Cyprus Archaeological Sites and Museums: Fees and Opening Hours

As of 9 October 2026, none of the 18 paid archaeological sites, monuments and museums in our tables charges more than €4.50. Kato Paphos Archaeological Park, Kourion, Palaipafos and Limassol Castle cost €4.50, the other 14 cost €2.50, and the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia is free. The main sites open daily at 08:30 and close at 19:30 from 16 April to 15 September and at 17:00 otherwise, shutting only on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday.

How entry fees and opening seasons work

The official visitor pages split the year into two timetables: summer runs from 16 April to 15 September and winter from 16 September to 15 April. Each paid site publishes one standard adult fee with no seasonal rate, and three Larnaca sites add a pensioner price. Almost every site follows one of three patterns.

• Main sites, open daily: 08:30 to 19:30 in summer and 08:30 to 17:00 in winter, closed only on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday. Kato Paphos, the Tombs of the Kings, Kourion, Apollo Hylates, Kolossi Castle, Amathous and Choirokoitia all work this way.
• Small sites, weekdays only: Monday to Friday, 09:30 to 17:00 in summer and 08:30 to 16:00 in winter, closed at weekends and on public holidays. Maa-Palaeokastro, Kition, the Royal Chapel at Pyrga and Tamassos are in this group.
• Museums, fixed hours all year: one timetable in both seasons and a weekly closing day, Monday for the Cyprus Museum and the Paphos and Larnaca district museums, the weekend for the Limassol district museum.

This page covers the Republic of Cyprus only, the government-controlled south. For what there is to see, start with our guide to things to do in Cyprus.

Paphos archaeological sites: entrance fees and opening hours

As published on the official pages on 9 October 2026:

The Tombs of the Kings entrance fee is €2.50 and the Paphos Archaeological Park at Kato Paphos costs €4.50, so the pair comes to €7.00. Both belong, with Palaipafos at Kouklia, to the Paphos World Heritage property that UNESCO inscribed in 1980.

Three details are easy to miss. Palaipafos shuts on Mondays. Maa-Palaeokastro, near Coral Bay, opens on weekdays only and closes on public holidays. Paphos Castle closes on all public holidays, not only on the three named days.

The official page for Agios Georgios Pegeia prints 08:30 to 16:00 for summer and 09:30 to 17:00 for winter, the mirror image of the other small sites. We could not confirm which is correct, so aim for 09:30 to 16:00, which fits either reading, and avoid public holidays.

Two museums in the district are free: the Archaeological Museum of the Paphos District and the Marion-Arsinoe museum in Polis Chrysochous. The ethnographic museum at Geroskipou is free according to the national tourism site, but the Ierokipia municipality's page gives €2.50, free for children up to 14, so carry the fee. The tourism site also lists 16 September in both seasons, while the regional Visit Pafos site ends summer on 15 September. See also our Paphos guide.

Limassol district: Kourion opening hours, Kolossi and Limassol Castle

As published on 9 October 2026:

Ancient Kourion opens daily all year except on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday. The Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates and Kolossi Castle keep identical hours, so the three combine into one outing for €9.50 in single tickets, or €8.50 with the one-day entry card.

Limassol Castle, which houses the Cyprus Medieval Museum, costs €4.50 and has two official listings that disagree at weekends. The castle listing gives Monday to Saturday 09:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 13:00. The Cyprus Medieval Museum listing on the same site, like Limassol municipality's page, gives Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00 and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 17:00. Plan for the shorter window: from 10:00 on Saturday, and out by 13:00 on Sunday. The castle closes on public holidays. There is more on the city in our Limassol guide.

Do not confuse the Kourion archaeological site with the Local Archaeological Museum of Kourion in Episkopi. An official notice says the Local Archaeological Museum of Kourion is closed to visitors from 1 August 2026 for upgrade works, with a reopening date to be announced. The notice does not cover the Kourion site or the Limassol district museum.

Larnaca district: Choirokoitia, Kition and Hala Sultan Tekke

As published on 9 October 2026:

Choirokoitia, the Neolithic settlement that UNESCO inscribed in 1998, follows the main daily timetable. Kition, Kalavasos-Tenta and Larnaca Castle also publish a pensioner price of €1.25.

Two entries carry conflicting official information. The Kalavasos-Tenta page describes its summer hours as daily and also says the site is closed on weekends, so plan a weekday. For Hala Sultan Tekke, which is free, the attraction page gives the two-season timetable in the table. An official audio guide PDF instead lists 08:00 to 17:00 from November to March, 08:00 to 18:00 in April, May, September and October, and 08:00 to 19:30 from June to August, and says the monument is closed during Friday prayers from 13:00 to 15:00. The Larnaka Tourism Board's listing also says visitors are not admitted during Friday prayers, which it puts at 13:30. A visit inside 08:30 to 17:00, away from Friday early afternoon and the three closing days, fits every version.

In Larnaca, the Church of Saint Lazarus appears in the churches table further down. Further east, the tourism site lists the Makronissos Tombs at Ayia Napa as free and open daily from 09:00 to 17:00 all year, closed on public holidays. We could not confirm who operates them, so they stay out of the tables.

Nicosia district: Cyprus Museum opening times and inland sites

As published on 9 October 2026:

The Cyprus Museum in Nicosia is free. An older edition of the official travellers' handbook still shows a €4.50 fee, while the current attraction page says free. One Nicosia museum is off the list for now: the House of Hatzigeorgakis Kornesios ethnological museum has been closed to the public since 1 September 2026, until further notice.

