Tour or Seat at the Hungarian State Opera House? The Cheapest Ticket Costs Less Than the Tour
On this page
- Tour or seat: what each one gets you
- The tour: times, languages and where it starts
- What a seat costs, category by category
- Standing room and the restricted-view seats
- Discounts that work, and where they do not
- Box office, and which door
- What to wear, the cloakroom and arriving late
- When the house plays, summer included
- The Nutcracker and New Year’s at the Opera
- Eiffel Art Studios, the second stage
- Getting there
The English tour of the Hungarian State Opera House costs 12,000 HUF, lasts an hour and leaves every day at 13:30, 15:00 and 16:30 from the information desk in the entrance hall at Andrássy út 22. A ticket to an actual performance on a standard night starts at 3,600 HUF, so the cheapest way inside is often to watch something.
That one comparison decides most visits. The rest of this page is the detail that follows from it: what each option shows you, what every seat category costs this season, which door to use, what to wear, and when the house plays.
Tour or seat: what each one gets you
The two are different visits, not a cheap and a dear version of one. The tour is the building: the foyer, the bifurcated stairs, the grand staircase, and the auditorium seen from the inside with the house lights on. A performance is the auditorium full, the orchestra in the pit and the stage lit, from one seat, for one evening.
| Option | Price | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| English building tour, 60 minutes | 12,000 HUF (about $38) | Foyer, staircases, auditorium when free, short concert at the end |
| Hungarian-language tour | 6,400 HUF (about $20) | The same route, in Hungarian |
| Performance, Category VII, Level 3 wings seat or standing place | 3,600 HUF (about $11) | The auditorium in use, restricted view |
| Performance, Category VI, Level 3 wings seat | 6,000 HUF (about $19) | The auditorium in use, restricted view |
| Performance, Category V, Level 3 centre | 10,700 HUF (about $33) | The auditorium in use, from the centre of the top level |
The seat prices are the standard-night list for 2026/27. The Opera notes that performance prices can move with supply and demand, so the figure in the shop on your date is the one that counts.
If you want the staircases and the rooms an audience walks through, take the tour. If you want to hear the house, buy a seat. With a free afternoon and a free evening, do both: the tour shows you where you will be sitting.
The tour: times, languages and where it starts
The guaranteed tour is in English, every day, at 13:30, 15:00 and 16:30. It runs sixty minutes, groups are capped at 30, and children under three go free. It starts at the information desk in the entrance hall, the main door on Andrássy út.
- Other languages. Italian, Spanish, German, French, Greek and Hungarian tours are by request, through the Tickets button on the Opera’s tour page or by writing to the OperaTour team.
- Booking. Tickets go on sale a week ahead, online or at the box office. You can also try your luck at the meeting point in the entrance hall and join a group with space.
- The concert. Each tour ends with a short costumed scene sung by young Opera soloists on the landing of the grand staircase. It is part of the price.
- The auditorium is not guaranteed. When the stage is in rehearsal the auditorium is closed to visits and the route goes to other parts of the building. There are no tours at all during performances.
- Photos. Allowed for private use, without flash and without a tripod.
- Discounts. The student, family and Hungarian-repertoire discounts do not apply to tours.
Groups of 15 or more can book a private tour between 9:00 and 13:00, a week ahead at the latest. A private tour with its own guide can also run at the guaranteed-tour times: in a foreign language it costs 7,000 HUF (about $22) a head with the concert, or 5,500 HUF (about $17) without it.
Tour times, languages, prices and meeting point from the OperaTour page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
What a seat costs, category by category
The main stage sells seven categories. On a standard repertoire night the list for the 2026/27 season reads like this:
| Category | Where | Standard night |
|---|---|---|
| I | Stalls, rows 1 to 8 | 59,000 HUF (about $184) |
| II | Stalls, rows 9 to 12 | 43,200 HUF (about $135) |
| III | Stalls, rows 13 to 17 | 32,800 HUF (about $103) |
| IV | Level 3 centre, rows 1 to 4, and the front Level 3 side seats | 19,800 HUF (about $62) |
| V | Level 3 centre, rows 5 to 9, and the Level 3 side seats behind them | 10,700 HUF (about $33) |
| VI | Level 3 wings, rows 1 to 2, seats 1 to 10 | 6,000 HUF (about $19) |
| VII | Level 3 wings, rows 1 to 2, seats 11 to 21, and Level 3 standing places | 3,600 HUF (about $11) |
Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the box office or online. Converted at 1 USD = 320 HUF, the ECB rate on 25 September 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.
Boxes are sold only as a whole unit, never by the seat.
