A foreign visitor pays 2,500 ₽ to enter the Lower Park at Peterhof and 2,700 ₽ for the Grand Palace. A Russian citizen pays 900–1,100 ₽ and 1,000 ₽ for the same two tickets. That gap is the single most useful thing to know before you go, because almost every price list you will find online quotes the domestic rate. Budget for a couple accordingly: park plus palace for two foreign visitors is around 10,400 ₽, not the 4,000 ₽ a Russian-language page will suggest.
Here is the full 2026 price structure, what is free, and the part that catches people out — the park and the palace are two separate tickets.
How much do Peterhof tickets cost in 2026?
The Lower Park — the one with the fountains and the Grand Cascade — is charged separately from every museum inside it. Park admission does not let you into the palace.
| Ticket | Russia / EAEU | Foreign visitors |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Park, weekends | 1,100 ₽ | 2,500 ₽ |
| Lower Park, weekdays | 900 ₽ | 2,500 ₽ |
| Grand Peterhof Palace | 1,000 ₽ | 2,700 ₽ |
| Upper Garden | free | free |
| Alexandria Park | 400 ₽ | 400 ₽ |
| Oranienbaum | 550 ₽ | 550 ₽ |
Note what the table shows and what it does not: the foreign surcharge applies to the Lower Park and the Grand Palace, the two headline attractions. Alexandria and Oranienbaum are charged at one rate for everyone, which makes them unusually good value if you are visiting on a foreign passport.
The smaller museums, and whether they are worth it
Peterhof is not one museum but a cluster of them scattered through the park, each with its own door and its own ticket.
| Museum | Standard | Ages 14–18 |
|---|---|---|
| Special Treasury (Osobaya Kladovaya) | 500 ₽ | 350 ₽ |
| Bath Block | 500 ₽ | 350 ₽ |
| Church Block | 500 ₽ | 350 ₽ |
| Marly Palace | 500 ₽ | 350 ₽ |
| Grottoes of the Grand Cascade | 500 ₽ | 350 ₽ |
| Tsaritsyn and Olgin Pavilions | 1,000 ₽ | 700 ₽ |
| Aviaries | 200 ₽ | — |
The Grottoes are the one most people underrate. You go underneath the Grand Cascade and see the plumbing that drives the whole system — the fountains at Peterhof run on gravity, with no pumps, exactly as they did in the eighteenth century. It is 500 ₽ and twenty minutes, and it changes how the park reads.
Children, concessions and who gets in free
Children under seven enter free everywhere, regardless of citizenship — that applies to foreign families too, and it is worth knowing because it is not always stated on English-language pages.
For older children the park is 600 ₽ at ages 14–18 and 150 ₽ at ages 7–14; the Grand Palace is 700 ₽ and 250 ₽ respectively.
Free entry all year also covers large families holding Russian or Belarusian documents, veterans, Heroes of Russia and the USSR, people with category I–II disability and one companion each, conscript servicemen, orphans and their guardians, and staff of state museums.
Free days worth planning around, if you hold the right documents:
- The second Sunday of each month — under-18s, students and pensioners with Russian or Belarusian citizenship.
- The second Thursday of each month — pensioners with Russian citizenship.
- Every Thursday — cadets and students of the Suvorov and Nakhimov military academies.
The Pushkin Card, which Russian teenagers use for cultural admissions, covers the 600 ₽ youth rate at the park. It is domestic only and cannot be used on a foreign passport.
Opening hours
- Lower Park — 09:00 to 20:00, paid entry.
- Upper Garden — 09:00 to 21:00, free.
- Alexandria and Oranienbaum — 09:00 to 19:00, paid entry.
- Grand Palace and the museums — generally 10:30 to 18:00 or 19:00, and this is the one to check before travelling: individual museums close on different weekdays and for maintenance.
The palace opens later than the park, which is useful: arrive at nine, have the fountains almost to yourself for an hour, then go inside when the palace opens.
The winter difference
The fountain season runs roughly from late April to mid-October. Outside it the fountains are switched off and drained for the frost — and the Lower Park becomes free to enter.
This is a genuine choice rather than a consolation. A winter visit costs nothing for the park, the crowds disappear entirely, and the Grand Cascade under snow is a real sight. What you lose is the thing most people come for. If the fountains are the point, do not travel between November and April.
Practical notes
Two tickets, two queues. The park ticket and the palace ticket are bought separately, and in high summer the palace queue is the long one. Buy the palace slot online before you travel if you can.
Foreign cards frequently do not work. This affects the online ticket system as much as the on-site tills. Budget cash in roubles, and treat any successful card payment as a bonus rather than the plan.
The hydrofoil is the better arrival. Boats run from the city embankments in the fountain season and put you at the pier inside the Lower Park, facing the Grand Cascade from below — which is the view the whole ensemble was designed around. The road takes longer and delivers you to a car park.
Verify prices before you go. Rates are revised between seasons and the foreign rate has moved more than the domestic one in recent years. The official source is peterhofmuseum.ru; the figures above are for the summer 2026 season.
