A traveller with one full day in Bilbao usually plans it around the Guggenheim. The question that decides whether that day works is duller and more useful: what weekday is it, because three museums here close on three different days.
Which Bilbao museum opens on a Monday? Euskal Museoa is the only one open on a Monday outside summer, 10am to 7pm, while the Itsasmuseum and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao close. From 15 June to 7 September the Guggenheim opens on Mondays too. Admission is €10 at the first two and €18 at the Guggenheim.
Bilbao’s main museums sit in two clusters: the riverfront, holding the Guggenheim, the Itsasmuseum and the Fine Arts Museum, and the Old Town, holding Euskal Museoa.
What each ticket costs
The gap between the most expensive museum and the other two is wide enough to change a budget. An adult pays €18 at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, against €10 at both the Itsasmuseum and Euskal Museoa.
Reduced rates track the same shape: €9 at the Guggenheim for students aged 18 to 26, over-65s and pensioners, and €5 at the other two for students, over-65s and large families. Under-18s pay nothing at any of the three.
Two low bands appear only at the smaller museums. Euskal Museoa charges €3 to people registered unemployed, and the Itsasmuseum admits them free, along with local teachers, local official guides and journalists visiting on work.
Group rates diverge as well. The Guggenheim opens its reduced group rate at 20 people, the Itsasmuseum at 15, where a school’s self-guided visit costs €2 a pupil and an unbooked group visit €3.50, and Euskal Museoa applies its €5 reduced rate from ten visitors upward.
Three free windows, none of them overlapping
None of the city’s free slots falls on the same day, so a three-day stay can be built to pay for one admission instead of three. Two of them ask for nothing at all, not a card, not an address, not an age.
- Wednesday, all day — Euskal Museoa admits everyone free, no proof of anything
- Sunday from 5pm — the Itsasmuseum admits everyone free, again with no conditions
- Tuesday — the Itsasmuseum is free for people registered as residents in Bizkaia, on production of an ID at the desk
The Guggenheim sits outside that pattern with no free day at all. What it publishes instead is a 50% discount from 4pm to 7pm on the last day of each exhibition, which follows the exhibition calendar rather than the week.
Full detail on each sits in the guides to Euskal Museoa’s free Wednesdays and to the Itsasmuseum’s free Sunday.
The closing days that ruin an itinerary
Museums in most of Europe close on Monday, and in Bilbao that assumption is only two-thirds right. The Itsasmuseum closes on Mondays, unless the Monday is a public holiday or the eve of one. The Guggenheim closes on Mondays with a published list of exceptions. Euskal Museoa closes on Tuesdays instead.
Run the arithmetic on that and a Monday outside summer leaves exactly one of the three open, which is Euskal Museoa in the Old Town. From 15 June to 7 September the Guggenheim opens every Monday, so the same day of the week behaves differently depending on the season.
The reverse trap is Tuesday. A visitor who lands on a Tuesday and heads to the Old Town for the Basque museum finds it shut, while the two riverside museums are open and one of them, the Itsasmuseum, is free that day for Bizkaia residents.
| Museum | Closing day | Hours | Adult ticket |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guggenheim Museum Bilbao | Monday, with published exceptions | 10am to 7pm, to 8pm in summer | €18 |
| Itsasmuseum Bilbao | Monday, unless a holiday or its eve | 11am to 7pm, Tuesday to Sunday | €10 |
| Euskal Museoa Bilbao | Tuesday | 10am to 7pm, Sundays 10am to 2pm | €10 |
| Bilbao Fine Arts Museum | n/a, in transition | Not published for the new stage | Not published |
The art you can see without buying anything
A surprising share of what people photograph in Bilbao stands outside the ticket line, which makes a closed Monday less wasted than it sounds.
On the riverfront, the Guggenheim’s titanium exterior, Jeff Koons’s flower sculpture on the water side and Louise Bourgeois’s spider are all outdoors. Outside the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Chillida’s Elogio del hierro III stands in the renovated square that carries his name. At the maritime museum the Athletic Club barge and the visiting tall ships sit on the open quay.
Add the Abandoibarra walk itself, which links the three riverside museums, and a first afternoon in the city can be spent entirely outside without missing the landmarks.
