Prague Castle Tickets and the Main Circuit
450 CZK for the Main circuit and 300 for the exhibitions, valid two days with one entry per building. 20 listings here, 22,904 reviews, a median of 40 EUR.
Start with the correction, because most of the internet has not made it. There is no Circuit A and no Circuit B at Prague Castle. The official price list, in English, sells a Main circuit at 450 CZK and a Permanent exhibitions ticket at 300, plus two single tickets at 200 CZK each. The lettered circuits are still quoted by resellers, by travel blogs and by more than one page we have had to correct ourselves. Anybody offering you Circuit A today is working from a page that stopped being true. The second correction costs less and saves more: the castle grounds are free. You pay to go inside buildings, not to walk into the complex.
What you are buying is stranger than a museum ticket and simpler than it looks. The ticket has no time slot on it at all, which is unusual for a monument this size. It is valid for two days rather than one. And each building inside it can be entered only once, so two days buys a carnet with one stub per building rather than an unlimited pass. None of it is refundable. Read together, those four rules mean the decision is not when to go but which of the two composite tickets you want, and whether you are also paying 200 CZK to climb the cathedral tower, which the Main circuit does not include even though the cathedral itself does.
On this site the castle carries 20 listings and 22,904 reviews, which is 98 per cent of everything the Czech Republic has here. They run from 18 to 180 EUR with a median of 40 and a first quartile of 27, and they are mostly guides rather than entries: four finish within two hours, one is a plain admission ticket, and the rest are walking routes around a district you could have entered for nothing.
What comes next is the ticket, the hours, the one number the castle does not publish and somebody else does, and what the 20 listings on this site are actually selling when the entrance behind them is free.
One warning before any of it. Every koruna figure here comes from a document the castle issued on 1 March 2024 and has never replaced. It is still the current price list, we reopened the PDF rather than copying somebody else's summary of it, and the issue date is printed beside the numbers so you can judge for yourself how old they are. If the window charges you something different, the window is right and the document has aged.
Eleven O'Clock for the Guard with Music, Afternoon for Kafka's House
Courtyards, gardens and exteriors only, no interiors: all four courtyards, the story of the Defenestration, and a red umbrella at Malostranská metro.
Founded About 920, Enlarged in 973: the Grounds, Not the Interiors
An afternoon walk through the courtyards and viewpoints, no tickets and no queues, entering by the side gate. The guide waits five minutes, no more.
Led by the Two Founders, with a Table Already Booked at St Martin
A welcome beer at the Strahov monastery brewery, a sit-down tasting of Czech food two thirds of the way, and their own guidebook to keep.
Mucha Made the Window, and the Pickup and Ticket Are in the Price
Three private afternoon hours with hotel pickup, tram and admission all included, entering by a quieter gate, with Mucha's window in St Vitus.
The Whole Three Hours Are in German, with a Seal of Prague Guide
Commentary in German throughout, three hours from Wenceslas Square to the Jewish Quarter, then a tram over the river up to the castle grounds.
Twelve People, Not Twenty-Five with Headsets, and No Stairs Down
Interior tickets included and twelve people at most: the Last Judgement mosaic, Nepomuk's silver tomb, the defenestration room and the Mihulka tower.
A Group of Ten at Most, and You Learn to Read the Astronomical Clock
Three hours downhill with ten people at most, following the coronation route backwards from the castle, and the tram spares you the climb up.
Twenty-Six Kings Crowned in St Vitus, and Daliborka Was the Dungeon
Three private hours with entry included, taking in the Daliborka prison tower, the Lobkowicz Palace and Rosenberg Palace as well as the usual four.
A Tram Up the Hill, and Golden Lane Is Optional in High Season
Three afternoon hours downhill: the tram up, inside St Vitus, the Old Royal Palace and St George's, then Kampa, the Lennon Wall and Charles Bridge.
Ninety Minutes Behind a Lantern, and the Narrator Is in Costume
Ninety minutes after dark from the Tycho Brahe and Kepler statue, past the largest Baroque palace in Prague and down through the New World.
