Guggenheim Museum Tickets: Prices, Hours and Free Entry Times

The table lists every Guggenheim ticket price on the museum's own admission page, from the $30 adult ticket to the pay-what-you-wish window. The last column says who needs ID and what each discount requires at the door.

Free and Discounted Entry

Several programs get you in at no cost. Each one asks for a card or ID at the Admissions desk.

• CUNY students, faculty and staff of Brooklyn College, College of Staten Island, Hunter, Lehman and Queens College get two free tickets.
• SNAP/EBT cardholders get up to four free tickets with ID.
• A Culture Pass reservation gives up to two free tickets on the date printed on it.
• Cool Culture families get four free passes.
• AAM, ICOM and Museums Council of New York City cardholders get two free admissions.
• Staff and volunteers of other museums enter free with one guest.
• Saturday on the House opens the museum free all day on one Saturday a month when it is scheduled. Dates go out on the museum's email list.

The Changeover Discount

Between the close of one exhibition and the opening of the next, the museum sells a Reduced Price / Limited Access ticket. Keep it: its cost can be applied toward a full-price ticket once the new show opens, if you present it at the admissions desk. It suits a visitor who wants the building now and plans to come back for the next exhibition.

The Guggenheim is open every day from 10:30 am to 5:30 pm, and the last tickets are issued about 15 minutes before closing. The table puts the museum, café and store hours side by side with the pay-what-you-wish window.

When the Ramp Is Quietest

Every visitor goes through a weapons screening at the door, so the first minutes after 10:30 am can bring a short queue. Arriving 20 to 30 minutes after opening on a weekday usually means a calmer ramp. The pay-what-you-wish window is the busiest stretch of the week, and in the days between Christmas and New Year the museum runs longer hours with a later pay-what-you-wish slot.

One-off early closes are posted on the museum's Plan Your Visit page.

A Guggenheim ticket covers the permanent collection and every special exhibition on view, with no time limit until closing. These extras come with it at no charge:

• "Curious about the Building?", a 30-minute talk on Wright's architecture on the rotunda floor, Monday to Saturday.
• The Digital Guide in the Bloomberg Connects app, with audio on the exhibitions and the building and content in German, Spanish, French, Italian and Mandarin. Bring headphones.
• Free coat check on the ground floor, which is where backpacks and long umbrellas go.
• Free Wi-Fi on the Guggenheim Guest network and benches on every level.
• Single-stall restrooms on each rotunda level, with baby changing on levels 1 and 7.

City Passes That Cover the Guggenheim

The New York CityPASS, the New York Pass, the New York Explorer Pass and the New York Attraction Pass are all accepted at the door. CityPASS holders can reserve a visit date online with their barcode for quicker entry, or simply show the pass at the Admissions desk. Whether a pass beats a $30 single ticket depends on how many other sights you add: New York city passes compared works that out.

Buying at the Door vs Online

Walk-in tickets are sold at the Admissions desk, so you can turn up without one. An advance ticket such as the Guggenheim Museum Ticket gets you through faster once you clear security, and it fixes your time slot on busy weekends.

There is one standard ticket here, priced at $30, and it covers a timed entry into the permanent collection and whatever special exhibition is filling the ramp that season. The museum's own Digital Guide is free in the Bloomberg Connects app, and a 30-minute talk on the building runs on the rotunda floor Monday to Saturday at no extra cost. The building itself is a big part of what you are paying for: take the elevator to the top floor and walk down the ramp rather than climbing it, which is how Wright designed the sequence to work.

This suits a visitor who wants a focused, self-paced hour and a half rather than a full afternoon of galleries. It is not a large museum by New York standards, and someone expecting Met-sized scope will be surprised by how quickly the spiral empties out. Families with young kids do fine here too, since the ramp is stroller-friendly and there is no maze of side rooms to lose track of anyone in.

What it does not cover is a way around the security screening every visitor passes at the door, so there can be a short wait at opening even with a timed ticket. If the price is the issue, Tuesdays and Sundays from 4 to 5:30 pm are pay-what-you-wish with a $1 minimum, but those 90 minutes are the busiest of the week and need a reservation. For planning a fuller day on Museum Mile, the guide to museums in New York shows which stops pair well with a Guggenheim morning.

The building is the first exhibit. Wright's ramp spirals up six stories around an open rotunda, so from the ground floor you can look up and see nearly every gallery level at once, and from the top the oculus skylight pulls in natural light that shifts through the day. Most visitors ride the elevator to the top and walk the ramp downward, which keeps the descent gentle and lets the art unfold in the sequence Wright intended.

The Thannhauser Collection anchors the permanent holdings, with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from Cezanne, Degas and Manet, and the museum's Kandinsky collection is among the deepest anywhere, tracing his shift from landscape into abstraction. Picasso and Chagall appear in rotation along the ramp, alongside whatever temporary exhibition is filling the tower galleries that season.

Two works anchor most visits. Kandinsky's Composition 8 (1923), a pulsing field of circles and lines, is the best-known painting in the collection, and Picasso's Blue Period Woman Ironing (1904) hangs with the Thannhauser Collection. The building is listed too: since 2019 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage inscription The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, one of eight Wright buildings in it.

Not suitable for

• Visitors expecting a museum on the scale of the Met
• Anyone in a rush who wants to see everything in under an hour
• Families relying on a toddler backpack carrier, which is not allowed (strollers are fine)

What to bring

• A printed or mobile timed-entry ticket
• Headphones for the free Digital Guide
• Comfortable shoes for the ramp's gentle but long incline
• A student, senior or program ID if a discount applies

Not allowed

• Bags larger than 22 x 14 x 9 inches, which cannot be checked either
• Tripods, camera extension poles and flash photography
• Outside food and drink, apart from a personal water bottle
• Pens, paints and easels (pencils and sketchbooks are fine)

A few habits make the difference between a rushed lap and an actual look at the art.

• Ride the elevator up first and walk down. It is easier on the legs and matches Wright's intended flow
• Arrive 20 to 30 minutes after opening on a weekday, once the first screening queue has cleared
• On a budget, reserve the Tuesday or Sunday 4 to 5:30 pm pay-what-you-wish slot online the same day
• Café Rebay looks over Central Park and closes at 4 pm, earlier than the galleries
• Check which special exhibition is up before you go, since it fills most of the ramp
• Pair the visit with the Met a few blocks south for a full Museum Mile morning