Eiffel Tower Tickets: Stairs or Lift, Second Floor or Summit

Buying an Eiffel Tower ticket comes down to two choices, climb or ride and second floor or summit, plus one date, because sales open sixty days ahead. Whoever books early picks the hour, and whoever waits takes what remains. The stairs to the second floor cost €14.80, and every other ticket is a variation on that.

Which Eiffel Tower ticket: stairs, lift or summit

Four tickets sit on the official menu, and only two decisions separate them. You climb the first two floors on foot or ride the lift, and you stop at the second floor or go on to the summit. Climbing is cheaper than riding for both destinations: €14.80 against €23.50 for the second floor, and €28 against €36.70 for the summit. Anyone who can manage 674 steps saves that money and gets more time slots to choose from, so the stairs win. The lift is for visitors who find that many steps too much, and the stairs are not suited to anyone with limited mobility.

Tickets are sold online up to sixty days ahead, and the summit goes first, above all around sunset. If your dates fall in summer, that means booking two months before you fly. Visitors aged 12 to 24 pay half, and the Paris Museum Pass does not cover the tower, so it is a separate line in the budget whatever else you carry.

Visitors aged 12 to 24 pay half. Tickets are sold online up to 60 days ahead; the summit sells out first, above all around sunset.

When to come and what you pass through

The shortest lines come between the opening and eleven in the morning and again after nine in the evening. Midday and the afternoon are the densest stretch of the day, and the golden hour before sunset is the slot everyone wants, so it fills first. Hot spells can bring an earlier closing, since the stairs or the summit may be limited by the clock on the day. Hours: daily 9:30 am–11 pm, past midnight in summer.

A ticket does not mean you are through, because security works twice. The first inspection is in the gardens under the tower, and the second waits in front of the lifts at the foot of the pillar. Stairs and lifts start from the same entrance, so the choice between them is made at the ticket and not at the gate. Take your photographs of the whole tower from the Trocadéro or the Champ de Mars first, then walk in, since once you are underneath it is too big for any frame.

The first and second floors can be reached on foot or by lift, and the second platform stands at 116 m. For many visitors it is the sensible place to stop. From the summit the tower itself drops out of the picture, and what lies in front of you is the city, which is a different view and not necessarily a better one. Pick the summit for the scale of Paris laid out below you, and the second floor if you would rather stay closer to the ironwork.

After dark, at the start of every hour, the tower sparkles for five minutes. You can watch it free from the ground, and when the summit is sold out for your evening, a bench near the river with the sparkle overhead is a decent consolation. The Trocadéro, across the bridge, still gives the whole tower in one frame.

3 daysThe tower fits into the three-day Paris itinerary as one of the big bookings, since the plan allows a single reserved entrance per day.Paris in 3 days →

When you only have an hour

With an hour to spare, see the tower from outside and keep the ticket money for something else. It stands whole from the Trocadéro, and that view costs nothing. If you want to go inside anyway, take the first slot of the day or one late in the evening, when the lines are shortest, and leave the middle of the day for the river.

• See it from the Trocadéro, where the whole tower fits into one frame.
• Stay for the hourly sparkle after dark, which lasts five minutes and is free from the ground.
• If you do go up, the second floor by stairs is the cheapest way in.
• If the summit slots are gone, the second floor is still on sale, so look again on the day.

BudgetThe tower is one of four big tickets in the daily budget, and that page adds them up for a day in Paris.What Paris costs →