Catacombs of Paris
#8of 9 places to visit in ParisParis, Île-de-France, France
Also known as Les Catacombes de Paris · Catacombes de Paris
Quick answer
Opening hours: 09:45–20:30, closed Mondays, last entry 19:30. Entry: €31. Allow 1.5 hrs. Best time: First entry slot at 09:45 or the final slots.
Updated · Compiled by Traveliac, AI-assisted · 4 min read
- Opening hours
- 09:45–20:30
- Closed Mondays
- Entry fee
- €31
- Ticket from
- Time needed
- 1.5 hrs
- Best time of day
- First entry slot at 09:45 or the final slots
- Best months
- Apr – Jun, Sep – Oct
- Address
- 1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, 75014 Paris
About Catacombs of Paris
The Catacombs of Paris hold the remains of roughly six million people, transferred from overflowing Parisian cemeteries into disused limestone quarry tunnels beginning in 1786 and continuing through the 1860s. The public route covers about 1.5 kilometres of a much larger network - the full quarry system beneath the city runs to roughly 300 kilometres, most of it closed and unmapped for public access - descending 20 metres below street level via a spiral staircase of 131 steps. Bones are stacked in deliberate decorative patterns along the ossuary corridors, arranged by quarry inspector Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury in the early 1810s to make the site presentable for public visits rather than left as unstructured piles.
Best time of day: First entry slot at 09:45 or the final slots. Before 19:30. The narrow underground corridors bottleneck badly once several timed groups overlap mid-afternoon.
Catacombs of Paris timings
Catacombs of Paris opens at 09:45 and closes at 20:30. It keeps the same hours on Saturday and Sunday.
- Opening hours
- 09:45–20:30
Monday Closed Tue–Sun 09:45–20:30 - Tuesday-Sunday 09:45-20:30 (last entry 19:30)
- Closed on
- Monday, 1 January, 1 May, 25 December
Good to know: Reopened in spring 2026 following renovation for accessibility improvements.
Opening hours compiled from catacombes.paris.fr and public records, last updated . They change without notice — confirm before you travel. How we write these guides
Catacombs of Paris ticket price
| Ticket | Price |
|---|---|
| Standard ticket | €31 |
| Concession (student / senior) | €25 |
| Children | €15 |
€31 full rate, €25 reduced rate, €15 for ages 8-17, free under 8, as of 2026, with an audio guide included. Timed-entry booking is mandatory - there is no walk-up ticket sales at the door. Verify current pricing at the official site.
Prices compiled from catacombes.paris.fr and public records, last updated . They change without notice — confirm before you travel. How we write these guides
Best time to visit Catacombs of Paris
- Quiet
- Moderate
- Busy
- Very busy
09:45 - 11:00
Morning Opening
First timed-entry groups of the day; corridors still comfortable for slower walking.
Moderate11:00 - 15:00
Midday Peak
Overlapping timed groups create the tightest bottlenecks in the narrowest ossuary corridors.
Very busy15:00 - 18:00
Afternoon
Crowds remain heavy but move at a more even pace than midday.
Busy18:00 - 20:30
Evening ClosingBest time to go
Final entry slots before 19:30 draw the smallest groups of the day.
Quiet
History of Catacombs of Paris
Parisian cemeteries, most critically Les Innocents near Les Halles, reached crisis-level overcrowding by the 1780s, with decomposing remains reportedly breaching into adjacent cellar walls and contaminating groundwater. The royal government ordered the closure of Les Innocents in 1780 and began transferring its remains into the abandoned Left Bank limestone quarries - the same stone that had built much of Paris - starting in 1786, a process that continued intermittently as other cemeteries closed through the early 19th century.
Louis-Étienne Héricart de Thury, appointed inspector of the quarries in 1810, organized the previously haphazard bone piles into the wall-lined arrangements visitors see today, adding commemorative plaques and inscriptions drawn from religious and literary sources about death. The ossuary opened to limited public visits as early as 1809, making it one of the oldest continuously operating tourist attractions in Paris, and has drawn illicit explorers - known as cataphiles - into the unauthorized sections of the broader tunnel network for well over a century, an activity that remains illegal and actively policed.
Rules & etiquette at Catacombs of Paris
Mandatory timed-entry booking online is strictly enforced; there is no ticket sales at the entrance, and arriving without a reservation means being turned away regardless of queue length. The route is not wheelchair accessible - 131 spiral steps down and a further 112 steps up at the exit, with no lift alternative - and is unsuitable for visitors with claustrophobia given corridor widths under two metres in places.
Removing or touching bones is prohibited and monitored by staff along the route; the temperature underground holds a constant 14°C regardless of season, so a light layer is worth carrying even in summer. Large bags and backpacks are checked at the cloakroom before descent, since the exit staircase and narrow sections do not accommodate bulky items.
Tips for visiting Catacombs of Paris
- 1
Booking several weeks ahead is close to essential in peak season; timed slots for popular hours sell out well in advance given the site's fixed hourly capacity for safety reasons. The exit emerges more than a kilometre from the entrance at a different address entirely on Rue Rémy Dumoncel, so visitors should plan the return route or onward journey before descending rather than expecting to come back to Denfert-Rochereau directly.
- 2
The audio guide included with the ticket adds substantial historical context that the sparse on-site signage alone doesn't provide, particularly on the engineering history of the quarries themselves, which predates the ossuary use by centuries.
How to reach Catacombs of Paris
1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, 75014 ParisDirections in Google Maps
From Paris-Orly (ORY)
12 km · 30-40 min
€13.60
From Gare du Nord
6 km · 20 min
€2.15
From Gare Montparnasse
2 km · 10 min
€2.15
Nearest airport
From Paris-Orly (ORY)
12 km, approximately 30-40 minutes via Orlyval and RER B.
Nearest station
From Denfert-Rochereau (Métro Lines 4 and 6, RER B), directly above the entrance.
Catacombs of Paris FAQs
Can you buy Catacombs of Paris tickets at the entrance?
No. Timed-entry booking online is mandatory, with no walk-up ticket sales at the door as of 2026. Visitors without a reservation are turned away regardless of queue length.
How many remains are held in the Paris Catacombs?
Roughly six million people, transferred from overflowing Parisian cemeteries into disused limestone quarry tunnels beginning in 1786 and continuing intermittently through the 1860s.
Are the Catacombs of Paris wheelchair accessible?
No. The visitor route requires descending 131 spiral steps and climbing 112 steps back up at a separate exit, with no lift alternative, making it unsuitable for visitors with mobility restrictions.
Does the Catacombs exit come back out near the entrance?
No. The exit emerges over a kilometre away on Rue Rémy Dumoncel, a different street entirely from the Denfert-Rochereau entrance, so visitors should plan their onward route in advance.
Compiled with AI assistance from official sources and public records, and published only after the checks in How we write these guides. Nobody from Traveliac has visited this place. Last updated . How we rank and check places
