Free Museums in Frankfurt: Under-18s Never Pay at City Museums, and Every Last Saturday Is Free for All

Two Kinds of Museum, Two Sets of Rules

Frankfurt’s museum prices depend on who runs the museum. The city’s price regulation applies to the city-run houses: the Archäologisches Museum, the Caricatura Museum, the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, the Hindemith Kabinett, the Historisches Museum, the Ikonenmuseum, the Institut für Stadtgeschichte, the Jüdisches Museum with the Museum Judengasse, the Junges Museum, the Museum Angewandte Kunst, the three MMK sites, the Porzellan Museum and the Weltkulturen Museum. Adults pay between 6 and 20 EUR there, and the reduced price is always half.

Everything else follows its own prices, among them the Städel, the Senckenberg Naturmuseum, the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and the Goethe-Haus. The rules below say which kind of museum they apply to, and this is the single most useful thing to know before you queue. Our Museumsufer family guide lists what you can see where.

Under 18: Free in City Museums, KUFTI for the Rest

In the city-run museums, children and young people up to the 18th birthday enter free on any open day, with proof of age. No ticket is needed.

For the other museums and the zoo there is the Kultur- und Freizeitticket. The city page and the KUFTI site explain it:

• It is free for under-18s who live, attend school or attend a Kita in Frankfurt, if the household’s net income is below 4,500 EUR a month.
• Everyone else, including families who live outside Frankfurt, pays 29 EUR a year.
• You order it online or at a Sozialrathaus, where it can be requested together with the Frankfurt-Pass. The city may check the income statement by sample.
• Staff scan the ticket at the desk and may ask for a school or health insurance card. From age 16 it is valid only with an ID.

The KUFTI list of venues includes the Städel Museum and the Senckenberg Naturmuseum. Without the ticket, the Senckenberg charges 6 EUR for children and young people from 6 to 17 and 12 EUR for adults.

More With a KUFTI

The ticket brings extras beyond free entry. According to the KUFTI site, it also gives free entry to the annual Nacht der Museen in Frankfurt and Offenbach, and it opens limited free places in the Stadturlaub am Museumsufer, a week of museum holiday camp in the first three weeks of the summer holidays, each day from 9:00 to 16:00 with a programme in two museums. A Frankfurt-Pass works for those places as well. Each March a programme called the Reisendes Museum brings workshops into neighbourhood libraries, followed by a family tour in the museum, with public transport costs covered for families who need an escort.

Satourday: Free for Everyone

On the last Saturday of the month, Museumsufer Frankfurt lists free entry for all visitors in the city-run museums, and in the Dommuseum. At the Museum für Kommunikation and the Museum Giersch only the adults pay on that day. In August the date moves to the second-to-last Saturday, because the last Saturday belongs to the river festival described in our Museumsuferfest guide.

Adults: Who Pays Less

The same price regulation lists the groups who enter free of charge with proof: apprentices, students of the four named Frankfurt universities, holders of the Frankfurter or Hessische Ehrenamts-Card and ICOM members. Pupils, other students, volunteers in the federal and social year services, unemployed people, people with a disability grade of 50 or more and Frankfurt Card holders pay half. A ticket is valid for the day of purchase, and you may leave and re-enter the same day.

The free entry for students is tied to the four named institutions, so a student of another university pays the reduced rate.

The Frankfurt-Pass and the Kulturpass lower the fee to 1 EUR for permanent and special exhibitions in the city-run houses. Our guide to free culture for low-income families explains who qualifies and where to get the cards.

MuseumsuferTicket and MuseumsuferCard

Both cover permanent and special exhibitions of the participating museums. At the Städel, the Card does not cover large special exhibitions with international loans, a rule the official page dates from 1 January 2022.

The Städel’s ticket information lists adults at 19 EUR, reduced at 17 EUR and a Tuesday special at 10 EUR from 3 pm, and its English ticket page shows timed tickets starting at 17 EUR. A visitor who plans only one major exhibition will not need a pass, but anyone who visits several houses over two days, or goes often through the year, should compare.

How to Use This

1. Check whether the museum is city-run. If it is, under-18s, apprentices and students of the four universities walk in on proof.
2. For the Senckenberg and other private houses, order a KUFTI for each child online and show it at the desk. The Städel already admits children under 12, and under-18s with a ticketed adult, free.
3. Plan around the last Saturday of the month, and remember the August exception.
4. Carry the right proof: school or student ID, apprentice contract, Ehrenamts-Card or Frankfurt-Pass.
5. Ask for the reduced rate if you are a pupil, a student elsewhere, unemployed or have a disability grade of 50 or more.
6. For a two-day museum weekend, compare the MuseumsuferTicket with single entries.

Compliance Note

This guide describes the price rules of Museumsufer Frankfurt, the City of Frankfurt, the KUFTI programme and the websites of the Städel and the Senckenberg as published in October 2026. Prices, opening days and participating museums change, and individual museums may close for rebuilding or between exhibitions. Confirm the current rules on the museum’s own site before you go.