Dohány Street Synagogue: Closed on Saturdays, and the Last Ticket Goes an Hour Early

The Dohány Street Synagogue is the largest synagogue in Europe, a short walk from Astoria on metro line M2, and a visit goes smoothly once you know three things: it is closed on Saturdays, shoulders and knees need to be covered, and the last entry is an hour before the closing time on the door. Below are the 2026 hours and prices, then a short walk to the other two great synagogues of the Jewish Quarter and the places worth adding to it.

Photo: Zairon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The hour before closing

This is the detail most worth knowing. Entry and the ticket office close one hour before the closing time on the sign. People already inside finish their visit, but nobody new goes in after that point, so arrive with at least an hour in hand.

In practice that means:

Period	Sunday to Thursday	Friday	Last entry, Sun to Thu	Last entry, Friday
1 to 31 October	10:00 to 18:00	10:00 to 16:00	17:00	15:00
2 November to 31 December	10:00 to 16:00	10:00 to 14:00	15:00	13:00

Saturday is closed all year. If the synagogue is the fixed point of your day, put it in the morning and let everything else move around it.

Saturdays and the Jewish holidays

The complex is closed every Saturday, and it closes for the Jewish holidays too. A Saturday in the Jewish Quarter means seeing the synagogue from the street.

The closures left in 2026:

Date	What happens
1 November	Closed
24 and 25 December	Closed

The operator reserves the right to change hours at short notice, and 2027 dates are not out yet. If your only free day falls near a holiday, check the operator’s opening-hours page the week you travel.

Tickets: what they cost and where to buy

Ticket	Price
Adult	14,500 Ft (about $45)
Student with an ISIC card	12,000 Ft (about $38)
Child aged 6 to 12	5,500 Ft (about $17)
Family: 2 adults and at least 2 children aged 6 to 12	33,000 Ft (about $103)
Under 6	Free

Prices in HUF, which is what the ticket costs. Converted at 1 USD = 320 HUF, the ECB reference rate of 25 September 2026. Rates move, so treat the dollar figures as a guide.

Tickets are non-refundable, good for a single entry, and valid for 90 days from purchase, so you can buy before you know which day you will go.

Plain entry costs the same wherever you buy it. The visitor side of the complex is run by Jewish Tour Hungary, the tourism office of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ), which sells tickets in its own shop at jewishtourhungary.com, and the big resale sites sell the same fast-track entry for the same money. Buying online, either way, gets you the fast lane at the gate. Two things are worth knowing before you click. Every ticket already includes the 45-minute guided tour, so there is no reason to pay extra for a “with guide” version of the plain ticket. And the dearer listings, two to four hours long, are walking tours of the Jewish Quarter that take in the synagogue along the way: a different product, not a better ticket. The operator also sells two longer products of its own: a 90-minute Jewish Quarter tour that adds guided entry to the Rumbach and Kazinczy synagogues (details in the walk below), and a 90-minute private Secret Tour of the Dohány that shows ten extra places, among them the queen’s lodge and the organ, arranged by email and paid at the ticket office.

You can also buy at the ticket office on the spot, until the hour-before-closing cut-off.

What the ticket gets you

More than the sanctuary, and the rest is the part people remember.

• The Great Synagogue itself. Consecrated on 6 September 1859, designed by Ludwig Förster, a German architect who taught at the Vienna Academy, with the inner sanctum by Frigyes Feszl, the architect of the Pest Vigadó. The twin towers are 44 meters high. It seats nearly 3,000: 1,497 men downstairs and 1,472 women in the galleries. It is a Neolog synagogue and it still holds services.
• The Hungarian Jewish Museum, in the wing at Wesselényi utca 7, with its permanent exhibition and a free audio guide in several languages at the desk. The ghetto exhibitions are in the cellar.
• The Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park, with the Tree of Life, the Emmanuel memorial tree conceived by Tony Curtis and made by the sculptor Imre Varga, and plaques to the people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
• The graveyard. Jewish custom does not usually put a cemetery next to a synagogue. This one exists because it had to: Dohány utca was the edge of the ghetto, and when the ghetto was liberated on 18 January 1945 the dead lay in the streets. They were buried in 24 common graves in the synagogue’s yard, 1,140 of them known by name and 1,170 unknown.
• The Lapidarium behind the synagogue, where the old gravestones are kept.

