Hofburg tickets explained: what to buy and where

The short answer

The Hofburg has no all-in-one ticket. The Sisi Museum’s own FAQ says there is no combined ticket for sights such as the Spanish Riding School and the Treasury, because different bodies run them:

• The Schönbrunn Group runs the Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum.
• The Kunsthistorisches Museum group runs the Imperial Treasury and the Neue Burg museums.
• The Spanish Riding School sells its own tickets.
• The Austrian National Library runs the State Hall.
• The Wiener Hofmusikkapelle sells seats for the chapel mass.

For most people the choice comes down to this. Go for the Imperial Apartments if you want the palace rooms, the Treasury if you want the crown jewels, and the Riding School if you want horses. Add the State Hall if you have an hour spare. Buy the Sisi Pass only if you are also visiting Schönbrunn.

Hofburg tickets compared

All prices are adult prices checked in October 2026. Check the seller before you pay, because several change in November.

Ticket	What it includes	Roughly what it costs (checked October 2026)	Who it suits
Day ticket (Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum)	Imperial Apartments now, Sisi Museum from 19 Nov. Silver Collection closed. Timed entry	€15 until 18 Nov, then changes	First visit, independent
Day ticket with guided tour	Same sights with a 60-minute tour, listed from 20 Nov	€33	Guide from the museum itself
Sisi Pass	Schönbrunn, Sisi Museum and Apartments, Furniture Museum. Valid a year	€60	Sisi fans doing both palaces
Imperial Treasury	Crowns and regalia. Timed slot	€16 online, €18 on site	Crown jewel fans
Treasures of the Habsburgs	Treasury plus Kunsthistorisches Museum	€32	Art and treasure in one trip
Neue Hofburg ticket	Weltmuseum, Imperial Armoury, Historic Musical Instruments	€16	Armour and world cultures
Riding School morning exercise	Training session, about 60 minutes	From €17	Horses on a budget
Riding School performance	Full show, about 70 minutes	€26 to €33 standing, up to €155 seated	The full spectacle
State Hall	Baroque library hall	€12	A short, beautiful stop
Sunday mass, Hofburg Chapel	Mass with choir	Standing free, seats €14 to €52	Music lovers

Imperial Apartments, Sisi Museum and the Sisi Pass

The museum’s own name for the basic ticket is the “Day ticket Sisi Museum”. It covers the Sisi Museum, the Imperial Apartments and the Silver Collection, and there is no separate product for each. The Silver Collection has been closed since 1 April 2023 “until further notice”, and the Sisi Museum rooms are shut until 19 November, so right now the ticket buys the Imperial Apartments. Children aged 6 to 18 and students pay less, and the museum lists audio guides as free in 14 languages, although its page says they are being revised.

Entry is timed. The museum says it can only guarantee admission with an online ticket for a booked slot, and it warns that fake ticket sites exist. Buy through the link on the Sisi Museum website, which leads to the Imperial Austria ticket shop. Tickets are generally non-refundable once bought.

The museum’s own guided tour covers the Sisi Museum highlights and then the apartments. It lasts about 60 minutes and is listed daily in English at 2pm, starting 20 November. The adult price is €33.

You will often see the Sisi Ticket advertised. The Schönbrunn Group, which sells it, calls it the Sisi Pass. It costs €60 for adults and €38 for children aged 6 to 18, and it covers Schönbrunn Palace, the Hofburg’s Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments, and the Vienna Furniture Museum. It stays valid for a year. Schönbrunn entry is for the day and time you pick, while the other two are single visits within the year, and the pass page says you do not need to reserve an entry time for the Hofburg or the Furniture Museum. The operator says adults save up to 25 per cent against separate tickets. That only makes sense if you were going to Schönbrunn anyway (see Schönbrunn Palace). For the Hofburg alone, buy the day ticket.

Imperial Treasury

The Treasury is run by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, not the Hofburg’s palace operator. It is open daily except Tuesday, 9am to 5:30pm, with last admission 30 minutes before closing. Since 1 April 2026 you need a reserved time slot. Adults pay €16 online or €18 on site, reduced tickets are €12 online or €14 on site, and under-19s go free. The Vienna City Card price is €17, which is dearer than booking online. The audio guide costs €5.

The museum says time-slot tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded. GetYourGuide lists the Kunsthistorisches Museum as the provider of its Treasury ticket, which starts at the same online price, offers free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead and lists an audio guide. Its text also says you can enter at any time and must print the ticket, which sits oddly with the museum’s time slots, so check what you are sent. For a plain ticket, either shop works.

