Budapest Zoo & Botanical Garden opened in 1866 and is one of the oldest zoos in the world. It keeps more than 8,000 animals from seven continents on about 11 hectares of City Park, behind Heroes’ Square. The buildings are half the reason to come. Almost every one a visitor photographs went up in a single rebuild between 1909 and 1912, and several are listed monuments.
One ticket is one entry. Step out for lunch and you buy again, and nobody is let in after the last entry an hour before closing, even with a ticket already in hand. The Zoo opens at 09:00, but most animal houses stay shut until 10:00, which is the hour to aim for.
- Visit length
- Half a day, longer with the indoor halls
- Entry
- Ticket, one entry, no re-entry
- Book ahead
- Only to skip the ticket queue
- Opening hours
- January and February: Daily 09:00 to 16:00March: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 17:30April: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 18:00May to August: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 18:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 19:00September: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 18:00October: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 17:30November: Daily 09:00 to 16:00December: Daily 09:00 to 16:00
- Best time
- Weekday, from 10:00
- Nearest stop
- Trolleybus 72/81 ÁllatkertAbout 2 minutes, and the stop is on Állatkerti körút outside the Main Gate
- Accessibility
- Wheelchair at the gate, no attendant
- Animal houses
- Open at 09:00 or 10:00, shut early
- Dogs
- Not allowed, assistance dogs by prior email
Budapest Zoo tickets
The Zoo sells its own tickets, online and at the ticket offices beside the Main Gate. Buying online saves the queue at the desk, which is the reason the Zoo gives for it, and it is the only one we would give either.
One ticket covers the lot. Admission takes in the Great Rock and Magic Mountain, the Palm House, the Aquarium and the Biodome, so the headline buildings are not paid extras. The seasonal minibus, the historic carousel and the dinosaur film inside the Biodome are.
Children from 2 to 18 pay a child’s rate, students with an ISIC card and over-65s with photo identification pay less, and family tickets run from one adult with one child up to two adults with four children, with add-on tickets beyond that. Groups from 15 people are counted together, need no booking, and get one adult companion free for every ten children or students.
Under-2s are not free. The Zoo sells a baby ticket for them, and the only exception it states is a child under 2 coming in with the holder of an annual pass.
- No date to pick. A ticket bought online is good for one entry within 365 days of buying it, so you can book before you travel without committing to a day
- One ticket, one entry. Leaving the Zoo ends it, whatever the reason, and there is no refund for a visit cut short
- Last entry is an hour before closing in every season, and the ticket offices shut at the same moment. A ticket bought earlier will not get you in after that
- Paying: cards with the MasterCard or Visa logo at the ticket offices, cash at the offices, the ticket machines, the food outlets and the gift shop, and SZÉP cards at the tills, the machines and online
Paying less with the Budapest Card
Budapest Card: Public Transport, 30+ Top Attractions & Tours
Best for: Taking 20% off a Zoo ticket at the desk, if you are seeing more of Budapest than the Zoo
- 24, 48, 72 or 96 hours from first use
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- One discounted Zoo ticket, bought at the ticket office
- Unlimited public transport, including the trolleybus to the gate
- Free entry to more than 30 museums and attractions
- A Danube river cruise
- At the Zoo
- One adult, child, student or senior ticket per card. Not family or group tickets
- How it is given
- In person at the ticket office. The discount is not available on the Zoo's online sale, so do not book ahead if you mean to use it
- Worth it only if
- You are doing several things in the city. On a visit to the Zoo alone the card costs more than the 20% saves
- Bring
- Passport or ID card: its number goes on the card before first use
The card is a discount here, not the free entry it gives at Lukács and the big museums. Our Budapest Card guide has the full free list and how to work out whether it pays.
Highlights
The Urban Oasis
A hectare of tropical planting under one roof, with about thirty life-sized prehistoric reptiles standing in it. Open since July 2026 and covered by the ordinary ticket.
Art Nouveau animal houses
Neuschloss Kornél’s Elephant House, with its Zsolnay pyrogranite and coloured glass, and Végh Gyula’s Palm House and Great Rock.
Keepers on a timetable
About eighteen timed feedings and trainings a day from April to November, the penguins at 10:00 and the elephants at 15:00 among them.
Plan your visit
Opening hours
The Zoo is open every day of the year, from 09:00. Closing moves with the month, from 16:00 in midwinter to 19:00 at summer weekends, and most animal houses do not unlock until 10:00.
January and February: Daily 09:00 to 16:00March: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 17:30April: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 18:00May to August: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 18:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 19:00September: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:30, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 18:00October: Mon to Fri 09:00 to 17:00, Sat to Sun 09:00 to 17:30November: Daily 09:00 to 16:00December: Daily 09:00 to 16:00Our opening hours guide has the full seasonal table, which houses open when, and the keeper programme timetable.
Getting there
The trolleybus stop is on Állatkerti körút outside the Main Gate, and the M1 station at Széchenyi fürdő is about 5 minutes away. On busy days the transport authority steers people onto the metro, which carries more of them.
