The Berlin Museum Pass is a fantastic savings deal giving access to over 30 exhibitions for three days for only €29.
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 €29. Almost all of Berlin’s top museums, including the Pergamon and all Museum Island permanent exhibitions, are included in this savings ticket.
Save with the Museum Pass Berlin
Berlin has a variety of travel cards and savings passes that make sightseeing and transportation for tourist 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 €29. A reduced price version is also available at €14.50 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 (German Spy Museum, Pergamon, Hamburger Bahnhof), or €18 for a Museum Island day ticket, but even two visit per day to smaller museums should save the bearer of the Museum Pass handsomely.
The more expensive Berlin Welcome Card All Inclusive also includes many museums and further top sights in Berlin and is a good value option especially on first visits.
Buying and Saving with the Berlin Museum Pass
The Museum Pass Berlin is available from the ticket windows of most museums where the card is valid, from many hotels, from the Visit Berlin tourist information offices and online from for example GetYourGuide. Note that online purchases still needs to exchange a paper print out of the voucher for the actual card – usually at one of the Visit Berlin offices. Showing the voucher code on a phone is usually not sufficient.
Although the Museum Pass Berlin is often advertised as “no queues at the museum”, it is NOT a real skip-the-line ticket. At many 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 – most of the Berlin State Museums now accept the pass at the entrance door without needing a museum specific ticket.
Similarly, for the Pergamon and Neues Museum it is only 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 the free reservation for these two museums.)
Tips on Saving with the Museum Pass Berlin
The Museum Pass Berlin is 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, 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 date of first use must be entered on the card in ink.
Most museums are closed one day per week but enough museums are open even on Mondays to fill a busy day of sightseeing.
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 a few hours per week, e.g. Cinematic on Thursday evenings and Communication on Tuesday evenings.
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.
Museums Covered by the Museum Pass Berlin
The Museum Pass Berlin is currently valid at:
- Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery)
- Altes Museum (Old Museum)
- Anne Frank Zentrum
- Bauhaus-Archive / Museum of Design
- Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité (Medical History Museum)
- Berlinische Galerie
- Bode-Museum
- Bröhan-Museum
- Brücke-Museum
- Deutsches Historisches Museum (German Historical Museum)
- Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen
- German Spy Museum
- Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin with Science Center Spectrum (Museum of Technology)
- Ephraim-Palais
- Gemäldegalerie (Old Master Paintings)
- Georg Kolbe Museum
- Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum of Contemporary Art
- Jüdisches Museum Berlin (Jewish Museum Berlin)
- Knoblauchhaus
- Kunstbibliothek (Art library)
- Kunstgewerbemuseum Kulturforum (Museum of Decorative Arts)
- Kunstgewerbemuseum Schloss Köpenick (Museum of Decorative Arts)
- Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings)
- Märkisches Museum (local history)
- Museum Berggruen
- Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Museum of European Cultures)
- Museum für Fotografie
- Museum für Kommunikation (Museum for Communication)
- Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History)
- Musikinstrumenten-Museum
- Neues Museum (New Museum)
- Nikolaikirche
- Pergamon Museum
- The Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection
Most of Berlin’s top museums, including all the national state museum, 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. Some of these are covered by the more expensive Berlin Welcome Card All Inclusive that is especially good value when seeing more pricey attractions.
Another savings pass aimed at visitors to Berlin is the Berlin Welcome Card. This savings pass, different from the similarly named Berlin Welcome Card All Inclusive, is predominantly a transportation travel card but also give savings on some 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.