Lisbon Museums

For art, the Gulbenkian and nothing else competes: Lisbon has no Prado, and the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, which holds the Saint Vincent Panels and Bosch's Temptations, is not yet on this site because we have not verified its hours and price on an official page. For Portugal's own story — the monarchy, the Discoveries, the republic — pair the Coach Museum with Ajuda in one Belém-side morning and the Pantheon with São Vicente in an Alfama afternoon. For architecture, MAAT's power station and Kengo Kuma's CAM are the modern pair. For children, the Oceanário first, the Coach Museum second, and the aqueduct walk if they are old enough for heights. For tiles, the museum that should be first on the list is closed; go to São Vicente instead.

One museum morning, no children, no repeat visit planned: the Gulbenkian, full stop. Two: add the Coach Museum with the audio-guide ticket, because it is the most Portuguese collection in the city and the one you cannot see anywhere else.

MMP museums and monuments — the Coach Museum, Ajuda, the Pantheon, the Tile Museum when it reopens, and the Belém monuments — close every Monday and on 1 January, Easter Sunday, 1 May, 13 June and 25 December, and open around 10:00 (Jerónimos at 9:30). The foundation museums run on their own days: the Gulbenkian and MAAT close on Tuesday and open Monday. The city's EGEAC sites, the Padrão among them, and the private Carmo, São Vicente and Oceanário, open on Monday too; the Carmo's closed day is Sunday. The Oceanário never closes.

So a Monday in Lisbon is a Gulbenkian, MAAT, Carmo, Oceanário and Padrão day; a Tuesday is everything except the Gulbenkian and MAAT; a Sunday is everything except the Carmo and the cathedral. The Monday openings page turns that into a route.

Since 1 August 2024 the 37 museums, monuments and palaces run by MMP give 52 free days a year to Portuguese citizens and residents of Portugal, usable on any day of the week, after a one-time registration of a citizen card and tax number at any MMP ticket desk; several sites visited on one day count as one day. Non-residents get nothing from this scheme on any day. The former free Sundays and holidays were abolished at the same time. So at the Coach Museum, Ajuda, the Pantheon, Jerónimos and Belém Tower a visitor from abroad pays the full fare seven days a week. What MMP does give everyone is the reduction grid: 50% off for over-65s, for ages 13 to 24 and for families of at least one adult and one minor, and free entry under 12.

The exceptions are all outside MMP, and only two of them apply to tourists. The Gulbenkian is free to everyone on Sundays from 14:00 and for under-30s on Saturdays 18:00–21:00. The Museu da Água is free to everyone on the first Sunday of the month. The Padrão is free on Sundays and holidays until 14:00 for Lisbon residents only; MAAT is free on the first Sunday 10:00–13:00 for residents of Portugal only; São Vicente likewise on the first Sunday. The Jerónimos church is free at any time, as distinct from the €18 cloister. Under-12s are free almost everywhere; the Oceanário's free age stops at two.

The Lisboa Card — €31, €51 or €62 (about $36, $60, $73) for 24, 48 or 72 hours in the 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 edition — gives free entry at the MMP monuments and museums and at a set of others, and discounts elsewhere. On this page's list, per the venues' own ticket pages: the Coach Museum, Ajuda, the Pantheon, the Padrão and São Jorge Castle print 'Lisboa Card: free'; the cathedral charges cardholders €5 instead of €7, São Vicente €6 instead of €8, the Carmo €5 instead of €7, and the Gulbenkian gives 20% off. The Oceanário's treatment changes with the card's yearly list and is not on the aquarium's page. The card also covers all Carris and metro rides and the CP trains to Sintra and Cascais, which is where its value actually lies; three museums a day and a train to Sintra beat the 48-hour price, two museums and no train do not. The Lisboa Card page does the sums with the 2026 prices.

The hop-on hop-off ticket is transport with 'discounts at monuments' whose amounts its listing does not state; treat it as a bus, not a pass.

None of the museums on this page sells out. The Gulbenkian, MAAT, the Carmo, Ajuda and the Museu da Água are bought at the desk with no queue worth naming. The Coach Museum and the Pantheon are sold through MMP's online shop and at the door, and through the platform with an audio guide or plain entry at a small mark-up that buys free cancellation. The Oceanário is the one place a booking changes the price: the entry band decides what you pay, and the reseller ticket at €25 matches the cheapest official band while cancelling free.

What does sell out in Lisbon is not a museum but a monument: the Belém Tower has run on timed slots since it reopened on 27 May 2026, and the Jerónimos cloister queues in summer. Those live on the tickets index, not here.

Closed: the National Tile Museum since 1 November 2025, with the Museu Nacional do Teatro e da Dança, under the PRR requalification programme; no reopening date on 29 August 2026. Unverified: the Museu de São Roque's site said 'the museum is closed' without a date or a reason when we read it, and we could not tell whether that was a day's notice or a closure; the Gulbenkian's Founder's Collection was reported by third parties to have galleries shut for renovation into 2026, which gulbenkian.pt neither confirmed nor denied to our fetch. Also on this side of the ledger: the Pilar 7 bridge experience has its lift out of service with stairs only and a reduced price, and the Santa Justa lift, which is not a museum but is on every museum-day route, has been closed since the 3 September 2025 funicular accident.

We re-check each of these and print the date at the top of the page.