Notre Dame Cathedral Opening Hours and Visitor Guide

The Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours per Google Maps are 7:50 am to 7 pm on most weekdays, with a late close at 10 pm on Thursday and 8:15 am to 7:30 pm at weekends. Entry is free, and the Notre Dame cathedral opening hours apply to every visitor, as the official site states. This guide covers the hours by day, Mass, the best time to go, how to get there and what to know at the door. If you want a guide or a reserved entrance, my comparison of Notre Dame Cathedral tickets sets out all eight options with prices.

Notre Dame Cathedral Opening Hours

Today, Saturday 7 November 2026, the cathedral is listed open from 8:15 am to 7:30 pm per Google Maps. The full week looks like this:

Day	Hours (Google Maps)
Monday	7:50 am to 7 pm
Tuesday	7:50 am to 7 pm
Wednesday	7:50 am to 7 pm
Thursday	7:50 am to 10 pm
Friday	7:50 am to 7 pm
Saturday	8:15 am to 7:30 pm
Sunday	8:15 am to 7:30 pm

These Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours are Google’s figures, which I could not cross-check against the official hours page, because the cathedral’s site blocked my access. Treat the late Thursday close of the Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours as the item to confirm before you plan around it. Religious services and special events change access on the day, so the official site is the one to trust if it disagrees with the table above.

Notre Dame Cathedral Visiting Hours

Visiting hours are the same list, but they matter more for planning than the Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours alone. Because entry is free and unticketed, the practical limit is the queue, not a sold-out slot. The official site offers an optional free reservation of a time slot, and slot holders get their own entrance. The Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours say nothing about last entry, and I can’t give you a precise last-entry time, since neither Google Maps nor the pages I could read states one. I’d arrive at least an hour before closing so you are not turned away at the door.

Notre Dame Cathedral Entrance Fee

There is no entrance fee for the cathedral. Wikipedia notes that the archdiocese is responsible for ensuring the cathedral is open free of charge to visitors, and that it receives no state subsidies for this. The official site calls it a place of worship open to all, freely and without any ticket.

Two things do cost money. The tower visit is sold on its own site, run by the Centre des monuments nationaux, at 16 euros, with free admission for EU residents under 26 and a route of 424 steps (tours-notre-dame-de-paris.fr). And the guided tours and reserved-entry listings on GetYourGuide run from $11 to $89 in my comparison. Neither is required to go inside.

Notre Dame Cathedral Mass Times

Mass times do not follow the general Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours, because services shape when sightseeing is allowed.

Notre Dame Cathedral Mass times are published by the cathedral itself, and I could not open that schedule while writing, so I won’t print hours that might be out of date. The official site is where I’d look, and I’d check the day before, since Mass and festival services change what visitors can see and where they can stand.

One note on names. Other churches share the name Notre-Dame, including Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, and searches for basilica Mass times often mean one of those rather than the Paris cathedral. If you are searching for Paris, add the Île de la Cité to your query. The Paris cathedral is also a basilica in Wikipedia’s wording, but its schedule comes from the cathedral.

Best Time to Visit Notre Dame Cathedral

I can’t give you a quiet hour backed by data, because no source I used publishes crowd levels. What I can say rests on the evidence I have. The cathedral opens at 7:50 am on weekdays, so the opening hour is the sensible bet for the shortest wait. One reviewer of the $18 timed-entry listing found a line of about 100 people and used the reserved entrance to get in within minutes. That is the best argument for a free slot or a guide.

Weather matters too when you plan around the Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours. Open-Meteo’s archive for Paris in 2025, as processed for this site, shows the wettest months were January with 16 rainy days and July with 18, while August had only 6. April and June were the sunniest, with 11.1 and 13 hours of sunshine on average. The interior is indoors, but the exterior and the square are where rain bites. Sunset, which matters for the evening Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours on Thursday, is around 5:10 pm in November and 9:56 pm in June, per the same data (Open-Meteo).