The Arriaga Atrium joins that list from 5 October, when the Fine Arts Museum reopens with the new central space announced as freely accessible. Until then the sculpture in the square outside is the free half of that museum.
The Fine Arts Museum is between two versions of itself
The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum is the one that fits no table at present. Its public activity moved into the 1970 building, running a programme of its own until 8 October, while the extended museum by Norman Foster and Luis María Uriarte reopens on 5 October.
Two dates frame the change and they overlap by three days, which is the only window when both versions of the museum can be seen. The date and the programme are settled: La búsqueda del comienzo, a tribute to the collector Plácido Arango, and Richard Serra’s sculpture Bilbao in the new Arriaga Atrium, announced as freely accessible. What has not been published is the operational half, meaning hours and admission prices, so a visit after 5 October cannot be fully planned today. The two stages are set out in the guide to the Fine Arts Museum reopening.
Booking, refunds and what a ticket includes
The three museums that publish full conditions handle them differently, and the differences matter for a traveller on a fixed schedule.
At the Guggenheim, the audio guide is included in every ticket, issued tickets are not refundable, group rates are arranged by phone on (+34) 944 35 90 80 between 9am and 2pm, and the museum advises buying through its official website to avoid ticket fraud.
At Euskal Museoa, the desk and the website charge the same price, a ticket allows one entry only with no leaving and returning, and no booking is needed except for guided visits. The Itsasmuseum publishes a free audio guide to download, so the commentary costs nothing at either of the two €10 museums.
Which museum your day allows
- Arriving on a Monday outside summer → Euskal Museoa, the only one open
- Arriving on a Monday between 15 June and 7 September → the Guggenheim opens too
- It is Tuesday → Guggenheim or Itsasmuseum, Euskal Museoa is shut
- It is Wednesday and money matters → Euskal Museoa, free with no conditions
- It is Sunday afternoon → Itsasmuseum from 5pm, free for everyone
- One paid ticket only → the Guggenheim for the building, the Fine Arts Museum for the painting
Getting between them, and whether a card pays
Three of the four sit on the same riverside axis and can be walked between. The Guggenheim is on Abandoibarra with a tram stop at the door; the Itsasmuseum is on Ramón de la Sota quay, tram stop Euskalduna, metro San Mamés; the Fine Arts Museum sits beside Doña Casilda park. Euskal Museoa is the outlier, in the Old Town on Cruz street.
Fares and routes for the tram and metro are set out in the guide to Bilbao metro lines and the tram, and the wider ticketing picture in the guide to the Barik card.
On tourist cards, the Bilbao Bizkaia Card sold by Bilbao Turismo bundles transport and cultural admissions from €10 for 24 hours. Whether it pays depends on the weekday: on a Wednesday, or on a Sunday after 5pm, two of the city’s museum admissions already cost nothing.
Frequently asked questions about Bilbao’s museums
Which museums in Bilbao are free, and when?
Euskal Museoa charges nothing every Wednesday, and the Itsasmuseum is free on Sundays from 5pm for everyone and on Tuesdays for Bizkaia residents. The Guggenheim has no free day, only a 50% window on each exhibition’s last day.
Which Bilbao museum opens on a Monday?
Euskal Museoa, from 10am to 7pm. The Itsasmuseum closes on Mondays and so does the Guggenheim, except on dates it publishes individually, including every Monday from 15 June to 7 September.
How much do Bilbao’s museums cost?
An adult pays €18 at the Guggenheim and €10 at both the Itsasmuseum and Euskal Museoa. Reduced rates are €9 and €5 respectively, and under-18s pay nothing at any of the three.
How much of Bilbao’s art can you see without a ticket?
The Guggenheim’s titanium exterior, Jeff Koons’s flower sculpture, Louise Bourgeois’s spider, Chillida’s Elogio del hierro III outside the Fine Arts Museum and the Athletic Club barge at the maritime quay are all outdoors and free.
Is a Bilbao Bizkaia Card worth buying for museums?
It bundles transport with cultural admissions from €10 for 24 hours, sold by Bilbao Turismo. On a Wednesday or a Sunday evening two of the city’s museum admissions are already free, which changes the arithmetic entirely.
Pick the day first and the museum second, because in Bilbao the calendar decides more than the collection does.