The same chart has four more price columns, one for each kind of night, and the gap between them is large:
| Kind of night | Category VII | Category I |
|---|---|---|
| Standard repertoire | 3,600 HUF | 59,000 HUF |
| Concert | 1,400 HUF (about $4) | 23,600 HUF (about $74) |
| Premiere or featured night | 4,300 HUF (about $13) | 70,900 HUF (about $222) |
| IC or youth programme | 900 HUF (about $3) | 14,800 HUF (about $46) |
| Hungarian 50% discount | 1,800 HUF (about $6) | 29,500 HUF (about $92) |
Seat categories and prices from the 2026/27 price chart on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Standing room and the restricted-view seats
The Opera names three places where the view is limited: the Level 3 wings seats, the standing places, and the second row of the boxes. Categories VI and VII are exactly those wings seats and standing places, which is why they cost what they do. You will see part of the stage. You will hear all of it, and you will be inside the auditorium while it works.
Standing places go on sale two hours before an evening performance and one hour before a matinee, at the Opera House box office and online, in limited numbers. When a show is sold out, that is the way in.
Surtitles in Hungarian and English run above the stage. The front row of the stalls and Level 3 also have small screens in the armrests, and the rest of the stalls has touch screens on the seat backs.
Standing room, restricted views and surtitles from the ticket information page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Discounts that work, and where they do not
- Students: 50% off, but only on the Level 3 centre seats at the Opera House, and on the Miklós Bánffy Stage at the Eiffel Art Studios. Any student card is accepted.
- Families: buy two full-price adult tickets and children under 18 get 50% off.
- Hungarian works: every performance of László Hunyadi, Háry János, Passion, Bluebeard’s Castle and A Streetcar Named Desire is half price this season.
These concession tickets are sold only at the box offices or by request to ticket@opera.hu, and the discount can be checked at the door. They cannot be combined, and they do not apply to The Nutcracker, the main rehearsals or the guided tours.
Concessions from the prices and concessions page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Box office, and which door
The Opera says it is responsible for tickets bought at its own box offices, on opera.hu and through opera.jegy.hu. A ticket you can no longer use is not refunded unless the performance moves or is cancelled, but it can be resold on Ticketswap, which the Opera names as its official resale route.
| What | Where | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Box office | Opera House, Andrássy út 22 | Every day 10:00 to 19:00; on performance days until the end of the first interval |
| Simándy Customer Service | Hajós utca 11, opposite the artists’ entrance | Tuesday to Thursday 10:00 to 17:00, Friday 10:00 to 14:00 |
| Tour meeting point | Information desk, entrance hall, Andrássy út 22 | Tours at 13:30, 15:00, 16:30 |
| OperaBistro | Hajós utca 4, via the main entrance or from Hajós utca | Tuesday to Sunday 12:00 to 21:00 |
Two rules at the box office. It takes forint only, no euro or other currency, and online payment is by card only. And for the half hour before a performance it stops advance sales and serves only people coming to that day’s show, so do not turn up at 18:30 for a ticket to next week.
Royal Box guests use a door of their own: the protocol entrance on Dalszínház utca, the side street, then the royal staircase. The box is sold whole for an evening, for ten guests, by request to the Opera.
Box office hours, entrances and addresses from the contact page and the Royal Box page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
What to wear, the cloakroom and arriving late
There is no official dress code. The Opera puts it this way: many guests dress elegantly out of respect for the theatre and the rest of the audience. Dressing up is a choice, not a condition of entry.
- Cloakroom. Coats, jackets and bulky items, including rucksacks, suitcases, umbrellas and musical instruments, must go to one of the free cloakrooms. Box holders use the coat racks in their box.
- Arriving late. Latecomers go in at the interval, or at a suitable break with an attendant, to a seat other than the one they paid for. If the show has no interval, there is no way in after it starts. Box ticket holders can take their seats after curtain up.
- Accessibility. The lift on the left goes to the stalls, the accessible box on the same level and the accessible toilets. Level 3 has lifts on both sides.
Dress code, cloakroom, late entry and access from the ticket information page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
When the house plays, summer included
The house is not dark all summer. The 2026/27 calendar keeps the main stage busy into August: Nabucco runs from 1 to 15 July 2027, then La traviata from 17 July to 5 August, and Best of Puccini plays until 19 August. Last summer looked the same: Best of Puccini and Best of Mozart played into the middle of August 2026, the last show on 18 August.
The real break is the end of August and the start of September. In 2026 nothing played between 18 August and the Marton Competition gala on 6 September. If your trip falls in that window, the tour is the way in.
The 11th Iván Nagy International Ballet Gala is on 20 June 2027.
