Museums in Basel: the Museum Pass, the Museums Night and the venues worth your time

You often read that Basel has "around 40 museums", but the number depends on how you count. The 2027 Museums Night brings together 43 museums and cultural institutions, but in Basel, Riehen, a municipality in Basel-Landschaft, Saint-Louis and Weil am Rhein, not just in the city.

We found no official figure for the museums in Basel alone. This page therefore ranks the venues by what they offer a visitor, compares the passes and explains the Museums Night on Friday 22 January 2027.

Which museum suits which interest?

For a first visit with an eye on Art Basel, the Kunstmuseum, the Fondation Beyeler, the Kunsthalle and Museum Tinguely are the logical choice. If you are after something typically Basel, the Paper Mill, the Pharmacy Museum and the Museum der Kulturen tell you more about the city than any international exhibition.

What do the main museums cost?

According to Basel Tourism, most Basel museums are free for children and young people up to 16, although the exact limit varies. There is no free Sunday for all museums, and individual venues have their own rules.

For the Spielzeug Welten Museum, the Paper Mill, the Pharmacy Museum and the Antikenmuseum we found no sourced 2026 prices. Check them on each museum's website.

Photo: Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Is the Museums-PASS-Musées worth it?

The Museums-PASS-Musées is an annual pass valid at around 345 museums in Switzerland, Germany and France. It covers one person and up to five children under 18.

The sources disagree on the price. The pass's price page gives 153 CHF for passes from 1 January 2026, or 141 CHF reduced, or €129, while Basel Tourism still quotes 149 CHF and 138 CHF.

The pass's dated price page is the more recent information, so plan on 153 francs. Reduced rates apply to, among others, pupils, students, apprentices, the unemployed, people with disabilities, teachers and members of museum associations.

The maths is simple: the Kunstmuseum, the Fondation Beyeler, Tinguely and the Museum der Kulturen cost 89 francs together. For a weekend in Basel the pass rarely pays off, but for a family visiting the region several times a year it quickly does.

What does the BaselCard bring at museums?

The BaselCard is not a museum pass but the guest card you get with an overnight stay in Basel. It brings free trams and discounts: at the Kunstmuseum the collection drops to 18.75 CHF, at the Fondation Beyeler to 23 CHF.

Basel Tourism speaks of half price at most museums, another source of 25 percent, and at the Kunstmuseum it is 25 percent. How the card works and when it pays off is in BaselCard and Mobility Ticket.

The Swiss Museum Pass is a third, national pass, not to be confused with the regional Museums-PASS. We could not check its price, validity or which Basel venues accept it in 2026, but it may be more worthwhile for a rail trip across the whole of Switzerland.

When is the 2027 Museums Night, and what does it cost?

The ticket is valid as a public transport ticket within the tariff network, second class, from 5pm until the end of service. Shuttle buses run from 6pm to 2am, including from the information point on Münsterplatz.

According to the organisers, under-26s now make up half of all visitors thanks to free entry. The sources give no total for the anniversary edition, only that it was a record.

How do you get through the Museums Night?

• The big art museums first or last: at peak times they and the shuttles are at their fullest.
• A ticket is not guaranteed entry: workshops, tours and performances have their own capacity and can be full.
• Buying online saves the queue at the ticket desk, not the one at the door of a packed venue.
• Not every venue stays open until 2am: each institution has its own programme and closes some rooms earlier.
• On foot in the Old Town: the Barfüsserkirche, Kunstmuseum, Antikenmuseum, Pharmacy Museum and Museum der Kulturen are close together.

By car you will make slow progress that evening, and the organisers explicitly rely on public transport and shuttles. Where to stay in January and what else the city offers then is in the best time to visit Basel.

Photo: Tukbassler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What can you see in the lesser-known museums?

The History Museum in the Barfüsserkirche lives from its space: a Gothic church gives a powerful setting to the collections on the city, its institutions and its religious history. If you expect a multimedia trail, this is the wrong place; if you want to understand Basel, it is the right one.

The Pharmacy Museum is one of the city's most idiosyncratic: remedies, instruments, laboratories and old apothecaries. It is for anyone interested in medicine, alchemy and the history of science, but offers no large installations.

The Basel Paper Mill combines a historic building with machines and demonstrations of papermaking and printing. Whether a demonstration is on during your visit depends on staff and the calendar, so a photo of one is no promise.

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

The Spielzeug Welten Museum shows toys, dolls' houses, automata and miniatures, mainly in display cases. Whether children enjoy it depends a lot on age and taste; it is not a hands-on museum.

The Natural History Museum alternates between historic dioramas, collections and learning stations. The Antikenmuseum is solid for ancient cultures but classic, and the Museum der Kulturen often surprises with its temporary exhibitions, while showing only part of its holdings.

When are the museums closed?

There are no shared opening hours for Basel's museums. Monday is often the closing day, certainly at the Kunstmuseum and Museum Tinguely, while the Fondation Beyeler is open on Mondays too.

• Public holidays bring special hours, sometimes reduced opening rather than closure.
• Annual closures and exhibition changes are up to each museum.
• A museum may close an exhibition without closing the whole building.
• Free entry for children, students or holders of social cards is not uniform.

Accessibility needs to be checked venue by venue. Churches, mills and old houses often have limitations on lifts, passageways and toilets that the general pages do not show.

Where can you read more?

The three big art venues have their own guides: Kunstmuseum Basel, Fondation Beyeler in Riehen and Museum Tinguely in Basel. Architecture beyond the museums is covered in Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein and Novartis Campus Basel.

For a rainy day of museums there is Basel in the rain, and for two days a weekend in Basel. All other activities are sorted in things to do in Basel, and if you are coming for the June fair, read Art Basel.

Sources: Museumsnacht Basel (home page, tickets, downloads, media, anniversary journal, mobility, 2027), Museums-PASS-Musées (prices from 1 January 2026, German and English), Basel Tourism (Museums-PASS, German and English), museum prices as given on our pages on the Kunstmuseum, Fondation Beyeler, Tinguely, Novartis Pavillon and Vitra.