The Met Charges Visitors $30, While New York State Residents Still Pay What They Wish

For most of its history, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York let everyone pay what they wished. The "recommended" $25 was a suggestion, and a lot of visitors paid a dollar. On March 1 2018 that ended for out-of-towners. Since then, adults from outside New York State pay a fixed price, and pay-what-you-wish is kept for New York State residents and for students from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The fixed price is now $30 for adults, $22 for seniors over 65 and $17 for students. Children under 12 go free. Residents can still pay as little as a cent if they show ID. Students from New Jersey and Connecticut have to buy in person.

Seurat's Circus Sideshow, painted in 1887 and 1888, his first night scene. A row of dots turning into gaslight, a trombone player on a platform, a crowd of hats in the foreground. It hangs in the Met's 19th-century European galleries, and seeing it can cost a resident of Brooklyn one cent and a visitor from Boston $30.

Why the Met did it

Money. Fewer and fewer visitors were paying anything close to the suggested price. New York City gives the Met its building and part of its running costs. The argument was that residents already pay through their taxes, and tourists should carry more of the bill.

It hasn't hurt attendance. In the year to June 30 2025, the Met counted more than 5.7 million visitors across Fifth Avenue and the Cloisters. Sixty-two percent came from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and another 23% from elsewhere in the US. Overseas visitors are a minority.

How to make the $30 count

The Fifth Avenue museum is enormous. Pick three wings and accept you'll miss the rest. The Egyptian Temple of Dendur, the European paintings on the second floor and the American Wing are a good first loop. The roof garden opens in the warmer months.

If you're staying in New York, the hotel bill will hurt more than the museum. The city's average room rate hit about $334 a night in 2025, the highest of any big US market, before 14.75% in taxes. The Met is the cheap part of the day.