Key takeaways
- The memorial costs nothing and needs no booking: the pools, the names, the Survivor Tree and the Memorial Glade are open daily 8 am to 8 pm. The full split is on memorial vs museum.
- The museum sells timed entry, up to six months ahead, exchangeable or refundable up to 24 hours before; arrive 15 minutes early. How that works: do you need to book.
- Five of the six products are guided walks of 1.5 to 2.5 hours through the Oculus, St. Paul’s Chapel, the FDNY Ten House and the pools, with the museum as an option. Compared stop by stop on guided walks.
- Inside the museum the walking-tour guide does not lead; entry is self-guided unless the option with a museum docent is booked. The difference is explained on guided or self-guided.
- One World Observatory is a third, separate ticket, 1,268 feet up on floors 100 to 102, bundled on three of the six. Those three are on observatory combos.
- Bags larger than 8 by 17 by 19 inches go to the coat check, and no photography is allowed in two galleries. The rest of the rules: visitor rules.
What the museum’s timed ticket includes
The museum’s own ticket is valid for the chosen date and slot and covers the three permanent exhibitions in the museum below the plaza. The listing also carries the museum’s tour options: early access, a guided museum tour, flex entry and two family bundles. This is what the standard ticket covers and what it does not.
Highlights
- The Historical Exhibition: the day, the years before it and the years after it
- In Memoriam: portraits and personal belongings of the 2,983
- Foundation Hall, with the exposed slurry wall and the Last Column
- The two 80-foot steel tridents in the pavilion atrium, the Survivors’ Stairs and the FDNY Ladder Company 3 truck
What’s included
- Contactless timed entry to the museum for the selected date and slot
- All permanent exhibitions and free Wi-Fi
- The memorial plaza, the Survivor Tree and the Memorial Glade, which are free in any case
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours before; the audio guide is sold separately at the museum, in nine languages including ASL
The site, in three layers
The World Trade Center site is three places at three heights: the free memorial at street level, the ticketed museum about 70 feet below it, and One World Observatory 1,268 feet above it. Only the middle one needs the museum ticket.
The order below is the order a visitor on foot meets the site, arriving by PATH or subway. Stops 1 to 6 are outdoors and free. Stop 7 is the museum, on a timed ticket. Stop 8 is a separate ticket again. A guided walk covers most of stops 1 to 5 in 1.5 to 2.5 hours; the museum adds about an hour, in practice often two.
- The Oculus — The World Trade Center Transportation Hub by Santiago Calatrava, opened 3 March 2016, with the PATH station inside. Free to walk through; its skylight is opened for 102 minutes each 11 September.
- St. Paul’s Chapel — On Broadway between Fulton and Vesey Streets, completed 1766 and the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan. It stood unscathed on 11 September 2001 and served as a relief centre for about nine months. Free to enter.
- The FDNY Ten House wall — Engine 10 and Ladder 10 on Liberty Street, directly across from the site. The 56-foot bronze FDNY Memorial Wall on its Liberty Street side names the 343 firefighters killed.
- The South Pool — In the footprint of the South Tower, nearly an acre. Water falls 30 feet down the walls and then another 20 feet into a central void that cannot be seen into.
- The North Pool and the Survivor Tree — The second pool, in the North Tower’s footprint; the 2,983 names run around both. Nearby stands the Callery pear found alive in the rubble in October 2001 and returned to the plaza in December 2010.
- The Memorial Glade — A path on the south-west of the plaza with six granite monoliths inlaid with World Trade Center steel, dedicated on 30 May 2019 for the rescue and recovery workers who fell ill or died after the attacks.
- The museum pavilion and the descent — The glass pavilion at 180 Greenwich Street, with the two tridents in its atrium, is where the timed ticket is scanned. Airport-style security, then the ramp down to bedrock and the three permanent exhibitions.
- One World Observatory — Floors 100 to 102 of One World Trade Center, 1,268 feet up, with its own timed ticket and its own security. Three of the six products offer it as an option.
The same eight stops, arranged by the clock for a morning or a full day, are on one day at the site. What each layer costs, and who enters free, is on what it costs.
How booking works
Choose the layers
Museum only, a guided walk of the free outdoor part, or both; with or without One World Observatory. The memorial plaza itself needs no ticket.
