Forbidden City Tickets: CNY 60, Passport Booking, Closed Mon

The Forbidden City is not a place you can walk up to and buy a ticket. The museum's official English page says it sells no tickets on the day of the visit, and the Chinese booking site says tickets go on sale 7 days before the visit at 20:00 and that every visitor books under their real name. It is closed on Mondays except on national holidays. The fee is CNY 60 from 1 April to 31 October and CNY 40 from 1 November to 31 March. This page summarises what we verified on the museum's own sites on 17 October 2026, flags where figures conflict, and explains the agent-ticket warning.

For entry rules, payments and train booking across China, see the China hub. The city overview and airport transfers are in the Beijing travel guide, and the area comparison is in where to stay in Beijing.

Prices and hours, checked 17 October 2026

The booking site (read on 16 October) says student tickets (for students aged over 18 with a qualification no higher than a bachelor's degree) cost CNY 20 all year, and that visitors aged 60 and over pay half price on showing their ID card. The exemption for under-18s is worded in the official text as applying to Chinese citizens (including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and foreign permanent residents). We did not find a statement that a foreign tourist under 18 enters free, or that the senior discount works with a foreign passport. If you might qualify for a discount, ask the museum before you pay. The English page gives the ticketing email [email protected] and the information line (8610) 400-950-1925.

The English page says the museum limits visitors to 40,000 a day and recommends both individual visitors and tour groups to book online in advance. Foreign visitors must give passport numbers when booking.

The whole complex covers about 720,000 square metres, 961 metres north to south and 753 metres east to west, according to the English page. You enter through the Meridian Gate (the south gate) and may leave by the Gate of Divine Prowess (north) or the Eastern Prosperity Gate (east). The route runs one way, south to north.

How to book

The steps below summarise the individual-visitor section on the museum's booking site, which we opened on 17 October 2026.

1. Book through the official channel. The site names it as the "故宫博物院" (Palace Museum) mini-program, and the booking page shows a QR code. We did not test the booking flow ourselves, and we do not know whether a visitor without a Chinese phone number can complete it, so check that before you rely on it.
2. Tickets go on sale 7 days before the visit at 20:00 and are valid only for that day.
3. Visitors without a mainland ID must use one of the documents the site lists, which include a passport. One document books one ticket per visit day.
4. A purchased ticket cannot be changed to another ticket type, date or visitor.
5. Each day is split into morning and afternoon sessions. If you book the morning, you must pass ticket check by 12:00; for the afternoon, the earliest check is 11:00.
6. At the gate, carry the original passport you booked with. The site says facial recognition is used to speed up checking and that facial data are not stored.
7. The Wuying Hall ceramics gallery and some special exhibitions need a separate reservation.

For refunds, an unused ticket can be refunded before 24:00 on the day before the visit. After that, including on the visit day, it counts as a no-show. The site says three no-shows in a set period block new bookings for 60 days, and refunds return to the original account within 5 working days.

We found a small inconsistency on the same site. The individual-booking notice says three no-shows in 180 days, while the ticket-policy section says "half a year (6 consecutive months)". Treat the rule as: do not repeatedly fail to show up.

Tickets from agents and third parties

The museum's booking page says it has not authorised any organisation or individual to act as an agent for the main ticket, the Gallery of Clocks and Treasure Gallery tickets, or exhibition bookings, and tells visitors to use the official channel to avoid losses. For that reason this page has no buttons for buying a Forbidden City ticket from another site. Guided and private tours that include entry are a separate service, booked by the operator through its own group account. Check the operator's terms before paying.

Booking Tian'anmen Square as well

Visit Beijing's October 2024 article says that people who have booked the Forbidden City can enter Tian'anmen Square that day using the booking record, in the morning, afternoon or for the flag-lowering, without a separate square reservation. The square's own requirement, announced in October 2026, is to reserve 1 to 7 days ahead and to choose the flag-raising slot if you want to watch the ceremony. The Palace Museum site says the walk from the Tian'anmen gate tower to the Meridian Gate runs one way from south to north, and if you book both the square and the palace, plan the times so that they run on from one another.

Latest closure notices on the booking site

The booking site displayed these notices when we opened it on 17 October 2026. They can change, so check before you go.

• 27 August 2026: Yanxi Palace temporarily closed.
• 8 August 2026: the woodblock printing gallery temporarily closed.
• 31 July 2026: notice about construction work at the Taihe Gate.

We did not check whether these are still in force on the date you travel.

A suggested way to plan the day

This section is our advice, not official information. The museum's English page offers two-hour, half-day and one-day routes. We have not walked them ourselves.

• Book the morning session if you want to move slowly: you need to pass the ticket check by 12:00 and the palace is very large.
• The English page says Jingshan Park (Prospect Hill) is immediately north of the palace, so leaving by the Gate of Divine Prowess puts you next to it. We did not check the park's hours or fee.
• Do not book the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen and the Great Wall on the same day unless you have checked the travel times yourself.

Getting there

The English page says the palace is in the centre of the city, approached from the south through the Tian'anmen gate, with Wangfujing to the east and Zhongnanhai to the west. Visit Beijing's square notice says to get off the subway at Tian'anmen East or West station on Line 1 and walk on. We did not check the exits against an official subway map. Wikivoyage warns that the ticket machines at Tian'anmen East accept only Chinese ID or a permanent-resident card, so passport holders buy at the service window.

Frequently asked questions

How this page compares

We read China Highlights' and Travel China Guide's Beijing pages as English benchmarks. Both are good introductions, but neither gave us the full chain of booking rules we verified here: no same-day sales, the 20:00 release 7 days ahead, passport booking, one ticket per document per day, the Monday closure, the cancellation rule, and the museum's warning about third-party sellers. One Thai guide we read said the palace is open every day, which conflicts with the official site. This page adds the official figures and tells you where they conflict or where we could not test something.

Links on this page and our earnings

This page has no ticket or tour buttons because the museum says it has not authorised third-party sellers. We earn nothing from this page.

Prices, schedules and entry rules change. Figures here are approximate as of 2026; always confirm on the official or operator page before you book. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.