thannhauser Collection (Degas, Manet, Van Gogh) | Permanent |
Before you go, the practical rules matter more than they should. A coat check is free with your ticket, backpacks have to be left there, and nothing larger than 22 by 14 by 9 inches comes inside. Flash is not allowed, and neither are tripods or poles. The Digital Guide is free through Bloomberg Connects. Café Rebay is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the shop closes at 6 p.m.
If you want a guide of your own, the museum requires a reservation for any third-party guided visit, and groups of ten or more must book as well. A tour operator that tells you otherwise is not describing the museum's rule.
Getting to 1071 Fifth Avenue
The museum names the 4, 5, 6 and Q subway lines, and the M1, M2, M3 and M4 buses on Madison or Fifth Avenue. It does not name a station or give a walking time, and neither will we. Look at a current transit map for the stop that suits your starting point.
Museum Mile: what else is within reach
Fifth Avenue from 82nd to 110th Street is called Museum Mile, and the Guggenheim sits at 88th. Distances below are our own estimates, counted in blocks along the avenue between cross streets. They are not figures from any museum, and we have not converted them to minutes.
| Museum | Location | Distance from the Guggenheim |
|---|---|---|
| Neue Galerie | 86th Street | about 2 blocks |
| Cooper Hewitt | 91st Street | about 3 blocks |
| The Jewish Museum | 92nd Street | about 4 blocks |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art | 82nd Street (1000 Fifth Avenue) | about 6 blocks |
| Museum of the City of New York | 103rd Street | about 15 blocks |
| El Museo del Barrio | 104th to 105th Street | about 16 to 17 blocks |
| The Frick Collection | 1 East 70th Street | about 18 blocks |
Pairing the Guggenheim with its next-door neighbors is easy. Pairing it with the Metropolitan Museum in a single day is possible, though the Met is a day in itself. Wikipedia says the Museum Mile Festival is traditionally held on the second Tuesday of June; confirm the date before you plan around it.
Do city passes cover the Guggenheim?
Sometimes, and never automatically. The museum says it accepts several passes and asks you to show yours to visitor experience staff on arrival. The table sets out what we could confirm. We could not tell which versions of some passes contain the museum, so those cells say so.
| Pass | Price | How the Guggenheim fits |
|---|---|---|
| CityPASS | $149 adults; $129 ages 6 to 17 | One of the options for five attractions of your choice; valid 9 days from first use; the Guggenheim entry includes the digital guide and an architecture tour Monday to Saturday, according to CityPASS |
| Go City Explorer Pass | Not checked | The museum says it accepts it; the pass works on 2 to 10 choices over 60 days |
| New York Pass | Not checked | The museum says it accepts it; we could not confirm which versions contain it |
| Attraction Pass | From $69, per the museum | The museum says it accepts it |
The arithmetic is simple. CityPASS costs $149 for five attractions, so about $29.80 each if you use all five, against $30 for an adult Guggenheim ticket on its own. It pays off only if you would genuinely visit the other four. The museum also gives CityPASS holders 10% off at Café Rebay.
What the 17 tours here really sell
This is the part most booking pages blur. Of the 17 listings in our catalog, two include admission to the museum: a Tiqets entry ticket at €26.81, which is the $30 adult price converted by the provider, and a walking tour at €90.90 with three reviews on 3 November 2026. Fourteen do not include it. The seventeenth carries an admission flag in the provider's data that we do not believe, since it is a pedicab.
The pedicab rides in Central Park (five listings) are the clearest example. The museum is a passing sight at best, and a title with the word "official" in it does not mean the museum has anything to do with it. Add coach tours, a lunch bus, private movie-location tours and a €977.65 private limousine and you get a catalog that mostly sells New York, with the Guggenheim as a stop on the way.