How to Get to Notre Dame Cathedral

The cathedral is at 6 Parvis Notre-Dame, Place Jean-Paul II, on the Île de la Cité, per Google Maps. The nearest metro station in my data is Cité, roughly 0.34 km away, a 6-minute walk by my estimate. Saint-Michel is about 0.46 km (8 minutes), Hôtel de Ville about 0.51 km (8 minutes) and Maubert-Mutualité about 0.35 km (6 minutes). Châtelet is further at 0.72 km, about 12 minutes. All walking times are estimates from straight-line distance multiplied by 1.3 at 4.8 km/h.

From the Eiffel Tower it is about 4.1 km in a straight line, so around 67 minutes on foot, and I’d ride the metro instead. Sainte-Chapelle is just 0.45 km away, about 7 minutes, which makes the two a natural pair: my Sainte-Chapelle tickets guide covers that visit. For the Louvre, see Louvre Museum tickets. The Paris tourism site is the place to check live transit disruptions, and I could not open it for specifics.

The listings use different meeting points, and mixing them up is the most common mistake: the Smart City tour meets at the Cité metro exit, the Memories France tour at the Paris Today agency on Quai de Gesvres, and the others at the Charlemagne statue in front of the cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral Dress Code

I could not read the official Notre-Dame visitor pages, so I cannot quote an official dress code. A guided-tour listing I compared says respectful clothing is required: shoulders and belly covered, thighs at least half-covered and no transparent clothing, with entry possibly denied otherwise. I’d treat that as the operator’s wording, but it is a sensible standard for a working cathedral. A light scarf or jacket in the bag solves it, and it costs nothing inside the Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours.

Things to Do Near Notre Dame Cathedral

Sainte-Chapelle is the closest sight, about 7 minutes on foot by my estimate, rated 4.6 from 50,854 reviews on Google Maps, and I compare it on my Sainte-Chapelle tickets page. The Panthéon is about 13 minutes away and Place de la Bastille about 23 minutes. Walking times are my estimates from straight-line distance times 1.3 at 4.8 km/h. For the cathedral’s own interior, see my Notre Dame Cathedral map.

What to Know Before You Go

I could not read the official bag and security rules, so I won’t list them as fact. Plan on a security check at the door, as at any major monument in Paris, and travel light. Several of the paid listings tell you to arrive 15 to 20 minutes early. The cathedral is a place of worship, so expect to cover your shoulders and keep quiet, which is general good practice rather than an official rule I have cited.

Whatever the Notre Dame Cathedral opening hours, time to allow: the guided tours run 45 minutes to 1.5 hours, and the timed-entry listing one hour. The tower visit is separate. The Crown of Thorns returned to the cathedral on 13 December 2024 for public veneration per Wikipedia, and a piece is kept in the treasury, but display is occasional, so check the official site rather than assuming you will see it.

If you want a guide on a first visit, this is the one I’d pick, because it is the best-reviewed English option with a reserved entrance:

Memories France

Paris Notre Dame Cathedral Guided Tour with Scheduled Access

• ★ 4.8 (433 reviews)
• 1.5 hours
• Free cancellation

My pick: The English guide I'd book: 1.5 hours, headsets and reserved access, 4.8 from 433 reviews, free cancellation.

What you get, where you meet, what reviewers say

Included

• ✓ 1.5-hour guided tour
• ✓ Reserved access to Notre Dame Cathedral
• ✓ Expert, fully licensed English-speaking guide
• ✓ Headsets so you can always hear your guide

Not included / not suitable

• ✕ Hotel pickup and drop-off

Meeting point: Meet your guide at the Paris Today agency. We are a few minutes’ walk away from the cathedral. The nearest metro is Hotel de Ville. Please do not go to the cathedral entrance! It can get very crowded and we will not be able to find you there. 2 Quai de Gesvres, 75004 Paris, France

Languages: English

Duration: 1.5 hours

Cancellation: Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund

“Excellent, so informative and presented in a lively, interesting manner. I highly recommend Carolina!” – GetYourGuide review

from

$89

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For the full comparison, including the cheaper French and short English walks, go back to every Notre Dame Cathedral ticket I compared, or return to the home page for other Paris attractions.