Cat Museum Budapest is a small, privately run mix of cat café and cat-themed gallery on two floors of a townhouse in District V, opened in September 2022 by its owner, Orsolya Török. Ten resident cats live here full time, a free drink comes with every ticket, and the walls carry famous paintings redone with cats, plus a porcelain collection from Zsolnay, Herend and Hollóháza upstairs.
Every visit is booked for a 90-minute slot, nobody under 8 gets in, and shoes come off at the door. Be honest with yourself about what it is: a short visit is a short visit, most people need 30 to 60 minutes, and the cats set the pace.
- Visit length
- A 90-minute slot; most people need 30 to 60 minutes
- Entry
- Timed slot, one free drink included
- Book ahead
- Yes, booking is required for every visit
- Opening hours
- Daily 11:00 to 18:30
- Best time
- Weekday afternoon after 15:00, when the cats wake up
- Nearest stop
- Metro M3 Arany János utcaAbout 250 m; the station entrance is on Podmaniczky Frigyes tér, south of the museum. Inclined lifts to the platforms
- Accessibility
- Stairs inside; no wheelchairs or pushchairs
- Minimum age
- 8, no exceptions; under-12s with an adult
- Shoes
- Off at the door, slippers provided
Cat Museum Budapest tickets
Entry is by timed slot, booked ahead. Two tickets get you in, and a third buys an afternoon painting with the cats.
Cat Museum Budapest: Entry Ticket + Audio Guide
Best for: Cat lovers who like an audio guide to lead the way
- About 1.5 hours
- Audio guide in English or Hungarian
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- Entry to the Cat Museum Budapest
- Audio guide
- A small souvenir if you complete the tablet quiz
- Entry
- Show the voucher on your phone at the door
- Changes
- You can move the date up to 24 hours before
Cat Museum Budapest Entry Ticket
Best for: A relaxed visit with a hot drink, petting the resident cats
- About 1.5 hours
- Audio guide in Hungarian or English
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- Entry to the Cat Museum Budapest
- Audio-guided visit
- Minimum age
- 8
- On arrival
- Shoes off (slippers are provided) and hands disinfected before petting the cats
- Not allowed
- Dogs
- Also
- Reserve now and pay later
Cat Museum Budapest: Guided Acrylic Painting Workshop
Best for: A creative afternoon for any skill level, with the resident cats for company
- 2.5 hours
- Live guide in English or Hungarian
- Non-refundable, cannot be moved
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- Acrylic painting workshop with all materials
- Acrylic paper or canvas to take your picture home on
- A drink
- Indoor slippers
- Group size
- Up to 12
- Check in
- At reception 5 minutes before the start, Vadász utca 26
- The minimum age is 8, whichever ticket you buy, and under-12s must be with an adult
- You cannot go in before your slot starts and there is no waiting inside, because the cats roam free. Arriving 15 to 20 minutes late is fine; later than that, phone ahead
- One drink is included with every ticket, hot or cold, and the rates for adults and children are on the booking page
For the door rules in full and how to buy, see our Cat Museum Budapest tickets guide.
Highlights
Ten resident cats
Siberian, Bengal, Maine Coon, Ragdoll, British shorthair and Devon rex among them, plus shelter cats waiting for a home.
Cats in the old masters
Famous paintings redone with a cat in the lead role, and a case of Zsolnay, Herend and Hollóháza porcelain cats upstairs.
A drink and a sit-down
Tea, coffee, hot chocolate or a soft drink is part of the ticket. Take it to the Relax Nook upstairs, where the beanbags are.
Plan your visit
Opening hours
Open every day from 11:00 to 18:30, the same hours all year. You book a 90-minute slot inside them, and the last slot time is not published, so book earlier in the afternoon rather than later.
Daily 11:00 to 18:30The slot is a ceiling, not a target. A normal visit is well inside it, and the museum says it is not strict about the 90 minutes when it is not full. Weekends are busier than weekdays in a space this small.
Getting there
The M3 metro stop at Arany János utca is about 250 m south of the door, with inclined lifts to the platforms, and buses 9, 15 and 115 and trolleybuses 72 and 73 stop on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út at the same name. St. Stephen’s Basilica is about 490 m away on foot.
Nearest stops
By car: don’t. There is no parking at the museum and the streets around it are paid.
See our complete guide on how to get there for the routes, the walks from the Basilica, the Opera and the Parliament, and what the stairs mean for access.