The Gate to Hell in Front of the Foreign Ministry, After Dark
Three hours after dark: Rudolf II's alchemists, Tycho Brahe's house, the Strahov monks' holy beer, and the Golden Lane with nobody in it.
The Royal Garden Was a Vineyard Until 1534, and It Ends at Strahov
A route that leaves the castle: the Royal Garden and the Bull Staircase, then Loreta, the Czernin Palace and the Strahov viewpoint over the city.
It Starts in an Office on Maiselova Street, Not at a Monument
Three hours uphill from an office on Maiselova: the Astronomical Clock, the Old Town legends, Charles Bridge, and Hradčany from the castle.
One Hour Only, with Fast Track and Charles Bridge Along the Way
The shortest guided version at the largest castle complex in the world: one hour, fast-track entry, and Charles Bridge crossed on the way there.
Three Courtyards in Order, and a Pink Umbrella by Masaryk's Statue
A small group taken courtyard by courtyard, from Maria Theresa's second court to the Přemyslid tombs at St George's and the Golden Lane houses.
Two and a Half Hours for the Four Buildings, and No Cancellation
Long enough for all four: St Vitus, the Old Royal Palace, St George's and the Golden Lane. The ticket is final once bought, so fix the date first.
Meet at Charles IV's Statue, Under the Blue and White Umbrella
The largest castle complex in the world, walked in two and a half hours with admission included: St Vitus, Vladislav Hall, St George's, Golden Lane.
Skip the Line, and Check Which Rooms the Crown Jewels Have Closed
Two and a half to three hours with skip-the-line entry, and an honest note: the crown jewel exhibition closes the Old Royal Palace for parts of the autumn.
Summer Ends in the South Gardens, Winter at the Wenceslas Vineyards
Two hours from Malostranská by tram, with the noon guard change and a route that changes with the season: south gardens in summer, vineyards in winter.
A Map, a Briefing in English, and a Warning About September and October
A representative briefs you in English and hands you a map, then you go round alone. Some buildings close in September and October for the ceremonies.
Ratings collected by Viator, Tripadvisor, Tiqets and Civitatis
The tickets, as the price list has them
Four things are on sale and two of them are bundles. The Main circuit is the one nearly everybody wants: the Old Royal Palace, St George's Basilica, Golden Lane and St Vitus Cathedral. The Permanent exhibitions ticket is the other bundle and covers the four rooms most visitors have never heard of. Then two singles, both 200 CZK: the Picture Gallery on its own, and the cathedral tower with its view gallery.
Reduced means 6 to 16 year olds, full-time secondary and university students up to and including 26, and anyone aged 65 or over. The family rate covers one to five children under 16 with at most two adults, which at 950 CZK is cheaper than two adult Main circuits before you count a single child. And a primary school class of up to 30 pupils with two adults pays 150 CZK for the entire group, for the Main circuit and the exhibitions together.
| Main circuit | Permanent exhibitions | Picture Gallery alone | Cathedral tower | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | 450 CZK | 300 CZK | 200 CZK | 200 CZK |
| Reduced | 300 CZK | 200 CZK | 150 CZK | 150 CZK |
| Family | 950 CZK | 700 CZK | 500 CZK | 500 CZK |
| What it opens | Old Royal Palace (I), St George's Basilica (III), Golden Lane (V), St Vitus Cathedral (VIII) | The Story of Prague Castle (II), Castle Guard Exhibition (IV), Picture Gallery (VI), Rosenberg Palace (IX) | Picture Gallery (VI) | Tower of the Cathedral with the view gallery (X) |
| Validity | Two days, each building once | Two days, each building once | Two days, each building once | Two days, each building once |
| Refundable | No | No | No | No |
Two days, one entry per building, no refunds
Tickets are valid for two days. Each Castle building can be entered only once. Purchased tickets cannot be refunded.
