Paris before you book: the practical facts we checked

Eurostar arrives at Gare du Nord, on Métro lines 4 and 5 and the RER B and D. From the taxi rank, Grands Boulevards Experimental and Le Pigalle are five minutes by car. Line 4 runs straight to Les Halles, four minutes' walk from Madame Rêve, and on to Châtelet, seven from Le Grand Mazarin, and Saint-Sulpice, six from the Lutetia; line 5 runs to Bréguet-Sabin, five from the Pavillon de la Reine.

Charles de Gaulle has three terminals. The RER B stops at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 1, for Terminals 1 and 3, and at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle 2 TGV, for 2A to 2G, and takes 25 to 30 minutes to Paris. Orly is on Métro line 14, about 20 minutes from the centre. Both airports take the same Paris Région <> Aéroports ticket, €14 in 2026, with two hours of changes on the Métro and RER.

Paris taxis charge flat fares between the city and the airports, with nothing added: €56 between Charles de Gaulle and the Right Bank and €65 to the Left Bank, €45 between Orly and the Right Bank and €36 to the Left. Nine of the ten are on the Right Bank; the Lutetia is the one on the Left. By road, Orly is nearer than Charles de Gaulle to all ten, Le Pigalle by a minute. The drive times below run from the taxi rank between Terminals 2E and 2F, the Orly 3 rank and the Gare du Nord rank, with the roads clear; in the rush hours, allow longer.

Walk first. On foot, the Place de la Concorde to the Louvre Pyramid is 21 minutes, the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to Notre-Dame 18, Madame Rêve to the Pyramid 12 and Shangri-La to the Eiffel Tower 13, over the Pont d'Iéna.

Since January 2025 there have been two single tickets, each at one price across the region. The Métro-Train-RER ticket, €2.55 in 2026, covers the Métro, the RER and the suburban trains everywhere except the airport stations, with two hours of changes between them. The Bus-Tram ticket, €2.05, gives 90 minutes of changes between buses and trams. A trip from the Métro on to a bus needs both. Tickets load on to a Navigo Easy card, €2 at station counters and holding up to 20, or on a phone through the Île-de-France Mobilités app; the paper carnet has gone. A Navigo day pass is €12.30, airports excluded. Contactless bank cards do not open the Métro gates, with one exception: the exit at Orly's line 14 station, at the €14 airport fare.

Paris taxis run on the meter inside the city, with a minimum fare of €8. Booking through G7 or another dispatcher adds €4 for an immediate pick-up or €7 in advance, a fifth passenger €5.50, and luggage nothing. The driver must take a card whatever the fare and give a receipt from €25. Vélib' shared bikes have a dock within six minutes' walk of each of the ten, and nobody staying at them needs a car.

Every night in Paris carries the taxe de séjour, per adult, collected by the hotel on top of the room rate. It is set by the hotel's official category, not its price, and adds to the city's own rate a 10% departmental surcharge and regional ones of 15% and 200%, the last for Île-de-France Mobilités, the transport authority. In 2026 that makes €15.93 a night at a Palace, €11.70 at a five-star and €8.45 at a four-star. Under-18s are exempt, and the city has published the same grid for 2027.

Four of the ten hold the Palace distinction, which Atout France gives to a few five-star hotels: Hôtel de Crillon, Le Bristol, Shangri-La and the Mandarin Oriental Lutetia. Hôtel Madame Rêve, Le Grand Mazarin, Le Pavillon de la Reine and Molitor are five-star, and Grands Boulevards Experimental and Le Pigalle are four-star, all as listed on the national register of classified hotels.

Two adults for four nights at a Palace add about €127. VAT, 10% on rooms, is in the price; breakfast mostly is not: Grands Boulevards Experimental includes it only in its two bed-and-breakfast rates, Le Grand Mazarin only in some offers. Parking is mostly by valet: free at the Pavillon de la Reine, and without a published price at the Crillon, the Lutetia and Le Grand Mazarin; Madame Rêve has private parking at €70 a night, booked ahead. Grands Boulevards Experimental has none.

Météo-France's 1991 to 2020 normals for Paris-Montsouris give an average high of 7.6°C in January, 16.6°C in April, 23.4°C in June and 25.7°C in July, the warmest month, with 222 hours of sun; October's average high is 16.5°C. Rain is spread through the year, 634 mm in all, with May the wettest month at 69 mm, and there are about 14 days a year of 30°C or more.