Next to all this, in the arcade, stands the Heroes’ Temple, built in 1931 to László Vágó’s design for the 10,000 Hungarian Jewish soldiers of the First World War. It seats 186 and is used for prayer.

Take the tour; it is already paid for. It runs every 30 to 60 minutes, lasts 45 minutes, goes ahead even with one visitor, and covers the sanctuary, the grave garden and the memorial park with the Tree of Life. Languages: English, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian and Hungarian; you find your language’s flag inside the synagogue. Recording the guide, audio or video, is not allowed.

Give the whole complex at least an hour, more with the museum. That hour, with the tour and the garden, is the visit the ticket is priced for.

Dress, security and bags

• Shoulders and knees covered. Sleeveless tops, short skirts and shorts are refused at the gate. The ticket inspectors sell cover-ups if you are caught out, but in summer it is simpler to carry a scarf.
• Men cover their heads. Wear your own hat or cap, or take the kippah handed out after the ticket check, and keep it on throughout the complex.
• Security check at the entrance. Metal objects and phones come out of your pockets.
• No backpacks bigger than hand luggage. Leave the day pack at the hotel.
• No food, drink or smoking anywhere on the grounds except the café.

Rumbach and Kazinczy: the other two synagogues

The Dohány is one of three great synagogues a few streets apart, and the other two tell different stories.

The Rumbach Street synagogue (Rumbach Sebestyén utca 11 to 13) was designed by Otto Wagner, the Viennese architect, and inaugurated in 1874. In 1941 the Hungarian authorities turned it into an internment camp for Jews without Hungarian citizenship, held there before deportation, and in 1944 it was inside the Pest ghetto. After decades of decay it was restored and reopened in 2021, and today it is a place of worship, a concert and exhibition space for the Jewish Museum and Archives, and home to a kosher café. It is a separate ticket from the same operator: 5,500 Ft (about $17) for an adult, 2,200 Ft (about $7) for a child aged 6 to 12 and 7,500 Ft (about $23) for a family of two adults and at least two children. Men cover their heads here too. From 3 October it opens on Sundays only:

Period	Opening hours
3 to 31 October	Sunday only, 10:00 to 18:00
2 November to 31 December	Sunday only, 10:00 to 16:00

Last entry is an hour before closing here too, and it shares the Dohány’s holiday closures, so Sunday 1 November is closed. The open Sundays left in 2026: 11, 18 and 25 October, 8, 15, 22 and 29 November, and 6, 13, 20 and 27 December.

The Kazinczy Street synagogue (Kazinczy utca 29 to 31) belongs to Budapest’s Orthodox community and is the youngest of the three, consecrated on 29 September 1913 to the plans of the Löffler brothers, Béla and Sándor Samu. The street front is plain, with a verse from Genesis along the top. Inside it is Hungarian Art Nouveau: painted walls, Transylvanian motifs carved into the pews, Zsolnay inlays on the columns of the eastern wall, and over a thousand seats. It is a working Orthodox synagogue first, and the community’s own restaurant, Hanna, is in the same complex. Our kosher food guide covers it and the rest of Kazinczy utca. One way to see its interior is the operator’s Sunday Jewish Quarter tour, which includes Kazinczy entry; to visit on your own, check the arrangements with the Orthodox community before you go.

A walk through the Jewish Quarter

The three synagogues sit a few minutes apart, so this is a short walk where the day of the week matters more than the distance. Sunday is the day to do it: the Dohány, the Rumbach and the operator’s guided Jewish Quarter tour all run, and the Holocaust Memorial Center and the Kozma Street cemetery are open too. The exception is Sunday 1 November, when the Dohány and the Rumbach are closed for a holiday. On a Saturday the Dohány, the Rumbach, the memorial center and the cemetery are all closed, and the walk becomes a walk past the façades.

Stop	Where	On foot from the previous stop
1. Dohány Street Synagogue	Dohány utca 2, at Astoria (M2)	Start
2. Rumbach Street synagogue	Rumbach Sebestyén utca 11 to 13	About 5 minutes
3. Kazinczy Street synagogue	Kazinczy utca 29 to 31	About 5 minutes
4. Carl Lutz memorial	Dob utca 10	About 3 minutes
5. Gozsdu Courtyard	Through from Dob utca to Király utca	About 3 minutes
6. Madách tér and back to the Dohány	Along Károly körút to Astoria	About 12 minutes

That is about 2 km and 30 minutes of walking, before any time inside. With the Dohány visit and the Rumbach, plan on two and a half to three hours.

