Louvre Skip the Line Ticket – How to Avoid the Crowd in the Louvre
Are skip-the-line tickets worth it? You plan a visit to the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris and want to know about the Louvre skip-the-line tickets you see everywhere online. Can you really skip the line with these tickets? This page tells you everything you need to know to optimize your entrance to the most visited museum in the world and minimize your waiting time there.
💡 Looking for all Louvre tour options? See our complete Louvre Tours guide with highlights tours, themed tours, and evening tours.
New and Amazing! Till the end of 2025, the Louvre is testing an Entrance Reserved for Licensed Tour Guides with their Small Group of Customers (6 Maximum).
You can access this true skip-the-line privilege via our Louvre Private tours. This should continue until the end of 2025, but there is no guarantee. This is only a test, and the Louvre can decide to stop it at any time.
Louvre Skip-the-Line Ticket is a Marketing Concept; They are Just Louvre Standard official Online Timed Tickets
The Louvre website says,“All visitors, including those entitled to free admission (including Paris Museum Pass bearer), must book a time slot. Buy your ticket online at www.ticketlouvre.fr… During off-peak times, there may also be a limited number of time slots for same-day visits available for booking at the museum. However … to guarantee your entry … we strongly advise booking your time slot in advance online.”
Conclusion: no magic; during your time slot, you are entitled to enter the online booking security line, so yes, you skip the line… of those who come without a ticket.
Always buy a timed ticket online before coming to the Louvre and do it a long time in advance.
Even if a skip the line ticket is only a timed ticket for a planned daytime combination, it has the very big advantage of avoiding having to line up with those who came without tickets, and this line may sometimes be extremely long. Even more, the Louvre clearly does not guarantee your entry, if you come onsite without a ticket.
So we strongly advise you to buy online timed tickets before visiting the Louvre. Come to the Louvre with no tickets is a very bad idea.
The remaining questions are when to visit and what to do to to minimize your waiting time in the security line.
Huge waiting lines under the rain going in all directions to enter the museum on December 28th, 2022, around 10 A.M. How to avoid that?
When should you visit the Louvre to avoid the crowd
1. Chose the Best Period of the Year
- Avoid the high season (May to September).
- Christmas holidays may also be very tough.
- Avoid Bastille Day (July 14th), as the Louvre is free for all.
2. Chose the Best Day / Time of the Week
- It is probably a good idea to start early, at 9 a.m., when the Louvre opens its doors. The crowd typically arrives from 10:30 to the midafternoon.
- Another good idea is to come at lunchtime; the Louvre galleries are usually a little less crowded at this time of day.
Avoid weekends, including Friday afternoon (Saturday afternoon is the worst).
- As the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, more people may come on Wednesdays.
- Mondays are not a wrong choice, but more people may come to the Louvre since the Orsay Museum is closed on Mondays.
So, Thursday early morning or at lunchtime is theoretically the best choice, with possibly shorter security lines and relatively less crowded galleries.
But if you only want to spend a couple of hours in the Louvre, there is a much better solution.
On Wednesday and Friday, the Louvre closes at 9 p.m.; galleries are usually much quieter after 6 p.m.
Hurikat’s website provides a synthetic table of the situation. The Google Louvre’s Business Profile in the “Popular Times” section also shows daily visit statistics. You can also Check Real-Time (live) visit data on the Affluence website.
3. If you Specifically Want to See a Particular Louvre Gallery, Check if There Is no Planned Closure for the Corresponding Department You Want to See on the Day You Want to Come
Some galleries close on specific days of the week; check the Louvre room’s closure schedule.
Except for a specific problem, the galleries of the most famous Louvre highlights (Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, Cana Weeding, Nike of Samotrace, Coronation of Napoleon, Raft of the Medusa) are usually always open.
Nevertheless, one of the Louvre’s most popular highlights, the Napoleon III Apartments, is not in this case, so carefully check the Louvre room’s closure schedule to maximize the chance to see them.
How to Skip the Line Onsite, to Minimize your Waiting Time the Day You Visit the Louvre
The timed online tickets are for the corresponding line at the Pyramid Entrance.
At the Pyramid Entrance, There are Three Lines
- The line for those with no ticket.
- Two lines for people with timed tickets. Before starting to line up, always speak first with the receptionist of the line to be sure to line up in the line corresponding with your timed ticket.
You better arrive at the Pyramid Entrance to line up a little before the time indicated on your tickets.
Don’t be late; if you are late, the line receptionist may ask you to go to another entry of the Louvre, where the line may be bigger. When I wrote this line (August 2024), the Louvre receptionist acted like that for people who are more than 15 minutes late. These rules can change anytime.
With your Online Timed Ticket, You Can also Enter via Another Louvre Gate, the “Porte du Carousel”
The Louvre receptionists at “Porte du Carousel” (Carousel Gate) only check if your ticket is valid for the corresponding date, not the time of the ticket.
This entry, the “Porte du Carousel,” is a little less known than the Pyramid one. The situation at both doors may be very different, so if you are at one door and there are very few people, just enter. If it is very crowded, then it may be interesting to check how the other one is (there are a few minutes of walking between both).
Personally, I used to check the “Porte du Carousel” first and then go to the Pyramid Entrance if “Porte du Carousel” is busy.
Get a Year of Real Skip-the-Line Privilege with Société des Amis du Louvre
If you plan to come to the Louvre a few times and want real privileged access to the museum, the solution is to become a “Société des Amis du Louvre” member. This will give you one year of unlimited access to the Louvre by the Porte Richelieu (Richelieu Door), cardholder entry reserved for professionals, and … Amis du Louvre. Different annual membership packages are available: single adult 80 €, duo 120 €, under 26 only 15 €, etc.
Constraint: Amis du Louvre card members are mailed to your address from France, so you’d better deal with that long in advance.
Skip The Line With a Louvre official 90 minutes 800 € VIP TOUR – Not for those on a Budget
If you don’t want to line at all, or if you want to skip any line at the Louvre, the Louvre organizes official VIP tours. A private receptionist and an official Louvre tour guide will wait just for you at the Louvre Pyramid Entrance. You will spectacularly pass in front of everybody else!
This service has a cost; the private official Louvre 90-minute VIP tours for six visitors are available for €800, a price which includes the museum entry.
At Broaden-Horizons.fr, We offer Private 120-Minute Louvre Tours From 179€ For Two
If you want the best service and you are not on a budget, do not hesitate to take a Louvre VIP Tour, but if you are looking for the best value for money, an Evening Tour with us is probably the best choice as you will probably enjoy less or no waiting at the Museum entry and a less crowded galleries once inside.
The Broaden-horizons.fr Louvre Tours do not include Louvre Museum tickets (22€ per person full fare).
If you are a fan of arts, also see our large Louvre tours list by Yves the Broaden-horizons.fr Louvre tour guide.
Whatever, explore our range of Paris private tours to make the most of your visit to the City of Light! Do not miss Yves’s Webpage; he is the broaden-horizons private tour guide in Paris, and his page is full of advice and tour selections.