The dates to watch are the fashion weeks: men's from 19 to 24 January 2027, haute couture from 25 to 28 January, women's from 1 to 9 March and from 27 September to 5 October, with men's again from 22 to 27 June and couture from 5 to 8 July. Wine Paris runs from 15 to 17 February and the Salon de l'Agriculture from 27 February to 7 March, both at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Roland-Garros, six minutes' walk from Molitor, runs from 17 May to 6 June 2027, and Paris schools break for Christmas from 19 December 2026 to 4 January 2027.

The quietest stretches on these calendars are early January, once Paris schools go back on 4 January, and the days between the end of the February school holidays on 22 February and the Salon de l'Agriculture. Some hotel kitchens close for part of August: in 2026 the Pavillon de la Reine stopped its Sunday brunch from 4 to 31 August.

France uses the euro. Since an order of 27 March 1987, restaurant and café prices are service compris: the service is in the price on the menu, which must show its rate. A tip is extra and voluntary, left when the service was good. In a taxi the tip is strictly optional, and the driver must take a card for any fare. Hotel prices include VAT, at 10% on the room, and the city tax is added on top.

Visitors who live outside the European Union, are 16 or over and are in France for less than six months can reclaim VAT on purchases of more than €100 in the same shop, or group of shops, over one to three days, taken home in their own luggage. That includes British visitors. The shop issues a tax-free form, and customs validate it at a PABLO kiosk before you leave the EU.

Sunday is a day of rest by law, but Paris has 12 international tourist zones where shops may open every Sunday and until midnight on weekdays, all year. They include Saint-Honoré-Vendôme and Les Halles in the 1st, the Marais, Rennes-Saint-Sulpice in the 6th, Saint-Germain in the 7th, Champs-Élysées-Montaigne and Haussmann in the 8th, and Montmartre. Elsewhere, shops may open on up to 12 Sundays a year that the mayor sets, around the sales and Christmas.

British and American citizens need no visa for a short visit: up to 90 days in any 180, counted across the whole Schengen area. The passport must have been issued less than 10 years before the day you arrive and be valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave.

Passport stamps have gone. Since 12 October 2025 the EU's Entry/Exit System has registered non-EU visitors at the border: name, passport details, the date and place of each entry and exit, a photograph of the face and, for those who need no visa, four fingerprints. Children under 12 are not fingerprinted. The system came in border by border over six months and has run in full at every external crossing since 10 April 2026. It costs nothing and needs nothing done in advance; on Eurostar the check is made at St Pancras before you leave the UK, so allow extra time there. The record lasts three years.

ETIAS, the EU's travel authorisation for visitors who need no visa, is not yet in operation, and the EU says it will announce the start date several months ahead. When it begins it will cost €20, with under-18s and over-70s exempt, last three years or until the passport expires, and be checked before boarding a flight, coach or ferry, and at the border. Apply only through the official EU website or app.

On 1 January 2025 the ticket t+ and the old point-to-point fares gave way to two single tickets at one price across the region, €2.50 for the Métro, RER and trains and €2 for buses and trams, and one €13 ticket for both airports. On 1 January 2026 they rose to €2.55, €2.05 and €14.

On 3 April 2025 Mandarin Oriental took over the running of the Lutetia, which became Mandarin Oriental Lutetia, Paris.

Since summer 2025 the Seine has had supervised places to swim; in 2026 three free sites ran from 4 July to 30 August, at the Bras Marie by the Hôtel de Ville, at Bercy and at Grenelle.

On 12 October 2025 the Entry/Exit System began; it has run in full since 10 April 2026.

On 1 January 2026 the city tax rose from €15.60 to €15.93 a night at Palaces and from €11.38 to €11.70 at five-star hotels; four-star stayed at €8.45, and the 2027 rates are unchanged.

On 2 June 2026 Atout France named 33 Palaces, 13 in Paris, among them the Crillon, Le Bristol, Shangri-La and the Lutetia; the Lutetia and Shangri-La had been renewed in March.

Notre-Dame, reopened on 7 December 2024, is free to enter, with free timed slots to book or a queue without.

The Hôtel des Grands Boulevards now trades as Grands Boulevards Experimental; the official star register still uses the old name.