From January 2026, the Ministry of Culture is implementing differentiated entry pricing in five major national cultural sites. Visitors from countries outside the EU/EEA will have to pay significantly more expensive tickets – a measure announced in October 2024 by the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati in Le Figaroand justified by the need to finance ambitious heritage renovation projects. Five emblematic establishments are affected from 2026, while other monuments will probably follow in 2027. The decision, intended to compensate for the drop in public subsidies and the increasing cost of construction sites, however, arouses a certain number of criticisms.
From January 1, 2026, the Louvre Museum, the Château de Versailles, the Sainte-Chapelle (Paris), the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier) and the Château de Chambord will apply an increased entrance fee. Concretely, each non-resident visitor from the European Union or the European Economic Area (Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway) will pay around €10 more than the standard rate, with establishments betting that tourists from far away “won’t stink” on this additional sum to access these high places.
The Louvre will increase its entrance ticket to €32 for visitors from outside Europe compared to €22 for Europeans (price unchanged). According to the museum’s calculations, it will involve around 2.5 million visitors per year and will generate between €15 and €20 million in additional revenue. These funds will be entirely channeled towards the vast renovation plan for the Louvre, called “New Renaissance of the Louvre”.
The Versailles estate, which welcomes 8 million people per year (including 42% non-European visitors), will also apply a differentiated grid from January 14, 2026. According to The Worldin high season (April 1 – October 30), the individual ticket will increase to €35 for non-European tourists, compared to €32 for European residents. In low season (November – March), the price will be standardized at €25 for everyone, which limits the increase to peak periods. The Château de Chambord (Loir-et-Cher) will change its entrance ticket to €31 for non-European visitors, i.e. +€10 compared to the standard price. This measure will take effect from January 2026. It only targets around 10% of the castle’s public (distant tourists being relatively few in number in Chambord).
La Sainte-Chapelle (Paris) – a Gothic jewel nestled in the heart of the Île de la Cité – is the pilot site chosen by the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN) to test passport pricing. From January 1, 2026, the entry fee will be set at €22 for non-European visitors, compared to €16 for others. The Palais Garnier, the Paris National Opera, is also among the first to adopt this differentiated pricing from 2026. Although the numerical details of its new scale remain to be confirmed according to The Worldthe establishment should increase the price of visits to the Palais Garnier (currently €15 for self-guided tours) for non-European tourists, in a proportion comparable to other sites (around + €10 per ticket).
Building on the first year of experimentation, the State could extend the measure in 2027 to a second wave of major tourist sites. Among the prospective candidates are several monuments from the Center of National Monuments cited from 2024: the Arc de Triomphe and the Conciergerie in Paris, or the Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy.
This price differentiation based on passport is not without controversy. It actually disrupts the principle of universality of access on which French cultural policy was previously based. The unions of the Ministry of Culture denounced a logic judged “discriminatory”based on the geographical origin of visitors. Despite these criticisms, the Ministry of Culture defends a measure of “contributory justice” : it is no longer possible, according to Rachida Dati, that “the French pay everything, on their own” the preservation of a heritage that benefits millions of international visitors.