Those three lines sit at the top of the price list, above every price on it, and together they describe a product that no other monument in this catalogue sells. Two days is generous. One entry per building is the catch, and it is the reason a plan built around going back for the cathedral in better light does not work. If you leave the Old Royal Palace to come back after lunch, you have used your Old Royal Palace.
The refund line is worth taking literally, because the same document gives the administration the right to close historic buildings or the whole castle area for operational or state-ceremonial reasons. There is no notice period attached to that right, and there is no refund attached to the closure. Prague Castle is a working seat of the presidency as well as a monument. A state occasion outranks your ticket, and the price list says so in advance.
One practical consequence for anybody buying a guided product. If your tour is cancelled you deal with the reseller, and 19 of the 20 listings on this site allow free cancellation. If the castle shuts a building on you, you deal with nobody. Those are different risks and only one of them is insured.
The part of it that has no ticket
The wall around the castle has four gates and they are open from 6:00 to 22:00 every day of the year. Passing them costs nothing. So the courtyards, the streets between the buildings, the changing of the guard and the whole ridge that makes the silhouette in this photograph are free, and a great many visitors spend an afternoon there without buying anything at all.
The gardens are free too, and seasonal: open from 10:00 in March through October, until 19:00 in spring and September, until 20:00 in July and August, and closed to the public from November to February. The one part of the free castle with a weather rule of its own is the Stag Moat, whose paths open and close according to frost, ice and snow.
Hours, and the last admission nobody official publishes
The buildings keep two timetables, split on 1 April and 1 November, and the complex around them keeps one all year. The single closing day is 24 December.
What no official document states is a last admission. It is not in the price list and it is not in the visitor regulations, both of which give closing times only. The ticketing microsite that currently outranks the castle for its own opening hours does publish one, in a column of its own: 16:40 against a 17:00 close, and 15:40 against 16:00 in winter. Twenty minutes. That figure is unsourced there as well, so treat it as the working assumption rather than as a rule, and arrive with the twenty minutes in hand. A visitor who reaches the ticket desk at 16:50 in July is relying on somebody's goodwill.
The same microsite runs 33 English pages about this one castle and ten tables of opening hours. What it does not carry anywhere is a price. The answer to its own question about ticket prices contains a placeholder that never renders into a figure, so the number exists only after a browser has run that site's scripts, and not at all for anyone reading the structured data. Every price here comes from a PDF that anybody can open, with the date it was issued printed on it.
| 1 April to 31 October | 1 November to 31 March | |
|---|---|---|
| Historic buildings | 9:00 to 17:00 | 9:00 to 16:00 |
| Last admission | 16:40, on the one site that states it | 15:40, same single source |
| The complex and its four gates | 6:00 to 22:00, free | 6:00 to 22:00, free |
| Gardens | 10:00 to 19:00, to 20:00 in July and August, to 17:00 in October | 10:00 to 17:00 in March, closed November to February |
| Closing days | None | 24 December |
There is no line to skip, and that is the honest version
Forty-two listings across this whole site declare skip-the-line access. None of the 20 here does, although one of them still says the words in its title. The reason is structural rather than an oversight: the price list has no timed entry, so there is no reserved lane in existence for anyone to sell. A seller who promises you one at Prague Castle is promising something the operator has not created.
What does queue is the security search at the gates. Everyone passes it, no ticket avoids it, bulky luggage is not admitted, and the police may require a search of anybody entering the complex, with refusal meaning no entry. Drones are out entirely: the castle and its surroundings are a no-fly zone.
There is one more oddity in the buying chain that is worth knowing before you compare prices. The castle has no online box office of its own. Its ticket page sells at the information centres inside the complex and, for anyone wanting to buy in advance, points at a third-party ticketing network. Of the monuments checked for this site it is the only one whose official online channel belongs to somebody else, which is worth holding in mind when a reseller describes itself as the official option.
How long it takes, according to people who went
The castle publishes no recommended visit length. We looked for one and there is not a figure on the operator's pages, which leaves the question to guesswork or to somebody's data. Ours says three hours. Nineteen of the 20 listings here declare a length, their median is 180 minutes, and they run from 60 minutes at the short end to 210 at the long one. Four finish within two hours. Nothing on this site claims more than three and a half.