Pick a date and a slot
The widget below shows live availability from GetYourGuide. Museum entry is timed, and tickets are sold up to six months ahead.
Book
Every one of the six options has free cancellation up to 24 hours before; the museum ticket can also be exchanged for another slot within the same window.
Arrive 15 minutes early
Bring the confirmation on a phone. For the museum, entry is not guaranteed early or late; for the walks, give your name to the guide at the meeting point.
Check dates for the museum’s timed ticket
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s own timed-entry ticket, with the early-access, guided-tour and flex options on the same listing. Pick a date and live availability appears here. Museum hours as published: Wednesday to Monday 9 am to 7 pm plus many Tuesdays, last admission an hour before closing; check the museum’s page before travelling.
Four 9/11 Museum tickets and tours, side by side
The museum’s own ticket, the guided walk with a museum option, the walk that adds the observatory, and the small-group walk, one column each. Short phrases only; the detail is on each option’s own page.
| The museum’s ticketNYC: 9/11 Memorial & Museum Timed Ticket with Tour Options | NYC: Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial Tour w/ Museum Option | 9/11 Memorial Tour with Museum and One World Entry Options | 9/11 Memorial & Ground Zero Tour with Optional Museum Entry | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Museum entry | Included, timed slot | Optional: self-guided or with a docent | Optional, on the Full Access options | Optional, self-guided |
| Guided walk | None; museum tours optional | Yes, 1.5 to 2.5 hours | Yes, 1.5 to 2.5 hours | Yes, 1.5 hours, max 20 people |
| Observatory | Not included | Not included | Optional, on the Full Access options | Not included |
| Meeting point | Museum pavilion, 180 Greenwich Street | L’Arte del Gelato | L’Arte del Gelato | M Social Hotel, across Church Street |
| Wheelchair | Fully accessible | Accessible | Accessible | Not suitable |
| Book this | Book this | Book this | Book this |
The museum’s ticketNYC: 9/11 Memorial & Museum Timed Ticket with Tour Options
- Museum entry
- Included, timed slot
- Guided walk
- None; museum tours optional
- Observatory
- Not included
- Meeting point
- Museum pavilion, 180 Greenwich Street
- Wheelchair
- Fully accessible
NYC: Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial Tour w/ Museum Option
- Museum entry
- Optional: self-guided or with a docent
- Guided walk
- Yes, 1.5 to 2.5 hours
- Observatory
- Not included
- Meeting point
- L’Arte del Gelato
- Wheelchair
- Accessible
9/11 Memorial Tour with Museum and One World Entry Options
- Museum entry
- Optional, on the Full Access options
- Guided walk
- Yes, 1.5 to 2.5 hours
- Observatory
- Optional, on the Full Access options
- Meeting point
- L’Arte del Gelato
- Wheelchair
- Accessible
9/11 Memorial & Ground Zero Tour with Optional Museum Entry
- Museum entry
- Optional, self-guided
- Guided walk
- Yes, 1.5 hours, max 20 people
- Observatory
- Not included
- Meeting point
- M Social Hotel, across Church Street
- Wheelchair
- Not suitable
Photo gallery
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum in nine photos
The pools, the plaza, the pavilion, the hall at bedrock, the Oculus and the lights.
The six 9/11 Memorial & Museum ticket and tour options
One timed ticket sold by the museum itself and five guided walks of the memorial, four of them with the museum as an option and three with One World Observatory as well. Every card links to the live GetYourGuide listing.
Museum ticketNYC: 9/11 Memorial & Museum Timed Ticket with Tour Options
Guided
walkNYC: Ground Zero 9/11 Memorial Tour w/ Museum Option
Walk,
museum, views9/11 Memorial Tour with Museum and One World Entry Options
No
museumNYC: 9/11 Memorial Tour and Optional Observatory Ticket
From
City Hall9/11 Memorial Tour with Optional Museum and One World Access
Max 20 people9/11 Memorial & Ground Zero Tour with Optional Museum Entry
What travellers mention afterwards
Short lines from travellers who booked these options, one per option.
Easy access without queueing. The museum is very tough.
The guide spoke with sincere heartache. Very emotional.
A difficult part of history explained in a personal, engaging way.
Sensitive details handled with expertise.