Season dates from the programme calendar on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
The Nutcracker and New Year’s at the Opera
The Nutcracker runs at the Opera House from 20 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, in Wayne Eagling and Tamás Solymosi’s production. The mornings of 19 and 20 November are dress rehearsals. Most dates have an 11:00 matinee, an evening show at 18:00 or 19:00, or both. Three dates worth knowing: 24 December has the 11:00 matinee only, 31 December has shows at 13:00 and 21:00, and 1 January one at 14:00. The Opera does not recommend it for children under six, and none of the student, family or Hungarian discounts apply.
New Year’s at the Opera is Beethoven’s Ninth in Mahler’s version, on 1 January 2027 at 20:00 and 3 January 2027 at 20:00, with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus under Gábor Hontvári. The first half is the Coriolan Overture and Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major with an Opera soloist. It is sung in German with Hungarian, English and German surtitles, and it is not recommended for children under twelve.
If 1 January is your day, the New Year’s Day guide covers what else is open, and the Christmas guide does the same for 24 to 26 December.
Dates, times and programmes from the Nutcracker page and the New Year’s at the Opera page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Eiffel Art Studios, the second stage
The Opera has two houses, and the Eiffel Art Studios is the other one, in a former railway workshop at Kőbányai út 30 in District X. Check which house your performance is in before you set off: the two are a long way apart.
- Tickets. Every seat on the Miklós Bánffy Stage is 7,000 HUF (about $22) this season, and students get 50% off. The hall seats 400 to 580 depending on the event.
- Getting there. Bus 9, or trams 28, 28A and 62, to Eiffel Műhelyház. The car park by the main gate is free with a performance ticket.
- Box office. Opens one hour before a performance and closes at the end of the first interval.
- EiffelTour. A 60-minute tour of the workshops, currently in Hungarian only, at 2,000 HUF (about $6).
Eiffel Art Studios prices, access and tour from the Eiffel price page, the contact page and the EiffelTour page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Getting there
The Opera House stands at Andrássy út 22, District VI. The M1 stops right outside at Opera; buses 105 and 210 stop at Opera M, and trolleybuses 70 and 78 at Andrássy út (Opera M). Parking on Andrássy út and the side streets is limited and paid on weekdays from 8:00 to 22:00.
Miklós Ybl’s building reopened on 12 March 2022 after almost five years of restoration. The avenue it stands on is a walk of its own, and the Andrássy Avenue guide covers it from the Opera to Heroes’ Square.
Address, transport and building history from the contact page and the building page on opera.hu, read on 3 October 2026.
Good to know
Is the Opera House tour worth it, or should I buy a performance ticket instead?
It depends on what you came to see. The English tour is 12,000 HUF (about $38) for sixty minutes, takes you through the foyer, the grand staircase and the auditorium when it is free of rehearsals, and ends with a short concert by Opera soloists. A seat at a standard performance starts at 3,600 HUF (about $11) for a Level 3 wings seat or a standing place, both with a restricted view, and 10,700 HUF (about $33) buys a Category V seat in the Level 3 centre. If you want the auditorium doing its job, buy a seat. If you want the staircases and the rooms an audience passes through, take the tour.
What time are the English tours at the Hungarian State Opera?
Every day at 13:30, 15:00 and 16:30. The tour lasts sixty minutes and starts at the information desk in the entrance hall. Tours in Italian, Spanish, German, French, Greek and Hungarian are by request through the Opera's ticket page or the OperaTour team. There are no tours during performances, and while the stage is in rehearsal the route goes to other parts of the building instead of the auditorium.
Is there a dress code at the Budapest Opera House?
No official one. The Opera says many guests dress elegantly out of respect for the theatre and the rest of the audience, but nothing is required. What you cannot take to your seat is a coat, a jacket or anything bulky: rucksacks, suitcases, umbrellas and musical instruments all go to the free cloakroom.
Where should I buy Hungarian State Opera tickets?
At opera.hu, at the Opera's own box offices, or through opera.jegy.hu. Those are the sales the Opera says it is responsible for. The box office at Andrássy út 22 is open every day from 10:00 to 19:00, and on performance days until the end of the first interval. It takes forint only, and online payment is by card.
When is The Nutcracker at the Hungarian State Opera this season?
From 20 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, at the Opera House on Andrássy út. Most days have an 11:00 matinee, an evening show at 18:00 or 19:00, or both. On 24 December there is a matinee only, 31 December has shows at 13:00 and 21:00, and 1 January at 14:00. The Opera does not recommend it for children under six, and the student, family and Hungarian discounts do not apply to it.
Is the Budapest Opera House open in summer?
Yes. The calendar runs well into summer: in 2027 Nabucco and La traviata play through July and Best of Puccini runs until 19 August. The quiet stretch is the end of August. In 2026 the last summer performance was on 18 August and the next one on 6 September.
Book it, skip the counter
Prices checked 2026-09-28. Booking through these links supports the site at no extra cost to you. How this works.