Madrid · Paseo del Prado · Spanish and European painting
Prado Museum: tickets, hours and how to visit
Velázquez, Goya, Bosch and El Greco under one neoclassical roof. Choose how to visit, check the hours and plan your day.
Today
Opening hours for every month are on the Opening hours page.
Checked against the official website on 31 October 2026 · Official source
In short
- The Prado Museum is open Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00, and on Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 to 19:00. The last entry is 30 minutes before closing.
- You can choose an entry ticket, a two-hour guided tour or a small-group tour of about 1 hour 30 minutes.
- Entry to the permanent collection is free in the last two hours of the day, until the museum is full.
- Photos and videos are not allowed in the galleries. The museum is closed on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.
A royal collection that became a museum
The museum opened on 19 November 1819 as the Royal Museum of Paintings. King Ferdinand VII wanted it, and so did his second wife, Isabel de Braganza. The building is older: Juan de Villanueva designed it in the 1780s for a natural history cabinet. The museum took the name Prado after 1868, when it passed to the state.
The paintings people come for
Las Meninas by Velázquez is the first painting to look for. Then come Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, Goya's Third of May 1808 and his Black Paintings, and the two Majas. Goya is the artist best represented in the museum, and you also find El Greco, Titian, Rubens and Rogier van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross.
Which ticket for the Prado?
Short on time? The entry ticket is enough. Want help with a museum this big? Take the two-hour guided tour. Prefer a small group and a short route? The 90-minute tour goes from Goya's Black Paintings to El Greco, Rubens and Las Meninas.