Museum Pass Türkiye, İstanbul and the regional passes for visiting Turkey

The five passes

Prices and site counts from the Ministry’s own product pages. Every pass runs from your first museum entrance, not from the day you buy it, and every one gives a single entrance per museum.

• Museum Pass Türkiye: €165

  Museum Pass Türkiye

  €165

  15 days · 350+ sites · Ministry sites and National Palaces, nationwide

  The only one that works when a route crosses regions -- Cappadocia and Ephesus in the same fortnight, for example.

• Museum Pass İstanbul: €105

  Museum Pass İstanbul

  €105

  5 days · 13 sites · İstanbul

  Thirteen museums in İstanbul over five days. Worth it on a city break where the museums are the plan rather than a stop on the way somewhere else.

• Museum Pass Ege: €95

  Museum Pass Ege

  €95

  7 days · 40+ sites · İzmir, Aydın, Muğla, and Denizli

  Ephesus, Pergamon, Aphrodisias and the Bodrum peninsula sit inside these four provinces.

• Museum Pass Akdeniz: €90

  Museum Pass Akdeniz

  €90

  7 days · 40+ sites · Antalya, Mersin, Adana, and Denizli

  Perge, Aspendos, Side and the Antalya museums. Note that Denizli appears here and in the Aegean pass.

• Museum Pass Kapadokya: €65

  Museum Pass Kapadokya

  €65

  3 days · 10+ sites · Nevşehir and Aksaray

  Three days is short. It fits the classic Göreme and underground-cities itinerary and not much more.

The Ministry’s fee schedule also lists Patara, Olympos and Phaselis pass cards (€55, €60 and €60 for ten entries). They are beach access cards rather than museum passes, which is why they are not in the table above.

Prices and conditions on this page come from the Ministry’s own directive on museum entry (its fee schedules, card types and free-entry list) and from the Turkish versions of its product pages; the two agree. The Ministry revises fees by administrative decision, so confirm at the counter before you quote a number to a group.

Museum Pass İstanbul: €105, 5 days

Single tickets for the open museums on the list that are priced in euro add up to €112; the pass costs €105. Topkapı with the Harem and Hagia Irene is covered too and sells separately for 2,750 TL to foreign visitors. The calculator in the card finder checks your own plan.

The product page counts 13 museums. These are the places on the pass’s official coverage map, with the single ticket a foreign visitor would otherwise buy:

• Topkapı PalaceNational Palaces fee, in lira
• Topkapı HaremNational Palaces fee, in lira
• Hagia IreneNational Palaces fee, in lira
• İstanbul Archaeology Museums€15
• Galata Tower€30
• Maiden’s Tower€27
• Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts€17
• Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam€10
• Galata Mevlevi Lodge Museum€7
• Rumeli Fortress€6
• Adam Mickiewicz Museumfree
• Great Palace Mosaic Museumlisted as closed in the Ministry’s fee schedule€10

Which pass fits which route

• Count the provinces, not the days

  A regional pass stops working the moment the route leaves its provinces. If a single stop sits outside, the nationwide pass is usually cheaper once you add the separate tickets back in.

• Denizli is in two passes -- but not the pool

  Pamukkale and Hierapolis sit in Denizli, which appears in both the Aegean and the Mediterranean pass. Neither covers the Ancient Pool at Pamukkale; that is a separate ticket, and it is the part visitors ask about.

• The clock starts at the first turnstile

  Validity runs from the first museum entrance, not from purchase. Buying the pass the night before costs nothing; scanning it at a small site to “test it” costs a day.

The rules that catch people out

• One entrance per museum

  Every pass page states it: the pass provides one entrance to each museum. Going back in the same afternoon means buying a ticket. The annual card allows two.

• It stops before closing time

  The pass is not valid for the night museum programme after 19:00, and last entry is earlier still: the Ministry publishes 18:14 for the Galata Tower and 18:45 for the İstanbul Archaeological Museums and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts.

• Regional passes cover fewer sites than people assume

  The İstanbul pass covers thirteen museums, not everything with a ticket booth in the city. Private museums, city tourist cards and Bosphorus attractions are separate purchases.

What the passes cover, and what they do not

The passes follow different rules from the annual card. The MüzeKart exclusion list does not apply to them.

• Topkapı Harem and Hagia Irene are included

  Both are on the official coverage map of the İstanbul and Türkiye passes, and neither pass page excludes them. The annual MüzeKart, by contrast, does not cover them.

• The Ancient Pool at Pamukkale is not

  The Aegean and Mediterranean pass pages both say so. It is a separate ticket.

• Terrace Houses and the Dark Church: confirm first

  The coverage map lists them, but the Ministry prices both separately and reports from the gate differ. Budget for a separate ticket until the desk says otherwise.

• Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern are outside every pass

  Hagia Sophia is a mosque with its own ticket for foreign visitors; the cistern belongs to the city municipality.

Museum entry in Türkiye, in numbers

Counted from the Ministry’s own lists: its directive on museum entry and the coverage lists on its product pages. Private and municipal museums are not included.

What the numbers count: 363 places listed in the directive; 315 open places with a fee line; 382 points on the Museum Pass Türkiye map; 417 places in the museum lookup, National Palaces included.

• 363 Ministry museums and sites

  listed in the Ministry’s entry directive, across 73 provinces.

• 40% free for everyone

  127 of the 315 open places in the fee schedule charge nobody.

• 58% MüzeKart only for citizens

  At 182 paid places, Turkish citizens can enter only with a MüzeKart; there is no single ticket for them.

• 7 need a separate ticket

  places where a MüzeKart is not enough, the Topkapı Harem and the Terrace Houses at Ephesus among them. At some, the card gives a discount on the ticket. The Dolmabahçe Selamlık, a section of a palace the card opens, is not counted.

• 382 on the Museum Pass Türkiye map

  places on its official coverage map. The İstanbul pass covers 13 museums.

• €40 most expensive ticket in the fee schedule

  for foreign visitors, at Ephesus. Half of the paid places cost €3 or less. The National Palaces set their own fees in lira: Topkapı with the Harem and Hagia Irene is 2,750 TL.

Source: Ministry of Culture and Tourism entry directive and product pages, checked Sep 24, 2026.

Common questions

Our guides to museums and sites

Place-by-place write-ups with the visiting order, how long to allow and notes from the ticket desk.

• Ephesus
• Hierapolis and Pamukkale
• Pergamon Acropolis
• Bergama Museum
• Didyma
• Ephesus Museum
• Göbeklitepe
• Karahantepe
• Miletus
• Miletus Museum
• Pergamon Asklepion
• Priene

All destinations