Do you need a ticket for the Lincoln Memorial?

Almost every page written about this memorial before the summer of 2026 says there is no such thing as a Lincoln Memorial ticket. That was true for a hundred and four years and it stopped being true in June. Two different answers now live at one address, and mixing them up is the mistake most visitors are about to make.

What the free part covers

Everything you picture when you picture the Lincoln Memorial. The approach from the Reflecting Pool, the steps and the marker set into them, the chamber, the statue, the two inscribed side walls. No gate, no fee, no ticket, no closing time. Rangers are on duty from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. if you want a question answered by a person, and outside those hours the memorial is still yours to walk into. Full detail on opening hours.

How to get an undercroft ticket yourself

Two routes, both run by the Park Service, and both of them cost less than any resale.

Book ahead on Recreation.gov

1. Go to the undercroft facility page on Recreation.gov, or call 877-444-6777.
2. Pick your slot from one of the two release windows. Tickets for a date 30 days ahead are released daily at 11:00 a.m. ET. A second, next-day batch is released at 4:00 p.m. ET.
3. Book up to six tickets per transaction. Groups of up to 50 people can be reserved, online only.
4. Admission is free. Recreation.gov applies a non-refundable service charge of a dollar per ticket, and that is the entire cost.
5. You can cancel until 2 p.m. the day before. There are no refunds in any case, so the cancellation frees the slot rather than your money.

Or collect a free walk-up ticket

Walk-up tickets are handed out from 8:45 a.m. at the kiosk by the Korean War Veterans Memorial, first come, first served, and they carry no charge at all. How many are released each morning is not published, so I am not going to guess at it, and neither should anyone else. What the arrangement does tell you is that if the walk-up ticket is your plan, your morning starts at the kiosk rather than at the memorial.

What the resold tickets are

One product on GetYourGuide sells exactly the ticket described above, with a digital guidebook, for the cheapest price in our catalogue. It is worth reading what the operator says about itself, because it is unusually straight: the service is “independently operated and not affiliated with the Lincoln Memorial or the National Park Service”, and, in its own words, “The National Park Service does not charge for these tickets, though they do apply a $1 reservation fee, which is included in your convenience package.”

So what is being sold is the booking, not the entry. The operator secures the reservation in your name and hands you a ticket you could have obtained yourself for the cost of the reservation fee. It is non-refundable. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on how you value the half hour of admin and the 11 a.m. alarm, and plenty of people on one morning in Washington will decide that it is. The second product is a different proposition: a guided evening walk of the National Mall that ends with timed undercroft tickets for afterwards, at the ordinary price of a guided walk.

The resold direct-entry ticket

If you would rather pay for the booking than do it yourself, this is the product that does exactly that: timed entry to the undercroft with a digital guidebook, sold by the operator rather than by the Park Service, and non-refundable.

If you would rather have a guide with it, the evening walk of the Mall ends with undercroft tickets, and all 18 tours are listed with the undercroft column stated for every one. For what a guided tour is actually worth, see what a tour costs.

Frequently asked questions