Across all 17 the median price is about €72, the reviews add up to 2,060 and the weighted rating is 4.72. Two listings carry most of those reviews: the entry ticket with 989 and a Central Park pedicab tour with 606, together 77%.
| Type | Listings | From | Includes entry? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry ticket | 1 | €26.81 | Yes |
| Walking tour with entry | 1 | €90.90 | Yes |
| Central Park pedicab | 5 | €45.45 to €59.09 | No |
| Bus, coach and flexible city sightseeing | 5 | €43.63 to €118.17 | No |
| Private movie-location and limousine tours | 2 | €354.52 to €977.65 | No |
| Museum Mile and Upper East Side walks | 2 | €89.99 to €113.63 | No |
| Self-guided phone tour | 1 | Low price, not quoted here | No |
If entry is what you want, buy the ticket, or use the pay-what-you-wish slot, and add a tour for the neighborhood on a different day. A walk along Museum Mile with a guide is a fair use of €90 to €113; it is not a way into the building.
Tours and tickets for the Guggenheim in New York
The ticket and the tours around it. Check each listing for what is included.
Electric Pedicab NYC Tour With Flexible Stops, Times Square to Fifth Avenue
The driver is the guide and the route is open: riders add or skip stops between Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building.
Guided Pedicab Tour of Celebrity Homes and Film Locations Around Central Park
Guides point out who lived where around the park, from the Dakota to the Essex House, and which scenes were shot at the Boathouse, Bow Bridge and the Plaza.
Private Central Park Pedicab Tour With Walking Stops, 1 to 3 Hours
A private pedicab ride through Central Park with 5-minute walking stops at Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Fountain and Bow Bridge, in 1, 2 or 3 hour versions.
Self-Guided New York City Tour via App: Central Park to Brooklyn Bridge
An app supplies navigation and audio for this self-paced New York route, and the tour can be downloaded to work offline. Stops include Central Park and DUMBO.
Spanish-Language New York Contrasts Tour: Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn
Spanish-guided 8:00 AM departure from Midtown to the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, with Yankee Stadium, street murals and Williamsburg. Ends near Ground Zero.
Upper East Side Architecture Walking Tour of Gilded Age Mansions and the Guggenheim
Gilded Age town houses and Wright's Guggenheim on a two-hour architecture walk from the Frick Collection, with a guide and individual headsets for each guest.
Ratings collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
The best time to go
The galleries are indoors, so weather matters less here than elsewhere in the city. The grid below is our reading of climate normals, and the footnote says what we could not find: no monthly visitor figures, so we cannot tell you which month is busiest.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue, open to the public since 21 October 1959.
1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128
Questions about visiting the Guggenheim in New York
How much is a ticket to the Guggenheim in New York?
$30 for adults and $19 for students and visitors over 65 with ID, as listed by the museum on 3 November 2026. Children under 12 and members enter free. Prices change, so confirm before you go.
When is pay what you wish?
Tuesday and Sunday, 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. The suggested contribution is $10 and the minimum $1. Booking ahead is strongly recommended. On 28 and 30 December the slot moves to 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
What are the opening hours?
Daily 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on regular days, with the shop open until 6 p.m. Short days and closures are in the table above: 10 November, 26 November and 25 December are closed.
How long should I plan for?
The museum says there is no time limit. We found no official recommendation for how long a visit takes, so we will not name a number.
Can I bring a backpack?
No. Backpacks have to be left at the free coat check, and items larger than 22 by 14 by 9 inches are not allowed inside.
Can I photograph the art?
Flash is not allowed and neither are tripods or poles. Check the posted rules for any gallery that restricts photography.
Is the Guggenheim covered by CityPASS?
It is one of the attractions you can choose on CityPASS, not an automatic stop. The museum also says it accepts Go City, New York Pass and Attraction Pass.
Is this the museum's website?
No. We are independent, not affiliated with the museum or the foundation, and tickets and tours bought through our listings are sold by the providers.
Who built the spiral, and why did it take 16 years?
The foundation, Hilla Rebay's first museum and the slow commission of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Data verified on . Hours, prices, closures, exhibitions and rules from the museum's visit and discount pages, CityPASS and Wikipedia where named, on 3 November 2026. Tour data from the providers' listings that day. Editorial Policy