In Istanbul, there are two types of Museum Pass that you can buy for your Istanbul museums visits. One of them is owned and offered by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other one is offered by the authorized travel agents.
Ministry’s Museum Pass Istanbul Mobile
This Museum Pass offers access to 10 museums in Istanbul under the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Directorate of National Palaces, which also means State Museums. All these museums can be visited for 5 days with Museum Pass.
Museums included
- Topkapi Palace Museum + Harem
- Hagia Irene Museum
- Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts
- Istanbul Archaeology Museums
- Chora Museum
- Great Palace Mosaics Museum
- Museum of History of Science and Technology in Islam
- Galata Mevlevi Lodge Museum
- Galata Tower Museum
- Rumeli Fortress Museum
Pricing & Validity
Valid for 5 days starting from your first visit.
Price is 700 TL
How to Buy?
You can buy this museum pass online from the official Museum Pass Istanbul Mobile website. Alternatively, you can directly buy the Istanbul Museum Pass (with your ID card) at the ticket windows at the museums.
Important Notice : You’ll see or read elsewhere another Museum Pass named Müzekart+, which gives access to unlimited visits to more than 300 museums and archaeological sites in Turkey, valid for 1 year. Note that this museum card is only for Turkish citizens and foreign residents in Turkey having “ID Number”.
Alternative Istanbul Museum Passes
These types of Museum Passes are offered bu authorized sellers. They are like similar ones of the above Museum Pass Mobile offered by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism. They differ with the number of museums included and price. We recommend the below ones as you will save a lot.
Guided Museum Passes Istanbul
These types of Passes are offered bu authorized sellers and a good option for the ones who want to see the most visited Museums in Istanbul with a guide. Typical passes include the 5-12 most visited museums plus 3-5 of them with guide.
Online City Pass – Istanbul E-Pass
This is a digital travel discount pass that is delivered to your phone upon your purchase online, and will be ready to use at your arrival. It includes 35+ attractions and services including skip the line access and guided museum tours, dinner cruise, hop-on & hop-off Bus, airport transfer, and many more.
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Online City Pass – Istanbul Tourist Pass
Istanbul Tourist Pass is a digital travel discount card that provides entrance and transportation tickets to many of Istanbul’s top tourist attractions along with several guided museum tours with skip-the-line access in a simple, useful, convenient and fun way.
Rather than paying for each item individually, the pass allows you to choose from 75+ things to do in Istanbul so you can pack as much into your stay as possible for a single set price. You’ll get valuable discounts of up to 75%.
After you purchase the pass, it will be delivered to mobile phone and will be ready to use at upon arrival.
There are four types of Istanbul Tourist Pass (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 or 10-Day).
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Online City Pass – Istanbul Welcome Card
The is an innovative city pass. It includes fast track entry to 9 museums (Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Harem, Basilica Cistern, etc), 3 tours with historian guide, 20 rides with public transportation (IstanbulKart), Bosphorus Cruise and digital guide book and city map. It also offers 20% discounts at the most important Istanbul attractions on their shop. With this card you’ll skip the long ticket lines and not have to pick anything up.
Buy Your Istanbul Welcome Card Deluxe
Click the red button to go straight to Istanbul Welcome Card, our best collaborator and inventor of the card.
Our website visitors will get 5% extra discount.
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Ministry’s Museum Pass vs Others
We can see that you may get confused about which museum pass you should buy. Let us guide you through this and give you our recommendations.
Summary of all
* We recommend the Ministry’s Museum Pass (10 top Museums), if you are a sole traveler and don’t want guides. It costs 700 TL. (around €35-40).
* Alternatively, if you want guided museum tours with skip-the-line access, we would recommend the 5-Day Guided Museum Pass, Istanbul Tourist Pass, Istanbul E-Pass or Istanbul Welcome Card Deluxe. These passes are about €5-10 expensive but they include guided tours with fast track entry. These also worth a buy.
* We also can say that, majority of the tourists visit only Hagia Sophia, Dolmabahce Palace, Topkapi Palace, Harem and Basilica Cistern during their stay in Istanbul. Because they also take other shore excursions, attractions and neighborhood visits within a limited time of stay.
* Also guided tours are mostly preferred by the tourists as they want to learn more about the history of the place they visit from a professional guide, especially when we speak about Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and Basilica Cistern.
* Skip-the-line-access is also a great choice because you’ll see a long queue at Dolmabahce Palace and Topkapi Palace Museums in almost every season and queues are always a mass.
* Majority of the tourists take some other must-do attractions during their Istanbul visit, like each of us do when we visit a tourist. It can be cruises, specific shows, theme parks, and some other city sightseeing tours. So these 5-Day Guided Museum Pass, Istanbul Tourist Pass, Istanbul E-Pass or Istanbul Welcome Card Deluxe are great value for money tourist passes.
Hi, I am interested in the museum card plus, but wondering about the pick up point. It states the hagia sofia but as the hagia is closed on monday can you still pick up tickets on a monday (to explore the rest of the city)?
Hi Gavin, thanks, and no problem with that. The IWC guides wear red Polo and hold a sign with the inscription Istanbul Welcome Card, and they are there between 09:00-15:00. You can easily catch them in front of Hagia Sophia and take your Museum Pass. There’s nothing to do with Hagia Sophia’s being closed on Mondays.
I ordered the IWC Museum Pass card online and the ordering process was really clear and smooth. The pickup in front of the Hagia Sophia also went really well, as there are multiple time slots to pick up the Istanbul Museum Pass within a day, along with helpful staff members to assist us. This pass really saves a lot of time when visiting Istanbul, as there are always a lot of tourists queuing up in front the most famous tourist attractions, such as Hagia Sophia or Topkapi Palace. Regarding its value, it’s also really worth it if more than 3 or 4 museums/sites are visited. Highly recommend this pass in terms of both time-wise and economic-wise.
I ordered my card IWC Museum Pass online and was able to pick it up from a guide at Hagia Sofia. It was convenient since I could visit that right away. There are many other included museums and I think it’s a very economic option in monetary terms but mostly in time that is not spent on queueing anymore.