National Museum of Korea 2026: Free Admission, Night Hours, and How to Get There

Bottom line: The permanent exhibition at the National Museum of Korea is free, year-round. Wednesdays and Saturdays it stays open until 9 p.m., so arriving late in the afternoon still leaves plenty of time. Special exhibitions charge a separate fee, though, so check what's currently showing — and whether it's paid — before you walk in.

If you didn't know: If you only know the weekday closing time (5:30 p.m.) and not the Wednesday/Saturday night hours (until 9 p.m.), arriving around 6 p.m. and assuming "it's already closed" costs you 3.5 hours you didn't need to lose. The opposite mistake happens too — assuming the special exhibition is free like the permanent collection, queuing up, and then being caught off guard by a separate charge at the door.

Walk out of Ichon Station's Exit 2, follow the connecting passage, and you're already in the museum lobby. The first thing you see past the entrance is the Ten-Story Pagoda from Gyeongcheonsa Temple, standing tall enough to nearly brush the ceiling — a late-Goryeo pagoda set under natural light behind glass walls, so the carvings on its surface look different depending on the angle of the sun when you visit during the day. The permanent galleries span 7 halls and 39 rooms with 9,884 artifacts on display, more than you can take in in one visit, but since admission is free, there's no cost to splitting your visit across several trips. Using the Wednesday or Saturday night hours is also a good way to see the collection with fewer crowds than a weekday afternoon. The special-exhibition halls share some walkways with the permanent galleries, so you can end up walking in without a ticket and getting stopped by staff — check the special-exhibition poster or the sign at the entrance first.

Journey stage: During the trip · Verified 2026-10-26