Louvre groups of 7 to 20 must bring their own headsets (2026)

If you guide a group of seven or more participants at the Louvre, the group has to bring its own headsets. The museum's visiting rules make the guide's right to speak to a large group depend on participants wearing headsets, and they state that the museum does not supply them. Groups that arrive without equipment are turned away. Below: the wording, who counts, what happens at the door and a checklist.

Article 15 of the Louvre's Règlement de visite ties the large-group leader's right to speak to equipment the group brings itself. It requires "l'utilisation d'un casque et des écouteurs par les participants non fournis par le musée". In English: participants must use a headset and earphones, and the museum does not provide them.

The museum's help page for tourist groups, updated on 2 August 2026, says the same from the guide's side: the leader of a large group must arrive with their own equipment, an audiophone and a microphone. The English group FAQ adds the consequence in one line: "Groups without headphones will not be admitted."

Participants count and the leader does not. Article 14 defines a large group as 7 to 20 participants, paying or free, with a group leader, and no more than 21 people in total. Six guests and a guide therefore form a small group with no headset requirement, while seven guests and a guide need headsets.

Free admissions count as participants, so five adults and two children make a large group. On the museum's help page in August 2026, a slot cost 20 EUR for a small group and 90 EUR for a large group, plus a 28 EUR participant ticket for each paying member. A large-group booking needs at least seven participant tickets.

The group is not admitted. The Louvre's FAQ states it directly, and article 18 of the visiting rules allows staff to interrupt the visit, remove the group from the museum without a refund and bar the offender from booking group visits again. Staff may check speaking rights, tickets and participant numbers at any point of the visit.

Large groups check in at the group reception counter under the Pyramid, where the guide collects the speaking-right sticker to wear visibly for the whole visit. Small groups skip that counter and enter through the Porte des Lions. A group visit lasts three hours at most, and the whole group leaves together.

In the Salle des États, room 711, where the Mona Lisa hangs. The Louvre's group FAQ prohibits public speaking and group presentations in that room and does not let groups stand together along its sides. A group may cross the room together as long as it does not block other visitors.

Plan the Mona Lisa stop around this. Explain the painting in the gallery before room 711, let the group look without commentary, then continue in the next room. The ban targets crowding in one room, so it applies to groups on headsets as well.

The rule asks for a headset and earphones for participants and, on the help page, an audiophone and microphone for the guide. It names no device type, frequency, channel count or supplier, and it never mentions phones. If you want certainty about a particular system, ask the museum's group service in writing before the visit.

With Your Next Tours, the guide speaks into their own phone. Each participant scans a QR code and listens in the phone's browser through their own earphones, so there are no receivers to rent, hand out or collect. The broadcast runs over a portable WiFi router and needs no internet connection inside the museum.

Earphones are not optional. The visiting rules forbid disturbing other visitors with noise and name mobile phones as an example, so commentary played through a phone speaker would undo the point of the headset rule. Ask participants to keep phones on silent and earphones in. To compare renting a receiver set, see our rental cost breakdown; for indoor narration in general, our guide to museum narration rules.

Your group already carries the hardware. Install the guide app, create a tour and share its QR code in the group reception area: participants listen on their own phones and earphones, and you speak at conversational volume. See how the broadcast works, what a season costs and how the Louvre compares with other sites in our tour group headset rules by country.

Translations from French are ours; the French originals are authoritative. Rules checked on 2 October 2026.