Castle tickets: Main circuit or tour

What the Main circuit covers

The Main circuit is the castle's standard visitor ticket. It covers four historic buildings: St Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, St George's Basilica and Golden Lane. The castle's tickets page says you can buy it at the information centres inside the castle and, for the Main circuit, online through GetYourGuide. The online ticket is scanned at the door of each building, so you can start at any of them. There is no meeting point and no guide. It stays valid for two consecutive days, with one entry to each building.

Read next: Golden Lane, the Royal Palace, and St George's Basilica

The other tickets the castle sells

The castle's price list shows tickets beyond the Main circuit, and each one is separate. A Permanent exhibitions ticket covers The Story of Prague Castle, the Castle Guard Exhibition, the Picture Gallery and Rosenberg Palace. The Picture Gallery also has a ticket of its own. The Great South Tower of the cathedral, with its viewing gallery, is a further ticket. The Main circuit includes none of these. The price list on hrad.cz is the one the castle links, so check it for the current set before you plan around an exhibition.

Circuit A, B or C?

You may still see Circuit A, Circuit B and Circuit C in older guides, listings and forum posts. The English price list the castle links from its tickets page does not use those letters. It names a Main circuit and a separate Permanent exhibitions ticket, and it lists the buildings in each. So compare tickets by the buildings they name, not by a letter. If a description names the Old Royal Palace, St Vitus Cathedral, St George's Basilica and Golden Lane, it matches the Main circuit.

Main circuit or guided tour?

The Main circuit is self-guided, so you set the pace and the order. A guided tour adds someone to explain what you are looking at. The castle runs its own tours in English, German, Italian, Spanish and French. They are charged per person per hour on top of a valid ticket, with a minimum group of four, and they are booked and paid for at the information centre in the Third Courtyard. The castle's rules allow only suitably licensed guides to lead paid tours on the site. Private operators sell guided visits too. Choose a tour for context and a fixed plan, and the ticket for freedom.

Audioguide or app

The audioguide sits between a ticket alone and a live guide. The castle rents devices at the information centre in the Third Courtyard. They hold 96 stops and about three hours of recordings, in Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Korean, and you can switch language at any time. They cover building exteriors and the interiors of St Vitus Cathedral, St George's Basilica and the Old Royal Palace. Dutch and Portuguese are not among the languages. The castle also offers a free mobile app for the archaeological underground, for Android and iOS.

Booking ahead or buying at the castle

You can buy at the castle's information centres in the Second and Third Courtyards, or book the Main circuit online beforehand. Booking ahead saves the ticket-office queue. It does not skip the security search, which police can require of any visitor. The castle says tickets bought from it cannot be refunded. Booked through GetYourGuide, the Main circuit can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before, and you can reserve now and pay later. Changes inside 24 hours are not refunded, and nor is a partial closure of buildings.

Is St Vitus Cathedral free?

Not at the moment, according to the castle. Its cathedral page says the free part has been inaccessible since 25 October 2023, until further notice, and that the cathedral can only be visited with a valid circuit ticket. The cathedral's own visitor page lists a paid visit only. Many websites still describe a free view of the nave, so they may be out of date. People attending a service enter without the fee. Tours are not possible during religious services or cultural events, and last admission is 20 minutes before closing.

What you can see for free

Entry to the castle complex itself is free, apart from the buildings that need a ticket. That covers the courtyards, the streets inside the walls, the Garden on the Bastion and, in season, the Royal Garden, the South Gardens and the Stag Moat. The gardens close from November to February. Watching the changing of the guard costs nothing either. What you cannot do for free is go inside the four Main circuit buildings. The rules also ban picnics outside designated areas, and cycling or scooters anywhere in the complex.

Children, students and seniors

The castle's price list gives free entry to children under six and to holders of a disability card, with any companion named on the card. It lists reduced tickets for ages six to sixteen, full-time students up to twenty-six and adults aged sixty-five and over, plus a family ticket for one to five children under sixteen with at most two adults. Reductions need an official document as proof. The booking page shows which of these categories it sells, and a student ticket needs student ID at the door.

Closures and your ticket

The castle can close buildings, or the whole site, for operational or state-ceremonial reasons, and it posts notices on its closures page. The cathedral also keeps shorter hours on some days for liturgical reasons. A booking made online carries a clear condition: partial closures of buildings are not refunded. So check the closures page for your dates before you pick a day, and again the day before. The two-day validity gives you a second day to work with.

Read next: Prague Castle hours and best time

Who this isn't for

The Main circuit is the wrong ticket if you only want the Great South Tower, the Picture Gallery or the exhibitions, because those are separate. It is not a guided tour, so it won't suit anyone who wants every room explained. It won't suit a visitor counting on a free look inside the cathedral, because the castle says no free part is open at present. And changes inside 24 hours are not refunded, so if your dates are uncertain, book once they are firm.