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Empire State Building Tickets: Real Prices, the $5 Fee, and Where to Buy

Almost every guide says Empire State Building tickets start at $44. Two things are missing from that number. The official site adds a $5 booking charge to every transaction, and the same site quietly sells a cheaper ticket that none of the pages ranking above this one mention.

We checked eight ticket sources on one day in September 2026. The same 86th Floor entry came out anywhere from $38.89 to $56.62 depending on who was selling it. That is a spread of almost $18 a head for an identical ticket to an identical deck at an identical time.

The cheapest seller is not automatically the right one, and the reason has nothing to do with price. This guide lays out every official rate, the reseller comparison, and the one policy difference that decides which you should use. It also flags three places where the building’s own website contradicts itself.

Every official Empire State Building ticket and what it costs

There are fourteen official ticket products, and the two most widely quoted prices are neither the cheapest nor the most useful.

The full range, all from the official site

Every ticket includes the same three things: the 86th Floor open-air deck, the museum galleries on the second floor, and the viewing gallery and exhibits on the 80th. You are not paying for access to different parts of the building. You are paying for timing, speed, and flexibility.

The $5 booking charge

A $5 booking charge is added to every transaction, and it appears on none of the eight pages currently ranking for this search.

CityPASS works differently. There the charge is $2 per ticket rather than $5 per transaction.

There is a complication we could not resolve, and it is covered further down: the official site describes this fee two different ways on two different pages.

The same ticket at seven different prices

We priced the standard 86th Floor entry across every seller on the first page of Google on the same day, and the gap was $17.73.

Two things are worth saying plainly. Prices here move with date and time slot, so your numbers will not match ours exactly. And Go City publishes its own comparison on its own page: $39.67 per attraction with a three-choice pass against $56.62 for a single ticket. It is honest about that gap. What it does not say is that the official site sells the same entry for $44.

Where to buy, and why refunds matter more than price

The real difference between the official site and the resellers is not the money. It is that the official site will not give you a refund and most resellers will.

Four ways to pay less

All four come from the official site, and three of them appear on none of the competing pages.

• The Best Value Ticket, from $39. The 86th Floor deck and the second floor exhibits at the lowest rate the building offers, on selected time slots only. It sits under “Deals and Local Tickets” rather than “Popular,” which is probably why it gets missed.
• The NYC Locals Ticket, 25% off. If you live in New York City you unlock a quarter off standard admission. Visitor guides skip this, but plenty of people reading a ticket page are locals taking family around.
• The AM/PM Experience, from $62. One purchase, two visits the same day: daylight and then again at night, three hours before closing. Against two separate $44 tickets at $88 plus fees, this is the clearest saving on the list if you want both views.
• An attraction pass, if you are doing three or more. CityPASS bundles the building with four other attractions. Go City’s three-choice Explorer Pass works out at $39.67 per attraction. Both only beat single tickets if you genuinely use the other slots. If the 9/11 Memorial and Museum is also on your list, its current prices are here.

Is the 102nd Floor worth $35 more?

The 102nd Floor costs $79 against $44, and the difference is enclosure rather than altitude.

The 86th Floor has two parts: an open-air promenade you walk around outdoors, which is the one from the films, and an enclosed indoor section with the original Art Deco ceiling. The 102nd is sixteen floors higher, reached by a separate elevator, and fully enclosed with floor-to-ceiling glass.

Recent visitor accounts split cleanly. Some call the higher deck the icing on the cake. Others say plainly that it is the same view from higher up and they would not pay again.

Hours and the entry door rule

The building publishes hours in date blocks rather than a fixed daily schedule, and the entry door closes before the building does.

Hours change several times across a season. In the current block the deck runs 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. with the entry door closing at 10 p.m., a full hour before closing. Other blocks open at 9 a.m., close at 10 p.m., or both. We are not printing this year’s schedule because it is replaced through the year and would be wrong for you by the time you read this. The official hours page is the only place to check your date.

When to go, according to the building itself

The building tells you to go between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., which is the opposite of the advice most travel guides give.

The official reasoning is that the daily morning rush is over by midday. That is a useful correction, because the standard advice for every attraction in New York is to arrive at opening, and here the operator says the middle of the day is the calmer window.

The official site adds a second recommendation we have not seen anywhere else: for a quieter, more private visit, go in the morning or after 8 p.m.

If neither window fits your day, the Express Pass exists for exactly that. It is $85 against $44, a steep premium for skipping a line, but it is the building’s own answer to arriving at a busy hour.

Three places the official site contradicts itself

We found three, and all three change what a visitor would plan or pay.

None of this is dishonest. Large sites drift. But it is why we price from the ticket page and the live ticketing system rather than from a summary table, and it is why a date stamp on a travel guide matters.

What you cannot bring, and the locker problem

The prohibited list is long, and the detail that catches people is that there is nowhere to leave anything.

Not permitted: weapons, glass items, alcoholic beverages, cans and bottles, professional camera stands, sports equipment, marking instruments, musical instruments, large luggage, non-PPE costumes and masks, and outside food.

For groups of more than twenty, bookings go through the building’s group sales team rather than the public site. For small groups up to seven, the All Access Tour is the official route.

Questions people ask

What we could not verify

Three claims are repeated across the pages we read, and we are not printing them as fact.

• The height of the 86th Floor deck. Three sellers gave three different figures: 1,049 feet, 1,050 feet and 1,054 feet.
• Free entry for children under six. Several resellers state it. We did not find it on the official ticket pages.
• Restrooms on the 86th Floor only. Stated by one reseller, not confirmed officially.

We also found a stale date on Civitatis, where the meeting point note still refers to Thanksgiving Day on November 27, 2025. And Go City says the views span five states, while the official site and Viator both say six.

Before you book

The honest summary is that Empire State Building tickets are simpler than the ticket page makes them look. There is one deck most people want, the 86th, and it costs $44 plus $5. Everything above that price is buying speed, a second visit, a second deck, or a private guide.

Two decisions are worth two minutes each. Compare the official price against two resellers, because the spread is real. Then ask whether you need to be able to cancel, because that single policy difference is what the extra money actually buys.

And if you want the calmest visit, go at midday. The building says so itself, and it is the one piece of advice here that costs nothing. Planning more of Midtown? Our Central Park guide covers the other end of the same walk.Comparing decks? Our Top of the Rock tickets guide runs the same numbers on the other side of Midtown.