Rijksmuseum tickets: €25, a start time for everyone, and the Night Watch behind glass

💡 The Short Version: A ticket is €25, free for ages 18 and under, and every visitor needs a start time: the I amsterdam City Card and the Museumkaart are free entry but still need a booked slot. Buy on rijksmuseum.nl. A few tickets are sold at the entrance “while stocks last”. If you are late, the museum says it cannot help you. It is quieter before 11:00 and after 15:30, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The Night Watch is on view in a glass chamber while its varnish is removed. Or book a tour: the museum’s own one-hour tour of the highlights is €7.50 on top of entry, and GetYourGuide’s two-hour guided tour with entryad is from £63.89 (1 October 2026).

The tickets, compared

Official prices from the museum’s prices page, 1 October 2026, converted at the ECB rate of 30 September 2026 (€1 = £0.855). GetYourGuide prices are its lowest “from” price on the same day.

• A ticket for the permanent collection does not cover the temporary exhibition. Book its separate start time free of charge. A ticket for the exhibition does cover the permanent collection, which you visit afterwards.
• Tickets are not named. They can be given to someone else, and they can be shown on a phone.
• The museum names its sales partners: GetYourGuide, Musement, Tours & Tickets, Blue Boat, the I amsterdam City Card, Go City, the museum shop on Museumplein, ANWB and the Stadspas.

How to buy

• Online: on rijksmuseum.nl, where you pick a start time. The start time marks when you begin; once inside you can stay until closing.
• At the entrance: a limited number of tickets are sold while stocks last. On a busy day that may be none.
• With the City Card: the card’s voucher code reserves the slot. I amsterdam’s time-slot page lists how for each location. Book before you go: the card does not skip the booking. The City Card guide has the sums.
• Changing a booking: write to the museum through its page at least 48 hours ahead, with the order number and the new date and time you want. It replies within three working days and can only move you to a free slot.
• No refunds on paid tickets. Free tickets can be cancelled.

Tours worth paying for

The museum’s own tour is the cheapest way to have a guide. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” price on 1 October 2026, per person, and the museum’s own on the same day.

The museum’s “Best of the Rijksmuseum” tour

€7.50 on top of entry · 1 hour · English

The museum’s guided tour runs daily for ages 16 and up. The guide covers the well-known masterpieces and takes your own choice into account. The booking does not include entry: buy the entry tickets first, then pick the tour’s date and time. Rescheduling is possible up to a week ahead, and cancelling is not. A private tour is €125 for up to 15 people, booked at least 14 days ahead.

Golden Age highlights with a guide and entry

From £63.89 · 4.8 stars from 1,085 reviews · 2 hours

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Guided Tour incl Entrance Ticketad meets at the Cobra Café on Museumplein, next to the museum, and the guide hands over your ticket. It covers Rembrandt’s portraits, Ferdinand Bol’s self-portrait, Jan Steen, Delftware and the 17th-century dollhouses, and you can stay on afterwards. The museum’s tour plus entry, booked direct, is €32.50 (about £27.79): this runs for twice the time, in several languages. Free cancellation.

Rijksmuseum and a 75-minute canal cruise

From £36.30 · 4.5 stars from 2,286 reviews · museum slot plus an open cruise ticket

Amsterdam: 75 minute City Canal Cruise and Rijksmuseumad is run by the Blue Boat Company. The museum entry has a fixed time slot that cannot be changed. The cruise is an open ticket, used daily from 10:00 to 18:00 at the docks by the Hard Rock Cafe or the Heineken Experience. Non-refundable.

Rijksmuseum and a one-hour canal cruise

From £33.73 · 4.3 stars from 1,449 reviews · about 5 hours

Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum and Canal Cruisead from Tours & Tickets pairs a timed entry with a one-hour cruise and an audio guide. Children under 18 enter the museum free. Tickets cannot be rescheduled or cancelled. For the cruise operators compared, see Amsterdam canal cruises.

What to see

The museum holds more than 8,000 works in an 800-year story of Dutch art and history. Its own advice for a short visit is a one-hour route of the highlights, and its free app has audio tours of about 90 minutes.

1. The Gallery of Honour. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals hang here. The museum calls itself the home of the Night Watch and of Vermeer’s The Milkmaid.
2. The Night Watch. Rembrandt’s painting is in a specially designed glass chamber in the Gallery of Honour, where Operation Night Watch, begun in 2019, is carried out in front of the public. Restorers have been removing old varnish since the end of 2024, so increasingly large sections look matt and dull for now. It is on view, behind glass.
3. Van Gogh. Four paintings, including his self-portrait. The Van Gogh Museum next door holds the rest and sells its own timed tickets.
4. The temporary exhibitions, each with its own free start time. Willem de Kooning at work, more than 120 pieces of drawing, painting and sculpture, runs from 9 October 2026 to 17 January 2027, and two of his paintings, Woman I and Woman and Bicycle, hang in the Gallery of Honour near the Night Watch. Document Netherlands: New Energy, Kadir van Lohuizen’s photographs of offshore wind farms and hydrogen plants, runs over the same dates in the Photography Gallery.
5. The gardens. Free to enter and open only in summer, from 9:00 to 18:00. Carel Visser in the Rijksmuseum Gardens runs until 25 October.

What to skip: the temporary exhibitions, if you have two hours or less: the permanent collection is in every ticket, and the exhibitions are an extra start time.

Hours, rules and getting there

• Open every day, 9:00 to 17:00, including public holidays. The shop and The Café stay open until 18:00, and you can go in from 17:00 to 18:00 without a ticket. The RIJKS restaurant serves lunch Wednesday to Sunday and dinner Tuesday to Sunday.
• Bags: a free, supervised cloakroom takes bags, umbrellas and day packs, but not large bags, luggage, folding bikes, instruments or skateboards. There are lockers for luggage at the Lockerpoint on Museumplein.
• Leaving: you cannot go out and come back in, with some exceptions.
• Photos: allowed without flash. Sketching is allowed in pencil on paper.
• Payment: cards or phone only in the museum, in the shops and in the restaurant and café.
• Quiet times: before 11:00 and after 15:30, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
• Getting there: the museum is at Museumstraat 1, on Museumplein beside the Van Gogh Museum, and about 20 minutes’ walk from the Anne Frank House. Schiphol’s Airport Express bus 397 stops at the Rijksmuseum (Connexxion, €6.50 single on 1 October 2026). GVB changed its tram map on 29 March 2026, so ask the planner for the tram from where you are staying; Amsterdam public transport has the fares.

The Van Gogh Museum is the other timed booking on the square. The Anne Frank House sells tickets only on its own site and a visit needs booking weeks ahead. The Rijksmuseum is free with the I amsterdam City Card. For the rest of the city’s bookings, see what to book before you go in Amsterdam. To wake up beside the museum, hotels near the Rijksmuseum lists the hotels on Museumplein, and where to stay in Amsterdam compares the other areas. 3 days in Amsterdam opens day two here at 9:00, and Amsterdam in one day fits it into a single day.