Hofburg Tickets: Sisi Museum, Treasury and Spanish Riding School

The short version

The Hofburg was the Habsburgs' winter residence and seat of power for more than six centuries, and it is not one sight but a whole quarter of the Innere Stadt: courtyards, wings and chapels that today house museums, a library, a riding school, the Austrian president's offices and a congress centre. Each attraction inside is run separately and has its own ticket — which is why visitors get confused.

What most first-time visitors should buy (prices checked September 2026 on the official sites named below):

• The Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments — €20. The core Hofburg visit, about an hour, on a fixed time slot. Buy only at imperialtickets.com.
• Add the Spanish Riding School if you love horses: morning exercise from €17, performances from €26.
• Add the State Hall of the National Library — €12 — for one of the most beautiful Baroque rooms in Europe.
• Visiting Schönbrunn too? The Sisi Pass (€60) bundles both palaces with the Furniture Museum.

Two things to know in autumn 2026: the Silver Collection is closed, and sisimuseum-hofburg.at announces a final refurbishment phase from 6 October to 18 November 2026, with reduced opening hours of 10:00–16:30 and 25% off tickets in that period. Check the official site before booking.

The Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments

This is the Hofburg ticket most people mean. The route begins with the Sisi Museum, which tells the story of Empress Elisabeth — her flight from court life, her beauty regime, her travels and her assassination in Geneva in 1898 — through personal objects, dresses and reconstructions. It then continues into the Imperial Apartments, the rooms where Franz Joseph worked and received audiences and where he and Elisabeth lived: the audience chamber with its standing desk, the emperor's modest iron bed, the empress's gymnastics equipment in her dressing room.

Prices (sisimuseum-hofburg.at, checked September 2026):

| Ticket | Price | |---|---| | Adult | €20 | | Children and teenagers 6–18 | €12 | | Students 19–25 | €18 | | With guided tour | €25 |

• Duration: about 60 minutes. An audioguide is included.
• Time slots: entry is on a fixed time slot. Mornings sell out first in high season, so book a day or two ahead.
• Where to buy: the Sisi Museum and Schönbrunn state that genuine online tickets are sold only through imperialtickets.com. Other websites resell the same entry, often at a mark-up or bundled with extras you do not need.
• Entrance: under the dome of the Michaelertrakt, from Michaelerplatz.

Is the guided tour worth €5 more? For Sisi enthusiasts, yes: a good guide brings out the gap between the myth and the woman, which the displays only hint at. Otherwise the audioguide is enough. For background before you go, read our portrait of Empress Sisi.

The Sisi Pass: Hofburg plus Schönbrunn

If you plan to visit Schönbrunn Palace as well, look at the Sisi Pass — €60. It covers a palace visit at Schönbrunn, the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg, and the Furniture Museum (Hofmobiliendepot), and it is valid for a year (schoenbrunn.at, checked September 2026).

The arithmetic: bought separately, the Hofburg ticket (€20) plus the Schönbrunn Palace Ticket (€42) come to €62, or €50 with the shorter State Apartments (€30). Check on schoenbrunn.at which Schönbrunn route the pass currently includes: if it is the full Palace Ticket, the Sisi Pass is cheaper even before the Furniture Museum; if it is the shorter route, the pass costs about €10 more and only pays off if you want the Furniture Museum too. If you are only doing one palace, it is not worth it. Our Schönbrunn tickets guide explains the choice between the Palace Ticket and the State Apartments there.

The Spanish Riding School

The Spanish Riding School is the oldest riding school in the world still practising classical horsemanship, and its white Lipizzaner stallions perform in the Baroque Winter Riding School inside the Hofburg, on Michaelerplatz. There are three ways in (srs.at, checked September 2026):

• Morning exercise — from €17. You watch the riders train the horses to music in the morning, and can usually come and go as you like. The best value, and the most relaxed.
• Performances — from €26. The full choreographed programme. Tickets in the best seats cost considerably more and sell out weeks ahead.
• Guided tours — from €24. The stables and the riding hall, without the horses performing.

The schedule changes through the year and the horses have breaks, so check dates on srs.at before planning around it. If you can only do one, take the morning exercise.

The Imperial Treasury

The Imperial Treasury (Kaiserliche Schatzkammer), in the oldest part of the palace around the Swiss Court, is for many the finest thing in the Hofburg. It holds the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, around a thousand years old, the crown of the Austrian Empire, coronation robes, and relics and treasures collected by the dynasty over centuries. It is run by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, separately from the Sisi Museum, so it needs its own ticket — check current prices and opening days on the museum's site. Allow an hour; it is much quieter than the Sisi Museum.

The State Hall of the National Library

The State Hall (Prunksaal) of the Austrian National Library, on Josefsplatz, is one of the great Baroque library interiors in the world: a long gallery of walnut shelves, frescoed ceilings and marble statues of the Habsburg emperors, with some 200,000 old volumes. €12 for adults, €10 reduced, with an audioguide for €3 (onb.ac.at, checked September 2026). Forty-five minutes is enough, and it combines naturally with the Spanish Riding School next door.

The rest of the Hofburg, much of it free

• Heldenplatz — the vast Heroes' Square, framed by the curved Neue Burg, the last and largest wing of the palace. Free, and the best place to understand the Hofburg's scale.
• Burggarten and Volksgarten — the former imperial gardens on either side, free to enter. The Volksgarten's rose garden is at its best in June.
• Augustinian Church — the Habsburgs' parish church, where Franz Joseph and Elisabeth married in 1854.
• Weltmuseum Wien — the world-cultures museum inside the Neue Burg, with its own ticket.
• The Vienna Boys Choir sings Sunday Mass in the Hofburg chapel at 09:15 during the season from September to June, with members of the State Opera orchestra and chorus. Tickets are sold online through culturall.com (hofmusikkapelle.gv.at, checked September 2026). See our concerts page for more.

Just outside, the Albertina occupies a former Habsburg palace on the bastion (€20.90, albertina.at, checked September 2026), and the Imperial Crypt under the Capuchin Church, five minutes away, is where the Habsburgs — Maria Theresa, Franz Joseph, Elisabeth — are buried.

Sample Hofburg plans

Two hours (the essentials): Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments (€20), then a walk through Heldenplatz and the Burggarten.

Half a day (the imperial morning): Spanish Riding School morning exercise (from €17), State Hall (€12), Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments (€20). From €49 in total — book the Sisi slot for late morning.

A full day (the Habsburg deep dive): add the Imperial Treasury and the Imperial Crypt, with lunch in between. Finish with cake at Demel, the former imperial confectioner on Kohlmarkt, two minutes from Michaelerplatz, or with a coffee at Café Bräunerhof, which reopened in June 2026.

Hofburg, Schönbrunn or Belvedere?

• The Hofburg is the city palace and seat of government: short visits, central, easy to combine with the old town. Best if you have limited time.
• Schönbrunn is the summer palace: grander rooms, the gardens and the Gloriette, but half a day with the journey. See the Schönbrunn tickets guide.
• The Belvedere is about art — Klimt's *The Kiss* — rather than imperial life. See the Belvedere tickets guide.

With two days, do all three. Our palaces page sets them side by side, and Habsburg Vienna tells the story of the dynasty that built them. Wondering whether a sightseeing card would save money here? Read Vienna City Card vs Vienna PASS first.