Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments Reopen November 19 With the Silver Collection Back on the Route
The most visited part of the Hofburg is in the middle of a makeover. On 19 November 2026 the Imperial Apartments, the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Silver Collection reopen as one continuous route, with about 700 square metres of extra space, twelve new rooms along Schauflergasse and five Rococo rooms that have never been open to the public.
Until then the site is running a cut-down version. The Imperial Apartments are open. The Sisi Museum's exhibition rooms are closed. The Silver Collection has been shut since 1 April 2023. Prices are lower to match, and hours are shorter.
So if you're in Vienna before the reopening, you get Franz Joseph's and Elisabeth's private rooms at a discount. If you come after, you get the whole thing, and probably a queue.
What you're seeing
The Imperial Apartments are the rooms where Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth lived and worked when the court wintered in Vienna. They're kept as they were: about two dozen rooms on the first floor, from his study, where he worked through state papers at his desk, to her dressing and exercise room with its gymnastic rings and bars, to the dining room with the table laid for a family dinner.
The Sisi Museum opened in 2004 in the former Stephan Apartment. It holds more than 300 objects tied to Elisabeth: parasols, fans and gloves, her beauty recipes, a reconstruction from the evening before her wedding, a partial reconstruction of her railway saloon car, her death mask and the file on Luigi Lucheni, the anarchist who stabbed her in Geneva in 1898. It's a museum about a myth as much as a woman, and it says so.
The Silver Collection is the court's tableware, and it's huge. About 7,000 objects are on show out of roughly 150,000 in store: Maria Theresa's own cutlery, Napoleon's gold service, a Minton dessert service sent by Queen Victoria, Elisabeth's travel set and a gilded bronze centrepiece from Milan that stretches to about 30 metres when the full table is laid.
The new route
The relaunch joins the three into one walk. A new staircase in the Marschallhof makes the route step-free for the first time, and there's finally a cloakroom. The five "White Gold" rooms are Rococo interiors in white and gilt that have been off limits until now. The Schönbrunn Group, the state-owned company that runs Schönbrunn Palace and this site, says it has spent about 14 million euros so far, paid from its own revenue, with a second phase still to come.
On 19 November itself, the exhibition opens at 11:00.
Tickets and hours, as of October 2026
Until 18 November the site is open daily from 10:00 to 16:30, last entry 16:00. The day ticket covers the apartments with a fixed time slot:
- Adults €15
- Children 6 to 18 €9
- Students 19 to 25 and visitors with disabilities €13.50
- Under 6 free
These are the reduced rates. The prices from 19 November weren't published on the official site when we checked, so look them up before you book. A guided tour of about an hour runs daily in English at 14:00; from 20 November it costs €33 for adults.
The Sisi Pass bundles three sites: Schönbrunn Palace (the full state floor, timed entry), the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments, and the Furniture Museum (Hofmobiliendepot). It's €60 for adults and €38 for children, valid for a year, with a fixed date only at Schönbrunn.
Buy online from the official ticket shop, imperialtickets.com. The site warns about lookalike ticket sellers, and entry is only guaranteed with a timed ticket.
Getting in
The entrance is under the dome of the Michaelertrakt, on Michaelerplatz. You come out at Ballhausplatz, by the presidential office. There's a lift to the first floor; otherwise it's 72 steps. Audio guides are free in 14 languages. Allow about an hour now, longer once the Silver Collection is back.
The Treasury, with the crowns, is a different museum with a different ticket, five minutes away in the Schweizerhof. Here's what's in it.