Fikardou's ethnological museum is free, but its two official listings disagree. The attraction page gives the seasons as 15 April to 30 October and 1 November to 15 April and says the museum is closed on Mondays and public holidays. The Accessible Cyprus guide, a PDF uploaded in 2025, uses the standard 16 April and 16 September changeovers and lists Monday to Sunday. Both give 09:30 to 17:00 in summer and 08:30 to 16:00 in winter, so a visit inside 09:30 to 16:00 fits both. Treat Mondays and public holidays as closed.

Painted churches of Troodos and other churches: free, with their own hours

These churches are places of worship, not state museums: UNESCO states that the legal owner of the painted churches in the Troodos region is the Church of Cyprus. Entry to every church in this table is published as free, as of 9 October 2026.

All ten painted churches belong to the World Heritage property inscribed in 1985 and extended in 2001. Nine main listings say they close on public holidays, and the Asinou page names only Christmas Day and New Year's Day. At Agios Ioannis Lampadistis the church is free and the adjacent Byzantine Museum charges €1.00 separately.

The ten share the main timetable above, but the same official site carries a second listing for these churches in its rural section, and for at least seven it disagrees:

Where the two listings differ, plan for the shorter window and confirm with the church before a long drive. None of the ten main listings gives Monday hours. Three second listings do (Araka, Archangelos Michael and Timios Stavros), so treat Monday as closed unless the church has confirmed otherwise. Our Troodos mountains guide covers the villages around them.

Is the one-day, three-day or seven-day entry card worth it?

The official pages say the Department of Antiquities can issue entry cards for all its museums and ancient monuments. Prices are as published on 9 October 2026, and each example uses the single fees from the tables above.

Kato Paphos and the Tombs of the Kings together cost €7.00, less than the €8.50 one-day card. The card wins only when a day's single tickets come to more than €8.50, for example when you add a third paid site to those two or pair two €4.50 sites. The three-day card costs exactly as much as two one-day cards.

The pages do not say where cards are sold, whether the three or seven days must be consecutive, or whether a card allows repeat visits to one site. Ask at the first site you visit.

Organised groups of more than 10 people get 20% off at every paid site in the tables. Concessions for children, students or visitors with disabilities were not on any official page we could open, which does not mean none exist.

How this page was compiled

This is desk research, not a record of visits. On 9 October 2026 the official visitor page for each site on visitcyprus.com, the website of the Deputy Ministry of Tourism, was opened and the published fee, hours and closing days were copied into the tables. UNESCO's World Heritage List supplied the inscription years. Where another official page (a second listing, a municipality or a regional tourism site) disagrees, both versions are shown.

What could not be confirmed:

• A dated price list. The official pages show no revision date, and the Department of Antiquities' own website would not open on the day.
• That the tables include every site the Department runs.
• Card payment and any official online ticket platform.
• Free-entry days. A government announcement of free entry on 18 April 2026, for the International Day for Monuments and Sites, appeared in search results, but the page itself would not open.
• Left out entirely: the Cyprus Railways Museum at Evrychou (fee not confirmed), Agios Mamas at Louvaras (no current fee or hours) and the two museums under closure notices.

Prices and timetables change, sometimes without notice, so check the official page shortly before you go. Rows not linked below come from the matching attraction pages on the same website.

• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Archaeological Park of Kato Pafos
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Kourion Archaeological Site
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Lemesos (Limassol) Medieval Castle
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Cyprus Medieval Museum (Limassol Castle)
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Kition Archaeological Site, with entry card prices
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Cyprus Museum
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Hala Sultan Tekke
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Hala Sultan Tekke audio guide transcript (PDF)
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Fikardou Ethnological Museum
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: Kourion local museum closure notice
• Deputy Ministry of Tourism: House of Hatzigeorgakis Kornesios closure notice
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Painted Churches in the Troodos Region

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the Tombs of the Kings entrance fee?

The Tombs of the Kings entrance fee is €2.50 for an adult, as of 9 October 2026. The site opens daily at 08:30 and closes at 19:30 between 16 April and 15 September, and at 17:00 for the rest of the year. It is closed on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday.

What are the Kourion opening hours?

Kourion opens daily from 08:30 to 19:30 between 16 April and 15 September, and from 08:30 to 17:00 for the rest of the year, as of 9 October 2026. The site shuts on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday. Adult entry costs €4.50. The Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates keeps the same hours and is priced separately at €2.50.

How much are Paphos Archaeological Park tickets?

An adult ticket for Paphos Archaeological Park costs €4.50, as of 9 October 2026. The Tombs of the Kings are a separate site at €2.50. We found no official online ticket platform and no statement on card payment, so carrying some cash is a sensible precaution.

Is the Cyprus Museum free, and what are its opening times?

Yes, admission to the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia is free, as of 9 October 2026. Its regular opening times are Tuesday to Friday 08:00 to 18:00, Saturday 09:00 to 17:00 and Sunday 10:00 to 13:00. The museum is closed on Mondays, Christmas Day, New Year's Day and Orthodox Easter Sunday. On other public holidays it opens from 10:30 to 13:00, and on the first Wednesday of every month from 08:00 to 20:00.

Is Limassol Castle open on Sundays?

Yes, from 10:00, but two official listings disagree on when it closes. The castle listing says 13:00 and the Cyprus Medieval Museum listing says 17:00, so plan to finish by 13:00. On Saturdays one gives 09:00 to 17:00 and the other 10:00 to 17:00. Both give Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00. Adult entry costs €4.50, as of 9 October 2026.

Is the entry card for Cyprus archaeological sites worth it?

Only on a busy day. The one-day card costs €8.50, as of 9 October 2026, so it beats single tickets once you visit two €4.50 sites, or one €4.50 site and two €2.50 sites. The three-day card costs €17.00 and the seven-day card €25.00.