Magritte Museum tickets: €13, €20 with the Old Masters, closed on Mondays and free on the first Wednesday

💡 The Short Version: The Magritte Museum is €13 for an adult, or €20 with the Old Masters Museum in one combination ticket. Both are closed on Mondays and open Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 17:00 and at weekends 11:00 to 18:00. Everyone enters free on the first Wednesday of the month from 13:00, and Brussels Card holders enter the permanent collections free. The Place Royale entrance is for visitors who booked online; without a ticket go to the main desk at Rue de la Régence 3. No strollers, and a cloakroom that refuses suitcases over 55 x 50 x 35 cm. The Fin-de-Siècle Museum, in the same Royal Museums, has been closed to the public since January 2024. Prices are in euros. Or book a tour: the museum’s English-language tour is €18 with admission on set Sundays, and the guided walking tourad of the centre is from €25 (GetYourGuide).

Tickets and prices

Prices are the adult rate from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, which run the Magritte Museum, the Old Masters Museum and two smaller museums. Tickets are sold on the museums’ ticket page. No GetYourGuide listing sells them.

• One day only. A ticket is valid on the date printed on it, and the museums do not refund it.
• Free days. The first Wednesday of the month from 13:00, for the permanent collections of every Royal Museums site.
• Passes. Brussels Card and museumPASSmusees holders enter the permanent collections free. The museum pass covers one of the two museums a day, and visiting both costs a €7 surcharge. Brussels Card: is it worth it? has the sums.
• Temporary exhibitions carry their own prices, and the passes and free days do not cover them.
• Audio guides are €5. The Magritte Museum has adult guides in eight languages, a visio guide in French, Dutch and English, and separate guides for children and teenagers.

Where to buy

Tours worth paying for

The museum sells a guided tour of its own, and the audio guide is the cheaper way to follow the route. The tours below are the museum’s English-language tours of the Magritte Museum for adults, on Sundays from 16:00 to 17:30 at the main entrance, Rue de la Régence 3. The €18 includes admission, and the price falls to €13 for museum pass holders, seniors, students, jobseekers and Friends of the museums.

Book on the Magritte Museum’s activities page. Holders of a museum pass add a free €0 admission ticket at the desk. For a guide to the city rather than the museum, Brussels walking tours sets the free and paid walks side by side.

What to see

The Magritte Museum is at Place Royale 2. It says its collection of the Belgian Surrealist (1898-1967) is the largest in the world. The route runs from the top floor down: a lift takes you up, and the stairs bring you back through his life in order. Rooms are kept dim on purpose, because the works on paper are lit at no more than 50 lux.

The Royal Museums of Fine Arts on Rue de la Régence, Brussels. Photo: iMahesh, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

1. Level 3, 1898 to 1929. His Constructivist period and the ‘7 Arts’ group, then de Chirico and the first Surrealist works. Showcases hold the archives of the Belgian Surrealists, such as Paul Nougé and Louis Scutenaire, and of the French Surrealists he met in Paris, André Breton among them: magazines, tracts and Magritte’s correspondence.
2. Level 2, 1930 to 1950. His return to Brussels and the advertising work he called his “idiotic works”. The floor also covers his links with the Communist Party of Belgium, the “full sunlight” Surrealism of the war years and the “vache” series.
3. Level 1, 1951 to 1967. The Enchanted Domain: his research into repetition and the large images built round The Dominion of Light and The Domain of Arnheim. Loans from private collectors sit beside the museum’s own works.
4. The quotes on the walls. Magritte’s sayings, written large, are translated into Dutch, English, German and Spanish. The Magritte Shop sells them as a €4 booklet.
5. The Old Masters Museum. Memling, Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens, from the 15th to the 18th century. Since 2025 it has added display rooms that run to the 21st century. The combination ticket covers it on the same day.
6. The René Magritte Museum in Jette. A separate museum in the house where he lived from 1930 to 1954, at Esseghemstraat 137. It is €12, open Wednesday to Friday 13:00 to 18:00 and at weekends 10:00 to 18:00, and free with the Brussels Card. It is not for pushchairs or visitors with reduced mobility.

The order that works: book online, enter at Place Royale, and take the lift to Level 3 before the stairs. Take the Old Masters in the afternoon of the same day, since the combination ticket is valid for one date. What to skip: the Old Masters if you have one morning. The Magritte Museum is the one with a route you can finish.

Hours, rules and getting there

• Entrances: Place Royale 2 for ticket holders who booked online, and Rue de la Régence 3 for everyone else. The Magritte Shop is reached through the main entrance.
• Crowds: the museum limits the number of visitors an hour. Extra security checks at the door can cause delays, and staff may ask you to open your bag.
• Bags: the cloakroom is free. It refuses suitcases over 55 x 50 x 35 cm.
• Strollers: not allowed. Front baby carriers are.
• Photographs: allowed without flash, tripods or selfie sticks. Sketching in pencil is allowed for individuals.
• Getting there: Brussels-Central station is a five-minute walk. Brussels public transport has the fares.
• The one thing that ruins a visit: arriving on a Monday, when both museums are shut.

The main entrance of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Rue de la Régence. Photo: Suicasmo, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What to book in Brussels has the closed days for every sight. Best museums in Brussels puts the Magritte Museum in a week of opening hours and free days, and the old town walk passes Place Royale between the Mont des Arts and the Sablon. Brussels Art Nouveau and the Horta Museum cover the architect’s houses, and the comic strip route ends at the Comic Art Museum in a Horta building. Free things to do in Brussels lists the first-Wednesday and first-Sunday free days. 3 days in Brussels fits the museum around the Monday closures. For a bed, see where to stay in Brussels.