In-depth knowledge and a relaxed pace.
Incredibly emotional, and then so much hope.
Snippets from travellers who booked through GetYourGuide. Read the six options, close up ›
Quick answers before you book
Four short answers to common questions, with links to the full pages.
Memorial or museum?
The memorial is the plaza at street level: free, no ticket, open daily 8 am to 8 pm. The museum is underground beneath it, entered through the pavilion on a timed ticket. Both are set out on memorial vs museum.
Does a walking tour include the museum?
Only when the museum option is chosen, and then entry is self-guided unless the option with a museum docent is booked. One of the five walks does not offer the museum at all. The five are compared on guided walks.
What is inside the museum?
Three permanent exhibitions about 70 feet down: the Historical Exhibition, In Memoriam and Foundation Hall with the slurry wall and the Last Column, plus the tridents, the Survivors’ Stairs and the Ladder 3 truck. Room by room on what is inside.
Which subway stops there?
The 1 to WTC Cortlandt, the E to World Trade Center, the R to Cortlandt Street, and the A, C, J, Z, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to Fulton Street; PATH trains from New Jersey arrive inside the Oculus. Lines, buses and ferries on how to get there.
Other dates and options
More 9/11 Memorial & Museum tickets and tours with live availability, for dates when the attractions above are sold out.
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum, explained
What the site is, the free memorial, the ticketed museum, what the six options actually sell, four common mix-ups, and how a first visit fits into a morning.
What the site is
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum stands on the 16-acre World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, at 180 Greenwich Street. The memorial plaza takes up about half of the site and carries 2,983 names: the 2,977 people killed on 11 September 2001 in New York, at the Pentagon and on Flight 93, and the six killed in the bombing of 26 February 1993. The museum, opened on 21 May 2014, holds 110,000 square feet of exhibition space about 70 feet below the plaza, at the bedrock the towers stood on, and counted 23 million visitors in its first ten years.
The free memorial and its clock
Everything at street level is free and needs no booking. The design, “Reflecting Absence” by Michael Arad with landscape architect Peter Walker, opened to the public on 12 September 2011. Two pools, each nearly an acre, sit in the footprints of the North and South Towers; water falls 30 feet into each and then another 20 feet into a central void. The names run around the bronze parapets in “meaningful adjacencies”, grouping colleagues, flight crews and first-responder units. About 400 swamp white oaks shade the plaza, the Survivor Tree stands among them, and the Memorial Glade, dedicated on 30 May 2019, honours the rescue and recovery workers who fell ill or died after the attacks. Hours, as published, are 8 am to 8 pm daily; check the memorial’s own page before travelling.
The ticketed museum below
The museum is entered through the glass pavilion at 180 Greenwich Street, where the two 80-foot steel tridents from the North Tower stand in the atrium. Entry is on a timed ticket, sold up to six months ahead and exchangeable or refundable up to 24 hours before; visitors are asked to arrive 15 minutes ahead of the slot, and entry is not guaranteed early or late. Hours, as published, are Wednesday to Monday 9 am to 7 pm plus many Tuesdays, with last admission an hour before closing; check the museum’s special-hours page before travelling. Every visitor passes airport-style security. One bag no larger than 8 by 17 by 19 inches is allowed; larger bags go to the mandatory coat check. There is no flash anywhere and no photography at all in the Historical Exhibition or In Memoriam, and the museum does not recommend those two galleries for children under 10. The full list is on visitor rules.
Below the pavilion a ramp descends to three permanent exhibitions: the Historical Exhibition, on the day and the years either side of it; In Memoriam, with portraits and belongings of the 2,983; and Foundation Hall, where the slurry wall that held back the Hudson stands beside the Last Column, removed from the site in May 2002. The museum says to plan at least 45 to 90 minutes; many visitors spend around two hours inside. Room by room on what is inside.
What the six options actually sell
Only one of the six products on GetYourGuide is a museum ticket: the museum’s own timed entry, with its early-access, guided-tour, flex and family options on the same listing. The other five are guided walks of 1.5 to 2.5 hours through the free outdoor layer: the Oculus, St. Paul’s Chapel, the FDNY Ten House, the pools and the Survivor Tree, led by a local guide. Four offer museum entry as an add-on; inside, the visit is self-guided unless the option with a museum docent is booked, because the walking-tour guide does not lead below ground. Three also offer One World Observatory, a separate timed ticket on floors 100 to 102, 1,268 feet up, with its own security. One walk offers the observatory but not the museum, one starts at City Hall, and one is a group of at most 20 people and the only one not suited to wheelchair users. All six are compared on the tickets page.
