National Palace Museum of Korea 국립고궁박물관

The National Palace Museum of Korea is free and open daily from 09:30 to 17:30, until 21:00 on Saturdays and the last Wednesday of the month. It closes on the last Monday of each month, but stays open on Tuesdays when Gyeongbokgung is shut. Free English tours run on weekday afternoons. Allow one and a half to two hours.

The museum holds the treasures of the Joseon royal court and the Korean Empire: royal seals, thrones and screens, court paintings, ritual vessels, scientific instruments and the emperor’s and empress’s early-20th-century cars. It stands on the south-west side of Gyeongbokgung, two minutes from the subway, so it is the natural indoor half of a palace day in Seoul. For the palaces themselves, see Seoul’s palaces.

When to go

Day	Hours	Good to know
Monday–Friday	09:30–17:30	Free English, Japanese or Chinese tour between 13:00 and 15:00
Tuesday	09:30–17:30	Gyeongbokgung is closed; the museum is open
Last Wednesday of the month	09:30–21:00	Culture Day late opening
Saturday	09:30–21:00	Late opening; no foreign-language tours
Sunday	09:30–17:30	No foreign-language tours
Last Monday of the month	Closed	26 Oct, 30 Nov and 28 Dec in 2026

Hours, closures and tour days from the museum’s Korean and English visitor-information pages, checked 17 October 2026. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing. Want a guided tour in English? Go on a weekday afternoon. Short on daytime? Saturday and last-Wednesday evenings give you until 20:30 to get in.

The hours changed on 1 March 2026. The museum now opens 30 minutes earlier and closes earlier on weekdays. It also added the monthly last-Monday closure and kept the Wednesday late opening for the last Wednesday only. Many older guides and booking sites still show the previous times, 10:00–18:00 with Wednesday nights, or say it closes every Monday. Neither is correct now.

The Culture Day here is still the last Wednesday of the month. That differs from the royal palaces, which made every Wednesday a free day from October 2026. The museum is free every day anyway, so this only affects its late opening.

Closures and admission

Admission is free. The museum describes this as a measure to ease household costs that applies until further notice, so check the official page if you read this much later.

Besides the last Monday of each month, the museum closes on 1 January and on Seollal and Chuseok days, the main days of the Lunar New Year and harvest holidays. When a last Monday falls on a public holiday, the museum opens that day and closes on the next day instead. None of the remaining 2026 last Mondays are holidays.

Tours and audio guides

• Foreign-language tours. Free tours in English, Japanese and Chinese run Monday to Friday, at some point between 13:00 and 15:00. Each date’s language and start time are on the monthly calendar on the museum’s visitor page. Meet at the information desk in the 2nd-floor lobby and ask there on the day.
• For foreign visitors. Korean nationals can join a foreign-language tour only together with a foreign visitor.
• Korean tours run at 10:00 on weekdays and at 10:00 and 15:00 at weekends. Groups run by travel agencies or other commercial operators cannot use them.
• Audio guide. Handsets in English, Japanese, Chinese and Korean cost ₩1,000 (about US$0.70) at the 2nd-floor information desk; you leave an ID while you use it.
• Tour schedules can change with museum operations, so check the calendar on the day.

Getting there

Take Line 3 to Gyeongbokgung Station and use Exit 5. The museum is about a two-minute walk. Exit 4 takes about four minutes. From Line 5, Gwanghwamun Station Exits 1 and 2 are about ten minutes’ walk.

Blue buses 109, 171, 272, 601, 606, 700, 703 and 710 stop nearby, at the Gyeongbokgung Palace, Gyeongbokgung Station and Sajikdong Community Service Center stops. Airport bus 6011 also stops at Gyeongbokgung Station. A tap with a T-money card covers subway and city buses; see the Seoul subway guide for how to ride.

The museum has no car park. Drivers use the paid Gyeongbokgung car park off the road from Gwanghwamun towards Samcheong-dong. The address for taxis is 서울 종로구 효자로 12.

What you see

The permanent galleries cover three floors. The 2nd floor is the largest and holds the royal family’s own objects.

Floor	Galleries	Look for
2F	Kings of the Joseon Dynasty; Life in the Royal Family	The royal throne and its sun, moon and five peaks screen, King Taejo’s gold seal, a bronze dragon found in the Gyeonghoeru pond in 1997, royal robes
1F	Korean Empire; imperial cars in the gallery lobby	Emperor Gojong’s state seal, Empress Myeongseong’s gold seal of 1897, the emperor’s and empress’s cars
B1F	Court paintings and calligraphy; Royal rituals; Joseon science	A royal palanquin, stone chimes, a 1395 star chart carved in stone, sundials, part of the 1536 water clock

Gallery layout from the museum’s permanent-exhibition pages, checked 17 October 2026. If you only have an hour, do the 2nd floor and the cars, then go straight on to the palace.

The two cars are the museum’s best-known pieces. The emperor’s car is a General Motors Cadillac limousine and the empress’s a Daimler limousine, both from the 1910s. They have lacquered wooden bodies and gold plum-blossom crests on the doors. The museum says only three examples of the empress’s Daimler model survive worldwide, and it is the oldest car in Korea.

Paper and textile objects are light-sensitive, so the museum swaps part of the display about every two months. A favourite painting or robe may be resting when you visit. Temporary exhibitions use separate special galleries on the 1st and 2nd floors.

Tips for visiting

• Pair it with the palace. Go to the museum first on a hot, cold or wet morning, then walk into Gyeongbokgung once the weather or the crowds ease. On Tuesdays, when the palace is shut, pair it with Gwanghwamun Square or Bukchon instead.
• Photos are allowed in the galleries, but not with flash, tripods or selfie sticks, and not for commercial use. Some cases are dimly lit to protect the objects.
• Leave food outside. Food and drinks cannot be taken into the museum, and smoking is not allowed anywhere on the grounds. The EDIYA café inside keeps the museum’s hours.
• Use the free facilities. Lockers are behind the 2nd-floor information desk. Strollers and wheelchairs are lent free at the same desk, and there is a nursing room on the 1st floor.
• Only service animals. Pets are not allowed; guide dogs are welcome.
• Compare with the big museum. For Korean history from prehistory onwards, the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan is the next step; this museum covers only the royal court.

History in brief

The museum grew out of the Royal Museum, which opened in 1992 in the Seokjojeon stone hall at Deoksugung to care for court objects gathered from palaces, shrines and royal tombs. That building was too small. In 2005 the collection moved into the former National Museum of Korea building at Gyeongbokgung after the national museum left for Yongsan.

The National Palace Museum of Korea opened on 15 August 2005, the 60th anniversary of Korea’s liberation. All of its galleries reopened after renovation on 28 November 2007. It is run by the Korea Heritage Service.