Are city passes worth it? Break-even for Paris, Rome and Vienna

A city pass sells a bundle, and a bundle is only worth buying if you would have bought most of its contents at the full price anyway. The sums below use prices read on each official page, show every step, and state the assumptions. Where a price could not be read, the city or the line is left out.

Three cities are covered: Paris, Rome and Vienna. London is not, because the London Pass pages blocked the check and no official figure could be read. No estimate stands in for it.

The table gives each pass and its listed price. The Paris pass price comes from a copy of the pass site dated 13 August 2026, because the live site would not load for the check; the others were read on 2 October 2026.

Prices drift between pages. A Paris museum page still lists the pass at 70, 90 and 110 euros, and the ATAC page in Rome lists the Roma Pass at 52 and 32 euros. Both differ from the pass owners' figures. Use the owner's figure, as on the Paris Museum Pass site, Turismo Roma's Roma Pass page and the Vienna City Card page, and confirm it on the day.

The Paris Museum Pass has no discounts; it replaces each ticket. So the test is the sum of the single tickets you would otherwise buy. These are the listed adult prices on the official pages, read on 2 October 2026, for sights the pass covers.

• Louvre: 32 euros for non-EEA visitors, 22 for EEA visitors, from the Louvre's hours and admission page.

• Versailles Passport: 35 euros in high season, 25 in low season, from the palace's FAQ.

• Musée de l'Armée: 17 euros, from its opening times and prices page.

• Arc de Triomphe: 16 euros, from the monument's site.

• Conciergerie: 13 euros, from the monument's site.

• Musée de l'Orangerie: 12.50 euros booked online, from its visit page.

A three-day trip needs the 4-day pass at 105 euros, because the 2-day pass covers 48 consecutive hours. Six sights across the three days, for a non-EEA adult in high season, cost 32 + 35 + 17 + 16 + 13 + 12.50 = 125.50 euros. The pass saves 20.50 euros. Five sights is where the sums turn: the pass site itself says the 4-day pass saves on average from the 5th visit, and 105 divided by the 20.92 euro average of these six is just over five.

The 2-day pass at 85 euros works only for a packed pair of days. The Louvre, Versailles, the Arc de Triomphe and the Orangerie come to 32 + 35 + 16 + 12.50 = 95.50 euros, a saving of 10.50 euros, and all four must fall inside 48 hours of the first entry. Drop the Orangerie and the singles cost 83 euros, so the pass loses 2 euros.

Orsay and the Sainte-Chapelle are left out of these sums because no current official price was readable for Orsay, and the pass page read did not list the Sainte-Chapelle. Add them from the owner's price page if they are on your plan.

Two rules change the sum. EEA residents under 26 enter the Louvre free, the Arc de Triomphe and the Sainte-Chapelle list free admission for EU residents under 26, and the Conciergerie lists free entry for under-26s, so the pass buys them nothing. And the pass does not remove the booking step: its FAQ says a free reservation is needed where a time slot is mandatory, and Versailles requires one. See Versailles tickets and timed entry for the slot rules, and the Paris guide for where each sight is.

Rome's pass includes public transport, so the arithmetic starts there. Roma Capitale's tourism site lists the 72-hour pass at 62.90 euros and the 48-hour pass at 38 euros. ATAC, the transport operator, lists a 72-hour ticket at 22 euros, a 48-hour ticket at 15 euros and a single 100-minute ticket at 1.50 euros on its tickets page.

The pass must make up its price through entries. Subtract the transport you would have bought, and what remains is the saving the pass must deliver on entries.

Only one entry price here is verified on the owner's page: the 24-hour Colosseum, Forum and Palatine ticket at 18 euros, listed with a Roma Pass price of 11.50 euros, according to a copy of colosseo.it dated 30 September 2026. That is a saving of 6.50 euros. How many entries the pass makes free, and at which sites, sits on romapass.it. So no worked three-day Rome itinerary is given here. To finish the sum yourself, take the transport line that matches your plans from the table, then list the full price of each site the pass makes free, and compare. If the full prices of those sites do not add up to the figure in the last column, the pass loses.

The Colosseum's own page says a time slot is compulsory for every Colosseum ticket, so holding the pass does not remove the booking. For the booking windows, see which European attractions sell out and the Rome guide.

The Vienna City Card prices fall steeply with length: 19 euros for 24 hours, 15.50 a day for 48 hours, 12.33 a day for 72 hours, and 5.57 a day for 7 days at 39 euros. The 7-day card costs only 2 euros more than the 72-hour card, so a stay of four days or more should price the 7-day card, since transport is covered for all seven.

Discounts on sights are small. The Vienna Tourist Board publishes a three-day example with the savings per item. Counting only the attractions in it, the sums are:

• Day 1: Spanish Riding School 2, State Hall of the National Library 2, Albertina 2, a total of 6 euros.

• Day 2: House of Music 4, Schönbrunn Zoo 4, Schloss Schönbrunn Sisi Pass 2, a total of 10 euros.

• Day 3: Belvedere 2in1 ticket 2.50, bike tour 9, Giant Ferris Wheel 1, a total of 12.50 euros.

That is 28.50 euros of attraction discounts across nine sights. The board's example lists a total saving of 106.10 euros, but 53.60 euros of that comes from a musical, a concert and a dinner show, and 24 euros from meals and shopping. Attractions are the smaller part.

With a 72-hour card at 37 euros, those nine discounts cover 28.50 euros, so the card pays if the transport you would otherwise buy costs 8.50 euros or more. With fewer sights the transport share rises. Take six of them: Spanish Riding School 2, Albertina 2, House of Music 4, Sisi Pass 2, Belvedere 2.50 and the Ferris Wheel 1, which is 13.50 euros. Transport must then supply the remaining 23.50 euros. Wiener Linien's ticket pages did not show readable fares on the check date, so price your own transport on wienerlinien.at before deciding. One child up to 15, or a dog, travels free with each card, which adds to the card's value for families.

• Few paid sights. Four sights in Paris at 73.50 euros against a 105 euro pass is a loss of 31.50 euros.

• Free entry for you already. Under-26 EEA residents enter the Louvre free, and free-entry days exist: the Louvre is free on the first Friday evening of the month except July and August and on 14 July, and the Colosseum lists free entry on the first Sunday of the month.

• Sights that need a fixed slot anyway. The Colosseum requires a booked time with every ticket, so a pass adds no way around the booking.

• Short, walkable stays. In Rome and Vienna, if you would walk, the pass must earn its whole price from entries and discounts alone.

• Dates that move. Check each pass's refund terms before buying, because the tickets that make the sum work may be the ones you cannot change.

Put the pass price at the top, the full prices of your listed sights below it, and subtract. If a sight on the list is free for you, remove it before adding up. If the result is within a few euros, buy single tickets: they carry no activation clock and no wasted day. For where to buy them, see official sites versus resellers. For passes on trains rather than sights, see is a Eurail pass worth it and the Swiss Travel Pass.