Four common mix-ups
The Tribute in Light is not on every night. It is lit once a year, from dusk on 11 September to dawn on 12 September: 88 searchlights on the roof of the Battery Parking Garage, visible up to 60 miles away and paused for 20 minutes at a time when migrating birds gather in the beams. The empty centre of each pool is design, not damage: the water drops into a void that cannot be seen into, the architect’s “absence made visible”. The unidentified remains are kept behind a wall at bedrock, between the two footprints, under the care of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner; the repository is not an exhibit and is not visible to the public. And “Ground Zero”, the name the site acquired after the attacks, today means the free memorial plaza and the rebuilt World Trade Center, not the museum; the two are set out on memorial vs museum.
A first visit, in a morning
The plaza opens at 8 am, an hour before the museum, and is quietest early. PATH trains arrive inside the Oculus; by subway, the 1 to WTC Cortlandt and the E to World Trade Center are the closest. Half an hour at the pools, the names and the Survivor Tree fits before the first museum slot of the morning, and the museum then takes the rest of it. A guided walk booked for the afternoon covers St. Paul’s, the Ten House wall and the Oculus, and the observatory fits after it. Half-day and full-day versions are on one day at the site; transport on how to get there.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to book the 9/11 Museum in advance?
Yes for the museum, no for the memorial. Museum entry is timed and sold up to six months ahead; the ticket can be exchanged or refunded up to 24 hours before, and visitors are asked to arrive 15 minutes before the slot, with entry not guaranteed early or late. The plaza needs no ticket. Details on do you need to book.
How much does the 9/11 Museum cost?
The memorial is free. The museum charges for timed entry, with prices that change by date and option, so this site prints none and uses the live widget instead. Children aged 6 and under enter free but still need a ticket, and there are free Monday evenings and free first Sundays for New York residents. Who pays and who does not: what it costs.
What is the difference between the 9/11 Memorial and the Museum?
The memorial is the outdoor plaza: two pools in the tower footprints, 2,983 names, about 400 swamp white oaks, the Survivor Tree and the Memorial Glade, free daily 8 am to 8 pm. The museum is underground beneath it, 110,000 square feet at bedrock, on a timed ticket. The two are set out side by side on memorial vs museum.
How long do you need at the 9/11 Museum?
The museum says to plan at least 45 to 90 minutes; many visitors spend around two hours inside. Allow roughly 20–45 minutes for a look around the main memorial features, and a guided walk runs 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Walk, museum and observatory together fill a half day. Timings for each combination are on how long it takes.
What is the best time to visit the 9/11 Museum?
Early morning is often a practical choice if you want to start before the main daytime crowds, and the security line can take a while at midday. The days around the 11 September anniversary are the busiest of the year, and free Monday evenings fill quickly. By hour, day and season on the best time to visit.
Which 9/11 tour should you choose?
It depends on which layers are wanted. The museum alone is the museum’s own timed ticket. A guide for the outdoor part is one of the five walks. Four of the five walks are wheelchair accessible; the small-group option is the only one marked unsuitable for wheelchair users and is capped at 20 people. If you want the observatory too, choose one of the three options that adds One World Observatory. The choice by need is laid out on which tour.
Can you bring a backpack into the 9/11 Museum?
Yes, if it is no larger than 8 by 17 by 19 inches. Larger bags go to the mandatory coat check or are refused, and every visitor passes airport-style screening with magnetometers and bag inspection. Standard strollers are allowed inside; oversized and jogging strollers are not. The full list is on bags and security.
Are the 9/11 lights on every night?
No. The Tribute in Light is lit once a year, from dusk on 11 September to dawn on 12 September: 88 searchlights on the roof of the Battery Parking Garage, visible up to 60 miles away on a clear night, and switched off in 20-minute pauses when migrating birds gather in the beams. Where to watch from is on Tribute in Light.
Questions or corrections: [email protected]