Nearest stops
By car: the Zoo’s own car park is at the Hermina út end of Állatkerti körút, next to the Holnemvolt Vár gate. Through traffic on the road is barred during the day.
See our guide to getting there for the three gates, the walk from each nearby landmark and parking.
Before you go
- One entry per ticket. Leaving the Zoo for any reason ends the ticket, bad weather and health included, and coming back in means buying another
- Children under 14 may not enter or stay without an adult, and that goes for the playgrounds, the petting zoo and the hands-on exhibits, which are used at your own risk
- Pushchairs and push ride-ons are allowed, bicycles are not. There are racks outside the Elephant House gate, on public ground
- No dogs. The one exception is an assistance dog with its documents and vaccination certificates, emailed to the Zoo at least two working days before the visit for approval, and it must be on a lead and muzzled
- Do not feed the animals. The only feeding is the Zoo’s own, on the programme timetable
- Photography for your own use is fine in the public areas. No drones, and nothing reaching into an enclosure on a selfie stick
- Bags: coin lockers for small ones in the entrance hall of the Magic Mountain, bigger ones at the Information Pavilion with a ticket from the Gift Shop. A charge applies to both
- Not allowed in: balloons, sharp or cutting tools, weapons, pyrotechnics, alcohol and other intoxicants
Accessibility
- Ask the ticket attendants at the gate for a wheelchair. The Zoo says one is kept at each entrance, and elsewhere that a limited number are free at the main entrance. There are very few either way, and nobody is provided to push one, so do not count on it
- Nothing is published about step-free routes inside the grounds, which are a nineteenth-century park laid out on several levels. If you need certainty, email the Zoo before you travel
- Anyone with a severe mobility, visual, hearing, mental or communication disability who might be at risk is required to visit with a carer
- Baby care rooms are in the entrance area of the Magic Mountain and on the first floor by the Jungle Bites buffet in the Biodome, and there are changing tables in all the lavatories
- First aid is by the playground and by the Aquarium
- Pull-along carts can be hired from the Zoo Shop for a charge and a cash deposit, and may not leave the grounds
- The level approach is the trolleybus stop outside the Main Gate. The walk from every stop, and what we could and could not establish about the metro, is in our guide to getting there
What to see and do
Start in the Biodome's Urban Oasis
The Urban Oasis opened on 1 July 2026 and is the first piece of the Biodome to take visitors. It runs to about a hectare of indoor exhibition, planted with some 13,000 tropical and subtropical plants, 101 of them tree-sized, and a waterfall drops into it from 14 and a half metres up.
Standing among the planting are around thirty life-sized models of prehistoric reptiles, the largest a Brachiosaurus 25 metres long and almost 12 metres high. The living animals include hanuman langurs, Bali mynas, Palawan peacock-pheasants and African spurred tortoises, some of them species the Zoo had not kept for decades.
No separate ticket is needed, and the hall keeps the animal houses’ hours, which means it is open from 09:00. Go there first. The rest of the Biodome building has not opened, so this is one hall of a much bigger shell.
Look up inside the Elephant House
Neuschloss Kornél designed the Elephant House in the 1909 to 1912 rebuild, and it is the building people remember afterwards. The coloured glass and the pyrogranite from the Zsolnay factory in Pécs are what to look at, and the tiled interior under the dome is worth standing still in for a minute.
It was restored and reopened in 1999, with the tower it had lost rebuilt in its original form, and the work won a Europa Nostra gold medal the following year.
The elephants get their keeper training at 15:00, and not where you would expect. It happens at the back enclosure at the foot of the tower, reached from the hippo pool, which is why so many people miss it.
Give the Magic Mountain longer than you think
The Great Rock is the artificial mountain Végh Gyula raised in the 1909 to 1912 works. The Magic Mountain is what was later put inside it, and the Zoo counts more than a dozen themed exhibition areas in there, the Ancient Sea and the Hall of Giants and the world of arthropods among them, spread over several levels with a planetarium and a buffet of its own.
It is the surprise of the visit. Children vanish into it for hours, adults do better in there than they expect to, and a glass-walled covered corridor runs from it to the Great Ape House, so you can keep going without stepping outside.
It opens at 09:00, ahead of most of the houses, which makes it the obvious first stop if you do arrive before ten.
Walk the Palm House through to the Aquarium
The Palm House is the glasshouse Végh Gyula designed with Räde Károly, Ilsemann Keresztély and Lendl Adolf, and it is the plainest sign that the botanical garden in the name is not decoration. Under the palms are anacondas, sloths, armadillos and tamanduas.
Keep walking and you are in the Aquarium without having gone outside. Hungary’s first public aquarium was built here in the same rebuild, and it showed marine animals as well as freshwater ones, which nothing in the country had done before.
Both open at 10:00 rather than 09:00. If you came for butterflies, they are in the Butterfly Garden, which the Zoo runs as a summer exhibit and opens at 10:00 as well.
Cross from the elephants into the Savannah House
The Savannah House holds giraffes, gazelles and rhinoceroses, and it opens straight into the Elephant House, so the pair read as one long indoor walk rather than two stops.
