Save with the Cheap Museum Pass Berlin on Sightseeing Tickets

Published on

by Henk Bekker

in Berlin, Germany, N24

Use the €32 Berlin Museum Pass for free admission tickets to over 30 museums, galleries, and exhibitions.

The Berlin Museum Pass is a fantastic savings deal giving access to over 30 exhibitions and galleries for three days for only €32.

Berlin Neues Museum Tickets

Culture and art lovers visiting Berlin may save big with the cheap Museum Pass Berlin. This savings pass gives free admission to over 30 of Berlin’s top museums, galleries, and exhibitions on three consecutive days for only €32. Almost all of Berlin’s top museums, including the Pergamon and all Museum Island permanent exhibitions, are included in this savings ticket, but free time-slot reservations may be required at some top museums.

Save with the Museum Pass Berlin

Museum Pass Berlin 3 Day Tciekt

Berlin has a variety of travel cards and savings passes that make sightseeing and transportation for tourists cheaper but none save more on visits to museums, galleries, and exhibitions than the Museum Pass Berlin.

The Museum Pass Berlin gives admission to over 30 of Berlin’s museums and galleries on three consecutive days for €32. A reduced-price version is also available at €16 mostly for pupils, students, and the unemployed (suitable identification required) but note that under 18s enter many museums for free anyway.

The Berlin Museum Pass can be fantastic value for money and often pays for itself after four museum visits. The more expensive museums in Berlin charge around €12-€14 (Pergamon DasPanorama, Neues Museum, Neue Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof), or €24 for a Museum Island day ticket, but even two visits per day to smaller museums should save the bearer of the Museum Pass handsomely.

GetYourGuide

Buying and Saving with the Berlin Museum Pass

The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin was inspired by Greek temples

The Museum Pass Berlin is available from the ticket windows of most museums where the card is valid, from many hotels, and from the Visit Berlin tourist information offices.

Time-slot reservations are currently rarely required for museums in Berlin but it is a good idea to book a time slot if possible, especially over weekends and holiday periods. Time-slot reservations may usually be made online for free at any museum website — it is often even possible before buying a ticket or pass.

Although the Museum Pass Berlin is often advertised as “no queues at the museum”, it is NOT a real skip-the-line ticket. At some museums, it is still necessary to pick up a free ticket at the ticket desk. However, if the ticket queues are long, check directly at the entrance. All the Berlin State Museums now accept the pass at the entrance door without needing a museum-specific ticket, except at major exhibitions when a time-slot reservation is additionally required. (Add €6 to book an essential timeslot to see the Caspar Friedrich David exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie from April to August 2024.)

For some large museums, including the Alte Nationalgalerie, Pergamonmuseum (closed until 2027), Neues Museum, and Neue Nationalgalrie, it is possible to skip the line by making free online timeslot reservations – see Tickets for the Berlin State Museums for details. (No matter how the ticket was bought, make free reservations for museums where possible.)

Tips on Saving with the Museum Pass Berlin

Berlin German Museum of Technology

The Museum Pass Berlin is a great choice when going to several museums, especially if only interested in a smaller part of a museum or even popping in just to see a single item or artwork. Many of Berlin’s larger museums such as the Deutsches Technikmuseum, Neues Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Pergamon, and German History Museum have more to see than anybody could manage in a single day.

Children under 18 have free admission to most (but not all) of Berlin’s museums.

The pass is valid for three calendar days, not 72 hours, so start using it early on the first morning. (The over-ambitious may time the last visit to a museum that is open at night.)

The pass is not transferable – names and the date of first use must be entered on the card in ink.

Exploding postal coach

Most museums are closed one day per week but enough museums are open even on Mondays (e.g. in the Humboldt Forum) to fill a busy day of sightseeing. (Many top museums are also closed on Tuesdays from mid-April 2024.)

Museums are usually open on holidays but are very likely to be closed on December 24 and 31.

Normally, the Museum Pass Berlin gives admission to the complete museum but occasionally there may be an additional charge for special temporary exhibitions, and very rarely that surcharge may be compulsory even if interested only in seeing the permanent collection.

A few museums are free for a few hours per week, e.g. Cinematic on Thursday evenings and Communication on Tuesday evenings. Many museums are open for free on the first Sunday of the month (and mostly require online reservations).

Many sights in Berlin are free and thus best seen on day four or five: e.g. Museum in the Kulturbrauerei, Tränenpalast, Berlin Wall Memorial in Bernauer Straße, and Topography of Terror documentation centers. Admission to the Reichstag is free but advance reservations are essential, or book a tour.

Top Museums are Covered

The Museum Pass Berlin is currently valid at:

Jan Steen Children
Napoleons Hat in the German History Museum

Most of Berlin’s top museums, including all the national state museums, are covered by the Museum Pass Berlin but many of the new, high-tech experience museums that popped up in especially the Berlin-Mitte area of Berlin in recent years are not included.

The fun-to-visit DDR Museum is not covered, nor is the somewhat pricy, but long opening hours and interesting, Wall Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie.

GetYourGuide

Save with a Berlin Welcome Card

Another savings pass aimed at visitors to Berlin is the Berlin Welcome Card. This savings pass is predominantly a transportation travel card but also gives savings on some sights. The Berlin Welcome Card Museumsinsel includes admission to all the SMB museums on Museums Island while the pricier Berlin Welcome Card All-Inclusive covers many museums and further Berlin sights.

For active museum visits, a Museum Pass Berlin may be worth buying in addition to the Welcome travel card to get free entry rather than just small discounts, although the Museum Pass plus a standard transportation day or week tickets are good combinations too.

More on the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin):

Note new opening times for many Berlin museums from mid-April 2024. Timeslot reservations are essential only for the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition (until 4 August 2024) but sensible (and sometimes needed in busy periods!) for the Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Neues Museum, and Pergamon – Das Panorama. (The Pergamon Museum itself is closed until 2027!). Timeslots are released only a few weeks in advance. Online tickets are available from GetYourGuide, which seems to have timeslots available when SMB has already sold out. Many passes and multi-museum tickets are again sold (Kulturforum / Museums Island). Individual museum ticket prices range from €8 to €14 (€20 for special exhibitions). Online tickets are skip-the-line — go directly to the gallery entrance to scan the code but pick up free audioguides first.

For more general information on the Berlin State Museums:

News & Temporary Exhibitions:

More Museum Reviews and Museum-Specific Information:

Previous Temporary Exhibitions:

Henk Bekker in armor

About the author:

Henk Bekker

Henk Bekker is a freelance travel writer with over 20 years of experience writing online. He is particularly interested in history, art, and culture. He has lived most of his adult life in Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark. In addition to European-Traveler.com, he also owns a travel website on the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland and maintains statistical websites on car sales and classic car auction prices. Henk holds an MBA from Edinburgh Business School and an MSc in Development Finance from the University of London.