Paris Sightseeing Passes - An Overview

Paris Museum Pass, Paris Visite, Paris Combopass, Paris Pass ...

Paris Museum Pass

The various passes made available broadly fall into two camps. Those that are put together by commercial organisations bundling well known sights with public transport and/or hop on, hop off sightseeing buses and those sponsored by city museums and public transport companies.

Paris Visite Pass

The Paris Visite Pass is primarily a public transport pass that also provides discounts on some well known popular sightseeing attractions. The pass provides unlimited travel on the Paris Metro, bus and RER suburban railway system.


The Paris Visite Pass is marketed very strongly to visitors both by the authorities and the commercial travel sector.

Little publicity is given to the alternatives that local Parisians use which in our view offer much better value for money.

Judge for yourselves at the foot of this page with all the Paris transport passes available are laid out for you with prices.

Paris Museum Pass

Nearly all worthwhile museums and art galleries in Paris are covered by the Paris Museum Pass. The pass comes in 2,4 and 6 day options.

If visiting museums and art galleries is a main reason to visit Paris then do check out getting one. As well as saving money, you can skip the ticket queues of the main venues and for vast places like The Louvre you can come back and take in the exhibits in bite size chunks.


The Paris Museum Pass is widely available in Paris, including visitor centres at the airports and the venues themselves.

You can purchase the Paris Museum Pass on-line and have it delivered to your home or hotel for a fee. As far as we can see, most web sites charge significantly more for this service than going through the official Paris Museum Pass web site (below).

Paris Museum Pass - Official Web Site

Paris ComboPass®

The Paris ComboPass® puts together a public transport pass with the Paris Museum Pass covered above.

Unlike the Paris Pass (below), its big rival it has a modular structure so you add on components for things like Disneyland, Versailles and hop on, hop off sightseeing buses if you want them.

Paris Pass

The Paris Pass is the most comprehensive and expensive option, combining a public transport pass, hop on, hop off bus, museum pass and other attractions.

The big danger with Paris Pass is that you end up paying for components that you don't use. The hop on, hop off bus used is the cheaper more limited tour with just one core route.

Just do the sums yourself for the bits you want to use and see if the Paris Pass provides a saving.


Paris Public Transport Prices & Passes

Single Tickets

The RATP run the Metro, RER and buses within Paris and a single ticket can be used on any of the three modes for a single journey.

Single tickets can be purchased from , metro/RER stations, some bus terminals, and registered retailers, usually tobacconists and bookshops, displaying the RATP sign.

You can also buy from the same sources a booklet of ten, called a carnet (kar-nay), offering good savings.


Day Tickets - Carte Mobilis

A single calendar day card provides unlimited rides on the transport system of the Ile-de-France region: Metro, RER (express regional trains), bus, tramway, funiculaire de Montmartre, Montmartrobus, Noctambus (night bus) within a given fare zone.

Most visitors will only need zones 1&2, broadly coinciding with the extent of the Metro system. If in doubt about zone coverage the zones are marked on the RER map (above).


Carte Mobilis Prices July 2011 - June 2012 in Euro
Fare Zone Price Fare Zone Price
Zone 1 - 2 6.30 Zone 1 - 4 10.40
Zone 1 - 3 8.40 Zone 1 - 5 14.00
Available at all metro, bus and RER stations.
Mobilis is valid for one day during the hours of 5:30 a.m until 1:00 the next day and until 2:30 on Fridays, Saturdays and eve of public holidays and until 5:30 on the Noctilien.

Youth Weekend Ticket (Under 26, Saturdays & Sundays Only) - Ticket Jeunes Weekend

A day ticket restricted to use on Saturdays, Sundays and national holiday days.

The ticket is available to all under 26. Be ready to be able to prove your age both at times of purchase and by inspection teams that frequent the transport network.


Ticket Jeunes Weekend Prices July 2011 - June 2012 in Euro
Fare Zone Price Fare Zone Price
Zone 1 - 3 3.50 Zone 1 - 5 7.00
Available at all metro, bus and RER stations.
Note this ticket is for one day, not a weekend.
Valid for one day, from 5:30 to 2:30 the next day (until 5:30 on Noctilien)

Paris Visite Card

This is the ticket heavily promoted to tourists and visitors.

The pass doesn't really stand up to financial scrutiny too well though its hard to compare like with like as the Visite Card as well as being a travel pass also provides discounts to tourist attractions.

Lots of people like the convenience of buying them before they travel from an agent. Though convenient, the markup against the price bought in Paris can be eye popping so do look around.


Its worth checking out whether the premium paid for the 'special offers' is worthwhile to you. Don't expect free tickets for the Eiffel Tower or The Louvre, most are discounts on department stores and second tier attractions many people would not consider visiting without the discount.


Paris Visite Card Prices From November 2010 in Euro - purchased in Paris
Fare Zone 1 Day
Children* / Adults		 2 Day
Children* / Adults		 3 Days
Children* / Adults		 5 Days
Children* / Adults
1 - 3 4.65 / 9.30 7.60 / 15.20 10.35 / 20.70 14.95 / 29.90
1 - 5 9.80 / 19.60 14.95 / 29.90 20.95 / 41.90 25.60 / 51.20
* children between 4 and 12 years old.
Hours of validity of each day from 5:30 a.m to 5:30 the next morning

Weekly / Monthly Tickets - Navigo Decouverte Pass

This is an electronic smart card similar to schemes introduced recently worldwide into mass transit systems. The smart card stores electronically the fare product you choose. Its reusable so if you return to Paris you can load up fares onto the same card. The first time you buy, you have to pay a €5 deposit for the card itself and then you buy a week or months worth of transportation that is loaded onto the card.

Most visitors will go for the weekly fare. Key point about this product is that the week runs Monday to Sunday. If you purchase a weekly ticket on a Friday it runs out on Sunday, not the Friday after.

You also need to bring along a passport sized portrait photo, the size of 25 x 30mm (0.98" x 1.18"). There are plenty of photo machines in the stations that produce such a photo if you need it.

A convenient place to purchase these cards for many visitors is the RER train ticket offices at Charles De Gaulle Airport or the major train stations in Paris like Gare Du Nord.


Navigo Decouverte Pass July 2011 - June 2012 in Euro
Fare Zone Week Month Fare Zone Week Month
Zone 1 - 2 18.85 62.00 Zone 1 - 4 29.80 99.10
Zone 1 - 3 24.50 80.30 Zone 1 - 5 33.40 109.90
Weekly tickets available from the Friday preceding the Monday starting the week of validity until Thursday of the week included in the 7 days of validity