That matters more than it sounds. On a wet day or in a heatwave the joined-up houses are the visit, and the Zoo says which ones connect: this one to the elephants, the Palm House to the Aquarium, the Magic Mountain to the Great Ape House.
The big cats are not here, whatever you may be expecting of a savannah. Indian lions, Persian leopards and Siberian tigers live along Predator Row and at the India House, and the carnivore feeding at 10:30 is posted each morning in front of the India House by the Ashoka pillar.
Know what is left of Holnemvolt Park
The old funfair next door has gone. Its land came to the Zoo in 2014, the Biodome was built on it, and the Zoo’s own site no longer carries a page for Holnemvolt Park at all.
What survives is still on the map. The Holnemvolt Vár gate and the car park beside it keep the name, and inside there are the Vurstli, the Schäftner carousel, a pony paddock, horse walks and the Szép Miklós playground.
The carousel turns at weekends in spring and autumn, daily through the summer and in the school holidays, from 10:00 until the Zoo closes, and it is paid for separately by cash, card or OTP SZÉP card. Treat the lot as an extra for a child who wants one, not as a reason to come.
Insider tips
Arrive for 10:00, not 09:00
The gates open at 09:00, but most of the animal houses stay shut until 10:00, so turning up at nine buys you an hour of walking between locked doors. The Biodome, the Magic Mountain, the Great Ape House, the Shark School, the Rock Aviary and the India House are the ones that open with the gates. Our opening hours guide lists the rest.
Work the timetable, not the map
From April to November the Zoo runs about eighteen timed programmes a day, and two or three of them will be the best part of the visit. Penguin feeding is at 10:00, carnivore feeding at 10:30, sea lion training at 11:00 and again at 16:00, gorilla feeding at 13:00 and elephant training at 15:00. Pick two that sit an hour or so apart and build the walk around them.
A wet day is the quiet day
Rain empties the place, and the Zoo copes with it better than most. Several of the big houses join up under cover, so a downpour can be spent indoors with the paths outside to yourself. A heatwave works the same way.
Take the minibus if the legs are going
In season a minibus leaves the main entrance every half hour from 09:00 to 16:30 and takes 20 to 25 minutes to loop the Great Lake, the Australian Trail, Predator Row, the Shark School, the Savannah House and the Great Ape House before returning to the Main Gate.
Tickets come from the gift shop, cash or card. It is a paid extra and it does not run all year, so buy one on the way in rather than when the walking has already done for you.
Find the bonsai in the Japanese Garden
The Hungarian National Bonsai Collection has its own pavilion in the Zoo’s Japanese Garden and can be seen at any time during opening hours, with a gardeners’ talk there at 12:30. It is the quietest corner of the grounds, and the half of the Zoo’s name that nobody comes for.
Nearby attractions
The Zoo sits at the top of City Park, so most of the park’s other attractions are within ten minutes on foot. The Capital Circus is next door on Állatkerti körút, and the Museum of Fine Arts is about 3 minutes away at the Heroes’ Square end.
Széchenyi Thermal Bath
About 5 minutes east along Állatkerti körút, on the same road as the Main Gate.
Heroes' Square
About 6 minutes south, where Állatkerti körút meets Andrássy út.
City Park (Városliget)
The park the Zoo stands in, with the boating lake, the ice rink and the museums.
Vajdahunyad Castle
About 11 minutes south-east across the park, beside the boating lake.
Did you know?
- In 1868 the first giraffe in the world whose mother had also been born in a zoo was born here.
- Hippos have been kept without a break since 1893, more than 130 years, and the Zoo says no other zoo in the world can claim it.
- In 2007 the first rhinoceros in the world conceived by artificial insemination was born at the Zoo.
History
A private company founded the Zoo in 1864 and opened it to the public at noon on Thursday, 9 August 1866, with about six hundred animals from around a hundred species. Nearly everything a visitor photographs today comes from one burst of building between 1909 and 1912, after the city took the bankrupt Zoo over and rebuilt it from the ground up.
- 1864
Founded by a private company
Four founders, the best known of them the zoologist and traveller János Xántus, set up the Zoo because the city was not yet in a position to.
- 9 Aug 1866
Opened to the public
The gates open at noon with about six hundred animals from around a hundred species. The favourite is Kristóf the brown bear.
- 1907
Bankruptcy and the city takeover
The operating company fails. The city takes the Zoo on and decides to build an entirely new one on the old site.
- 1909 to 1912
Rebuilt from the ground up
The Zoo closes for the rebuild that produced the Main Gate, the Elephant House, the Palm House, the artificial rocks and Hungary’s first public aquarium. It reopens on 20 May 1912.
- 1944 to 1945
The siege
The front passes over the Zoo. Two dozen of its 2,500 animals survive and most of the buildings are rubble. It reopens on 1 May 1945.
- 1994
Reconstruction begins
Miklós Persányi is appointed director, and the listed houses are restored through the 1990s. The Elephant House reopens in 1999.
- 2014
The funfair land returns
The closed Vidámpark site next door is handed back to the Zoo, and the Biodome is planned for it.
- 1 July 2026
The Urban Oasis opens
The first hectare of the Biodome opens to visitors, six years after the shell was finished.