The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum announced today (4.2.26) that entry tickets for visitors to the museum will only be available online from the 1st of March.
The museum has taken action to avoid 2am pickups, having guests queue for tickets, and other unscrupulous practices by some tour operators.
From March, individual visitors will be able to make reservations for all entry tickets exclusively online through the official system at visit.auschwitz.org.
This applies to both guided tours and free admission.
The change will make it easier for visitors to plan their visits and eliminate queues at the Museum entrance.
“This is primarily a response to the unethical practices of some tour operators. They sold Museum trips to visitors with transport from Kraków. At the last minute, customers were informed that, due to alleged booking issues, the departure time was being moved to very early in the morning or even in the middle of the night.
Unfortunately, this misleading practice became a business model for some entities. In addition, they shifted the blame for the supposed difficulties onto the Museum, which was entirely untrue,” said Andrzej Kacorzyk, Deputy Director of the Museum responsible for visitor services.
Visitors, who often arrived at the closed Museum entrance at 3 or 4 a.m., had to stand in a queue to purchase an entry ticket at the Museum visitor services centre.
“If entry tickets were still available, visitors sometimes had to wait several hours for their tour to begin. We also documented contentious conflicts among some “tour operators” over positions in the queue, which culminated in interventions by the Museum Guard and even the Police.
Thanks to the changes being introduced, such situations will no longer occur.
Visitors will be able to plan their visit in advance and choose the most convenient way to get to the Museum,” said Bartosz Bartyzel, the spokesman of the Museum.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Oświęcim can be reached by public transport, including trains and buses. The railway station is located 1,500 meters from the main entrance.
The change means entry tickets will no longer be available at the main entrance of the Museum.
- Organised groups and individual visitors can reserve entry tickets at visit.auschwitz.org up to three months in advance.
- Free entry tickets, can be reserved up to seven days in advance.
- Guided tour entry tickets will be available until they sell out.
“This means that even when planning a trip to the Museum at the last minute, it will still be possible to check whether guided tours are available and to reserve them immediately.
All of this is primarily intended to ensure visitors’ comfort, so that they no longer have to stand in queues, and certainly will no longer be deliberately brought to such queues by anyone,” emphasised Andrzej Kacorzyk.
The museum encourages everyone planning a visit to the Museum to make their reservation as early as possible at: visit.auschwitz.org.
“This is the only official system used to reserve entry tickets for visiting the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.
The Museum does not cooperate in this regard with any external entities and bears no responsibility for reservations cancelled on other websites.
Therefore, we ask visitors, also when making online reservations, to make sure they are using the Museum’s official service,” emphasised Bartosz Bartyzel.
In 2025, the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum was visited by 1.95 million people.
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A Scot in Kraków. The founder and editor of Kraków Expats Directory, and our sister sites Kraków TV and Kraków Stories Podcast.
David fell in love with Kraków 25 years ago, making it his home in 2011.
In 2020 he was awarded the title of Kraków’s Ambassador of Multiculturalism, by the President of Kraków, and is also a member of the GlobalScot network, representing Scottish culture and business abroad.
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