Start at the Dohány in the morning, so the hour-before-closing rule never comes into play. The Rumbach is around the corner, and its restored Moorish interior has a kosher café if you want a coffee before moving on. At the Kazinczy, look up at the Genesis verse along the façade; Hanna, the community’s restaurant in the same complex, is the obvious lunch stop. A few steps on, on Dob utca, stands the memorial to Carl Lutz, the Swiss diplomat who headed the Swiss legation’s Foreign Interests Division and whose protective documents saved tens of thousands of Budapest Jews in 1944. Cut through Gozsdu Courtyard, the long passage between Dob utca and Király utca, and come back to Astoria past Madách tér and along Károly körút.

If you want it guided, with the Kazinczy’s interior, Jewish Tour Hungary’s Official Jewish Quarter Tour walks almost exactly this loop: Dohány, Kazinczy, Gozsdu Courtyard, Madách tér, Rumbach and back. It runs on Sundays at 10:30 and 13:00, in English (not on 1 November, when the synagogues are closed), lasts 90 minutes and costs 40,000 Ft (about $125), with entry to the Dohány complex including the Heroes’ Temple, the Rumbach and the Kazinczy. Separate Dohány and Rumbach tickets come to 20,000 Ft, so the other 20,000 Ft pays for the 90-minute guided walk and the Kazinczy. Places are limited; book online or at the Dohány ticket office. If you are weighing it against the free walking tours, our free vs paid walking tour guide explains how those handle the Jewish Quarter.

The Holocaust Memorial Center

The Holocaust Memorial Center (Páva utca 39, District IX) is the stop worth a separate trip, about 2 km south of the Dohány, or 25 minutes on foot. It is open Sunday to Friday, 10:00 to 18:00, with the ticket office closing at 17:00, and closed on Saturdays. In autumn 2026 it is also closed on 12, 13, 21, 26 and 27 October and on 3 and 4 November, and entry is free on 23 October, a national holiday. The permanent exhibition costs 3,600 Ft (about $11) for an adult, and the center does not recommend it for children under 14.

The Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery

The Budapest Jewish Community’s central cemetery is out in District X, at Kozma utca 6, and it deserves its own half day. Take tram 28 from Blaha Lujza tér, about ten minutes’ walk from the Dohány, to the end of the line at Izraelita temető. The white ceremonial hall at the entrance was built in 1891 to Vilmos Freund’s design, with lions by Alajos Stróbl at its door. Inside, the Holocaust memorial was designed by Alfréd Hajós, Hungary’s first Olympic champion, who is buried here, as is the writer Sándor Bródy.

Period	Sunday to Friday	Saturday
Until 24 October 2026 (summer time)	8:00 to 18:00	Closed
From 25 October 2026 (winter time)	8:00 to 15:00	Closed

The cemetery also closes for Jewish holidays, so check the dates with the Budapest Jewish Community before you go.

Before and after

The synagogue sits at the Astoria end of District VII, on the edge of the old Jewish Quarter. If you are staying nearby, our District VII accommodation guide explains why the blocks around the synagogue are the quiet ones and Kazinczy utca is not.

The other memorial most visitors pair with this one is by the river on the Pest embankment: the Shoes on the Danube Bank, where Jews were shot into the Danube in the winter of 1944.

Sources, all read 4 October 2026: opening hours, holiday closures and last-entry rules for the Dohány and Rumbach synagogues from the operator’s opening-hours page; ticket types, prices, validity and refunds for the Dohány, the Rumbach and the Jewish Quarter tour from the operator’s ticket shop, linked from jewishtourhungary.com; the Jewish Quarter tour’s route, days and inclusions, and the Secret Tour, from its tour page; dress, security, bag rules, fast lane and what the ticket covers from its visitor information; the guided tour from its free tour page; building history, the Heroes’ Temple, the museum, the graveyard, the Tree of Life and Rumbach from its about page; the Kazinczy Street synagogue from the Budapest Orthodox community at maoih.hu; the Holocaust Memorial Center’s opening hours, autumn closures and ticket prices; the Kozma Street cemetery’s hours, address and history from the Budapest Jewish Community at bzsh.hu; the Carl Lutz memorial’s address and history from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs at eda.admin.ch; tram 28 from BKK; walking distances and times are our estimate from OpenStreetMap. USD conversion at 1 USD = 320 HUF, the ECB reference rate of 25 September 2026.