Before you go
- Minimum age 8, no exceptions; under-12s with an adult
- Shoes off at the door; slippers are provided, or bring your own or thick socks
- Sanitise your hands at the counter before touching a cat, and do not pick the cats up
- No dogs, no pushchairs, no suitcases or wheeled bags
- Allergic to cats? Ten of them live on two small floors. Don’t book
- Photos are welcome; no flash
The full door rules, and what happens if you are late, are on our tickets page.
Accessibility
Not accessible for wheelchair users. The museum says wheelchairs, pushchairs and other wheeled vehicles cannot be brought in, for the cats’ safety, and that there are stairs inside. The metro station outside has lifts; the building does not.
The stairs and the step-free stations are in our how to get there guide.
What to see and do
Let the cats come to you
Ten cats live here, day and night, and they are the reason most people book. On the museum’s own list when we checked: Candy, a white Siberian; Jasmine, a British shorthair who sleeps on laps; Maya and Simba, two Bengals; Leonardo, a Maine Coon; Anubis, a Devon rex; Mona Lisa, a Ragdoll; Cicero, a Scottish shorthair; Pirate, a calico; and Maki, a domestic mix. Line-ups change, and shelter cats often live alongside them while they wait for a home.
The house rules are simple and enforced. Sanitise your hands at the counter, do not pick a cat up, do not wake a sleeping one, no running and no shouting. If a cat wants a lap it will find one, and several of them do.
They sleep about 16 hours a day, and the museum warns you before you book that it cannot say which will be awake. Later in the afternoon gave visitors the best odds. Come for the cats rather than the collection and you will not be disappointed.
Find the cats in the paintings downstairs
The lower floor is themed “Cats in the World”: famous paintings with a cat put in the sitter’s place, antique and contemporary cat pictures, and a series of cats at Budapest landmarks, the Chain Bridge and the Fisherman’s Bastion among them. Bilingual panels tell you what you are looking at.
The gallery changes its series seasonally, and some of the pictures are for sale; ask at the counter. I would not be surprised if the seasonal series is what brings the regulars back as much as the cats.
Give it ten minutes. It is a small floor, and the cats will interrupt you.
Go upstairs for the porcelain and the Jungle Room
The stairs lead into the Jungle Room, where the porcelain collection sits in a glass case: cat figures from Zsolnay, the Pécs factory whose tiles cover the roof of Matthias Church, from Herend and Hollóháza, and a few foreign pieces. The panels around it cover the biology of cats and the breeds you have just met, with short films playing in the same room.
The middle room has the tablet quiz. Score 80 per cent or more and you choose a small souvenir from the lucky bag on the way out. At the back is the Relax Nook, with beanbags, a book collection and a forest soundtrack, which is where the drink goes.
Watch your feet on the stairs. The carpet is the same colour as at least one of the cats.
Use the photo walls
Four selfie walls are built for the photograph: an Egyptian wall with props and a ring light on a stand, a Japanese one, a lion peering out of a picture frame, and upstairs a giant Cheshire Cat whose eyes glow under UV light. The museum’s Instagram filter adds a 3D lion on the ground floor.
Photos of the cats are fine too, but no flash. They are the ones who have to live here.
Book a painting workshop instead
Most weekends the museum runs painting workshops with the cats wandering through the room: two and a half hours of acrylics with a painting teacher, or two hours of watercolour, everything provided, a drink included, and your picture goes home with you the same day.
Tiqets sells the acrylic session with a live guide in English or Hungarian, in groups of no more than 12, and it is the one thing here that fills a whole afternoon.
It is sold as non-refundable, so book it for a day you are sure of. The minimum age is 8, as for everything else in the building.
Insider tips
Book a weekday slot after 15:00
The cats sleep through the middle of the day, and visitors who came later in the afternoon on a weekday met more of them awake. Weekends bring more people into a small space.
Bring your own slippers or thick socks
Shoes come off at the door and the museum lends slippers, but it also lets you bring your own, and thick socks do the job. Ask for foot covers if you would rather not share.
Do the quiz before the drink
The tablet quiz is upstairs in the middle room and the souvenir for scoring 80 per cent is picked up as you leave. Do it while the cats are dozing, then take the drink to the Relax Nook and wait.
Sit still and something will happen
Nobody may pick the cats up, so the visitors who get a cat on their lap are the ones who stop moving. Choose a beanbag, put the phone down and give it ten minutes.
Nearby attractions
The museum is on a quiet side street between the Basilica, the Opera and the Parliament, so it slots into a Pest afternoon without a detour.