If you would rather do it alone, the castle rents an audio guide at 350 CZK for three hours in eight languages, with a 500 CZK deposit per unit, which is more than a reduced adult ticket to the Main circuit. Its own guides cost 250 CZK per person per hour in six languages, so two people taking a castle guide for three hours pay 1,500 CZK before any admission. Set against that, a guided listing here at a median of 40 EUR is a different kind of product rather than a discount, and this catalogue prices in euros while the castle prices in korunas: we are not going to pretend the two are directly comparable on a page whose source document is dated March 2024.
What sells here, and what people rate
The 20 listings split into two kinds. Two are private tours, four are small group departures, one includes hotel pickup, one is a bare admission ticket, and the remainder are open walking routes. Five confirm immediately and 19 allow free cancellation. Prices sit in a narrow band by the standards of this site: a first quartile of 27 EUR, a median of 40, a third quartile of 49.90, and one product at 180.
The ratings say something a listing page does not. The worst rated product here with real volume is the plain entry ticket, at 4.3 across 1,224 reviews for 29.90 EUR, and the best rated with meaningful volume is a walking tour of the castle side with Czech food and beer, 5.0 across 165 reviews at 68 EUR. In between, the two most reviewed things in the whole Czech catalogue are guided walks: one that charges nothing and takes tips, on 8,178 reviews, and one at 49.58 EUR on 7,101.
That pattern is consistent enough to act on. At a monument where the ground is free, no queue can be skipped and the ticket carries no time, a bare admission ticket is the weakest thing on the shelf, because it sells you the one part you could have bought at the window in two minutes. The products people rate here are the ones that add somebody who knows what the Rosenberg Palace was.
Questions people ask before buying a Prague Castle ticket
Should I buy Circuit A or Circuit B?
Neither, because neither exists. The official price list sells a Main circuit at 450 CZK and a Permanent exhibitions ticket at 300 CZK, plus the Picture Gallery and the cathedral tower at 200 CZK each. A seller still offering lettered circuits is working from an old page.
How much is a Prague Castle ticket?
450 CZK for the Main circuit, 300 reduced, 950 for a family of up to five children with two adults. The Permanent exhibitions ticket is 300, 200 and 700. Those figures come from the official price list declared valid from 1 March 2024. On this site the 20 listings run from 18 to 180 EUR at a median of 40, because most of them include a guide.
Is St Vitus Cathedral included?
Yes. The cathedral is item VIII in the Main circuit at 450 CZK. The tower with the view gallery is not: that is a separate 200 CZK ticket, 150 reduced. Confusingly, the castle's own opening hours page lists its paid buildings without naming the cathedral at all, while the price list puts it in the main bundle.
Can I use the ticket over two days?
Yes, the ticket is valid for two days. But each building can be entered only once, so you cannot go back into the Old Royal Palace on the second day. Split your visit by building rather than by revisit, and nothing is wasted.
Is there a skip-the-line ticket?
No, and there is nothing for one to skip. The price list carries no timed entry, so no priority lane exists to be sold. None of the 20 listings we track declares skip-the-line access. The only queue is the security search at the gates, which everybody passes.
How long should I plan for inside?
The operator publishes no figure. The 19 listings here that declare a length have a median of 3 hours, a shortest of 1 and a longest of 3.5, and 4 of them finish within 2 hours. Three hours covers the Main circuit at a walking pace with time in the cathedral.
Can I just turn up and buy at the gate?
Yes. Tickets are sold at the information centres inside the castle, and there is no slot to miss. The castle has no online box office of its own and sends advance buyers to a third-party network. The risk of turning up is not the queue, it is the administration's right to close buildings or the whole area for state occasions, without notice and without refunds.
Data verified on. Prices from the Prague Castle price list in English, valid from 1 March 2024. Hours and rules from the castle's visitor regulations and hrad.cz. Catalogue figures from our own database, 5 Sept 2026.