Two combinations are worth knowing. Treasures of the Habsburgs (the Treasury plus the Kunsthistorisches Museum, valid a year) costs €32 against about €38 bought separately online. The Treasury plus the Neue Burg museums costs €32 if you buy both tickets direct. The GetYourGuide combination below costs a little more, and in return you get an audio guide and a ten-day window to use it.

The Neue Burg museums

The Neue Hofburg ticket (€16, reduced €12, under-19s free) covers the Weltmuseum Wien, the Imperial Armoury and the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments. It is open daily except Monday, 10am to 6pm, and until 9pm on Tuesdays. The Ephesos Museum sits in the same wing, but we could not confirm its ticket rules, so check its Kunsthistorisches Museum page. The 7 Museums Pass costs €53 for a year. The Treasury, the Neue Hofburg and the Kunsthistorisches Museum come to €54 booked separately online, so the pass is a break-even at best for the Hofburg.

Spanish Riding School

There are four ways in, all on the Riding School’s own site.

• Morning exercise (from €17, about 60 minutes). This is the horses’ daily training, with classical music. The famous school jumps are rarely shown. Dates we saw ran Tuesday to Friday at 10am, with some 11:30 sessions.
• Performance (about 70 minutes; 45 for the short version, 90 for the Gala). On the October dates we saw, standing room cost €26 or €33 and seats ran from €29 to €155. Many seat categories were already sold out.
• Guided tour (from €24, about 60 minutes). You see the Winter and Summer Riding Schools and the stallions’ stables, but no riding.
• Specialist tours (from €26): an architectural tour of about 80 minutes and “Lipizzaner Legends” of about 70 minutes, both for ages 12 and up.

Cameras are banned, and there is no luggage storage. The GetYourGuide performance listing costs more than the cheapest tickets on the school’s own site, but it offers free cancellation up to 24 hours before, which matters at these prices. Check which performance and seat category your option gives you.

State Hall and Sunday mass

The State Hall costs €12 for adults, €10 reduced, and is free for under-19s. It opens 9am to 6pm (until 9pm on Thursdays) and is closed on Mondays from October to May. Buy through the library’s own ticket shop. Public guided tours run in German, with English bookings handled through the shop.

At the Hofburg Chapel, seats for the Sunday 9:15 mass are €52, €38, €22 and €14, and the cheapest category is for listening only. Standing room is free and cannot be reserved, and the places are handed out from 8:30am. The Girls’ Choir sings on some Sundays instead of the Boys’ Choir, so check the programme.

Concerts

The Vienna Hofburg Orchestra says its Strauss and Mozart concerts take place in the Hofburg’s Festsaal between May and October. It lists other venues, such as the Konzerthaus, so confirm the venue for your date before booking.

Do city passes pay off?

• Vienna City Card. Cards with public transport start at €19 for 24 hours. The discounts at Hofburg sights are small, around €1 to €2 per ticket. Buy it for the transport, not the savings.
• Vienna Pass. The Vienna Tourist Board’s site, wien.info, says it starts around €109. It lists the Sisi Museum, Treasury, State Hall and Riding School among its sights, but the Riding School entry is standing room at the morning exercise only. Those four cost about €60 at the prices we checked, so a Hofburg-only trip will not repay it.

Guided tour or plain ticket?

A plain timed ticket already does the queue-skipping job, since every visitor needs a slot. The museum also offers free audio guides. A guided tour makes sense in four cases: you want the Habsburg story told rather than read, you want a route through the courtyards, Heldenplatz and gardens as well as the rooms, you are short on time, or you want free cancellation. It makes less sense if you prefer your own pace or mainly want the Treasury or horses, as none of the walking tours below goes inside the Treasury or the riding hall.

The tours differ. The Skip-the-Line Sisi Museum, Hofburg and Gardens tour adds the courtyards, Heldenplatz and Burggarten. The Hofburg and Empress Sisi Museum tour starts near the Albertina and also takes in the Augustinian Church, the Lipizzaner stables and the Volksgarten. During the Sisi Museum closure, one listing says the tour still visits the Imperial Apartments at a lower price, so read each listing’s note. The Old Town walking tour never goes inside a museum.

Where to buy direct

The seller’s own shop is usually the best route for plain entry. The Sisi Museum, the Imperial Treasury, the Spanish Riding School, the National Library and the Hofmusikkapelle each sell their own. Tours, flexible cancellation and sold-out dates are the cases where a booking site earns its keep. Details on entrances and hours are in visiting the Hofburg, and each sight is described in what to see inside the Hofburg.