Most museums that offer free admission offer it once a week. The Reina Sofía offers it every single day it opens, and that is the part worth reading twice before booking anything.
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is free during the two hours before closing, on every day it opens. The rule never varies. What varies is the closing time, and the museum runs two of them: 9pm on Monday and Wednesday to Saturday, and 2.30pm on Sunday. Tuesday it stays shut.
So the free window is 7pm to 9pm for five days of the week and 12.30pm to 2.30pm on the sixth. A visitor who turns up on Sunday evening expecting the seven o’clock rule finds a building that closed four and a half hours earlier.
The timetable has three columns, not two
On its timetable the Museum publishes three figures per day, not two: opening time, free-entry time and closing time. Reading only the first and last of those three is what produces the mistake.
Monday and Wednesday to Saturday, the Sede Principal opens at 10am, releases entry at 7pm and closes at 9pm. Sunday opens at 10am, releases entry at 12.30pm and closes at 2.30pm. Tuesday is closed all day. According to the Reina Sofía timetable the free stretch measures exactly two hours in both cases, because that is the rule; only its position in the day changes.
Two free hours give you ninety minutes to get in
Last admission at the Reina Sofía is 30 minutes before closing, and the box office shuts at the same time. That cut-off applies inside the free window as well, so the usable stretch for walking through the door is 90 minutes rather than 120.
On long days that means entry between 7pm and 8.30pm. On Sundays it means entry between 12.30pm and 2pm. Arriving at 8.45pm on a Thursday and arriving at 2.10pm on a Sunday produce the same result, and in both cases the free window was still nominally open.
Fitting it into a short trip
Two facts collide for anyone in Madrid for three or four days: the Reina Sofía closes on Tuesday, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza is free only on Monday and Saturday night. Sequenced badly, a short trip can miss both.
The order that survives a Monday arrival looks like this:
- Monday. The Thyssen-Bornemisza is free from 12pm to 4pm, and those four hours are its whole Monday, as the Thyssen free Monday breakdown explains. In the evening the Reina Sofía turns free at 7pm and admits until 8.30pm.
- Tuesday. No Reina Sofía at all, the one day it stays shut. Give the day to anything else in the city.
- Wednesday to Saturday. That 7pm window repeats daily, so a missed evening costs one day rather than one week.
- Sunday. Everything moves earlier, with free entry from 12.30pm and the doors shut at 2.30pm. Treat it as a morning at the museum, not an afternoon.
Monday is the only day of the week when both museums have a free window, and the two do not overlap: one ends at 4pm and the other begins at 7pm.
Who gets in free regardless of the clock
Beyond the daily window, the Reina Sofía grants free admission to under-18s, to over-65s and to students, the last of these collected at the box office. None of them needs to wait for 7pm or for Sunday lunchtime, which means the full 11-hour day is available to them.
Running the other way there is an exclusion that catches organised visits, because the Museum caps free-window admission at individual visitors. Groups fall outside it even when every member would qualify alone, and what decides the matter is how the booking was processed rather than how many people arrive together.
| Ticket | Price | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| General admission | €12 | Opening hours outside the free window |
| Two-visit ticket | €18 | Two entries on separate dates |
| Admission with collection audio guide | €18 | Opening hours |
| Admission with audio guide and temporary show | €19 | Opening hours |
| Reduced admission | 50 % off | On accreditation |
| Under-18s and over-65s | Free | Any open day, any hour |
| Students | Free | Any open day, collected at the box office |
| Free window | Free | Final two hours, individual visitors only |
Eight days a year the doors do not open at all
The Reina Sofía closes on 1 and 6 January, 1 May, 15 May, 9 November, and 24, 25 and 31 December. On those eight dates there is neither a paid timetable nor a free window.
Two of them are Madrid city holidays rather than national ones, so they will not show up on a Spain-wide public holiday list checked from abroad. That is the trap for a visitor planning from another country: 15 May falling midweek closes a museum that every general timetable shows as open.
Five days a year the whole day is free
On 18 April, 18 and 22 May, 12 October and 6 December the Reina Sofía opens free for its entire timetable rather than for the final two hours.
Those dates change the arithmetic completely, because they replace a 90-minute admission stretch with a full day from 10am. Checking them against your travel dates is worth doing before paying €12, and the list is reissued each year rather than fixed permanently.
Context
The hours and prices here apply to the Sede Principal, the building on the Paseo del Prado where Guernica hangs. The Reina Sofía also runs other venues on their own calendars.
Its free window follows from the museum’s status as a national museum rather than from a commercial sponsorship. That is the structural difference from the nearby Thyssen-Bornemisza, a private foundation whose free Monday rests on a corporate agreement. A national museum can still change its hours, but nobody has to renew a contract for the free window to survive the year.
Frequently asked questions
What time is the Reina Sofía free?
Free entry at the Reina Sofía runs during the two hours before closing. Monday and Wednesday to Saturday it closes at 9pm, so the window starts at 7pm. Sunday it closes at 2.30pm, so the window starts at 12.30pm. Tuesday the museum does not open.
Is the Reina Sofía closed on Mondays?
No. Tuesday is the Reina Sofía closing day, which is unusual among major museums. Monday runs a full day, 10am to 9pm, with free entry from 7pm. Several major collections in other European cities close on Monday instead, which is where the confusion starts.
How long do you actually have to get in free at the Reina Sofía?
Ninety minutes, not two hours. The last admission is 30 minutes before closing, and that applies inside the free window too. On long days you can enter between 7pm and 8.30pm; on Sundays, between 12.30pm and 2pm.
Can I see Guernica during the free hours at the Reina Sofía?
Yes. Guernica hangs in the Sede Principal on the Paseo del Prado, the building the free window covers, and the general €12 ticket is not required during those hours. With 90 minutes of admission time, most visitors go straight to it rather than working through the floors in order.
Free every open day sounds generous until you count the doors. Six windows a week, ninety minutes each, one of them at lunchtime.