By Nora Lindqvist · Updated · Affiliate links, explained in my disclosure
Regional Tours
Government District Tour and Reichstag Dome Visit
4.6 (4,472) · from $43.84
Reichstag dome tickets are free if you register with the Bundestag in advance, and the one paid option I found, the Government District Tour and Reichstag Dome Visit, costs $43.84 with registration included. It is rated 4.64 from 4,472 reviews, which makes it the most reviewed option. I’d register for the free visit first and keep the tour as the fallback, going for a late-afternoon slot.
| Tour | From | Rating | Length | Free cancellation | Book |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government District Tour and Reichstag Dome Visit | $43.84 | ★ 4.6 (4,472) | 1.5 - 3 hours | Yes | Check availability |
I compared everything GetYourGuide currently sells for the Reichstag dome, and it comes to one product. That is normal for a free attraction, since the dome has no ticket to resell. What the listing sells in place of plain Reichstag dome tickets is a guided walk through the government district with the visit built in. Prices are in US dollars from the listing, checked in October 2026. The link opens GetYourGuide in a new tab, and I earn a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you.
The Reichstag is the seat of the German parliament, and the dome sits on top of it, so Reichstag dome tickets are really visit registrations. Wikipedia says Norman Foster redesigned the building between 1995 and 1999, the Bundestag first met there officially on 19 April 1999, and the glass dome was part of Foster’s reconstruction plan from February 1995, with a figure caption crediting both Foster and Gottfried Böhm. The building is now described there as the second most visited attraction in Germany.
The large glass dome at the very top of the Reichstag has a 360° view of the surrounding Berlin cityscape.
The figures above are for the building, not the dome platform: Wikidata gives the Reichstag as 47 m tall and opened in 1894, while the rebuilt version with the glass dome dates from 1999.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Entry | Free, by advance registration with the Bundestag at bundestag.de |
| Ticket on this page | Tour with registration included, $43.84, free cancellation up to 3 days ahead |
| Roof terrace | The tour listing names the dome and the roof terrace as separate stops |
| Time to allow | 1.5 to 3 hours for the tour, per the listing |
| ID | Bring a passport or ID card, which the listing says is not provided |
I could not confirm dome opening hours or the dome height from a source I trust, so I leave them out. Check the Bundestag site for the current hours of your date before you plan around them.
Reichstag dome observation deck tickets work differently from the ones at a tower, because the deck belongs to a working parliament. There is no price at the door, and no Reichstag dome ticket you can buy on the day. You register with the Bundestag for a date and time, and you show up with ID. That is the first thing I’d tell a friend, and it is the reason most people searching for tickets end up confused.
The paid route to a Reichstag dome ticket is a tour that does the registering for you. Its included list reads: guide, registration for the Reichstag visit, transportation, and a visit to the roof terrace and dome. The German-speaking option adds the plenary hall, and the English-speaking option does not. So an observation deck ticket here is really a registration, and the tour is a way to buy it bundled with a guide.
The price comparison for Reichstag dome tickets is short. Entry through the Bundestag is free. The guided tour is $43.84, and that buys you 1.5 to 3 hours with a guide, the stops outside the building, and the registration done. Because the dome visit itself costs nothing, the whole $43.84 is a payment for the guide and the convenience.
| Option | Price | What you get | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bundestag registration | Free | Dome and roof terrace visit, self-guided | Not applicable |
| Government District Tour and Reichstag Dome Visit | $43.84 | Guide, registration, transport, dome and roof terrace | 4.64 from 4,472 reviews |
Booking for more than one person is simple to work out. This calculator totals the tour for a group and links to the booking page.
Calculator
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from per person, before any child or group discount
Prices are the lowest per-person prices on GetYourGuide when I last checked; the final price depends on the date, time slot and age.
Reichstag building tickets are the same thing as tickets for the Reichstag dome in practice. The visit goes through the building and ends on the roof terrace and under the dome. Wikipedia lists the Reichstag as the seat of the Bundestag since 1999, so the visit is a security-checked entry into a parliament rather than a ticket queue.
Free registration is my default for Reichstag dome tickets. If a date is full, or you would like someone to explain the buildings around it, that is when the tour makes sense. The paid listing carries a clear list of what you cannot bring: luggage and large bags, sprays, glass objects, weapons or sharp objects and pets, though assistance dogs are allowed. Travel light.
This is the one product among the Reichstag dome tickets I compared, and I’d book it if you want context or can’t get a registration slot. The tour is a walk through the government district that includes the German Chancellery, the Swiss Embassy, the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus and Platz der Republik, and it ends with the visit to the dome and roof terrace. It is rated 4.64 from 4,472 reviews, so the guides are the point. Reviewers single out friendly, knowledgeable guides, and one said it let them enter the Reichstag, which they called a must when in Berlin.
Read the options carefully. The English-speaking option visits the roof terrace and dome without the plenary hall, and the German-speaking option includes the plenary hall. There are two meeting points, depending on the option, and the listing calls it a private option available. Free cancellation runs up to 3 days before.
An excellent introduction to the history of the government district, with a trip up to the Reichstag dome
Regional Tours
My pick: A guided government district walk with the dome and roof terrace included, and your registration handled: $43.84, 4.64 stars from 4,472 reviews.
from
$43.84
You can get Reichstag dome tickets online two ways. The free way is the Bundestag’s own registration through bundestag.de. The paid way is the tour above, which the listing says includes registration. I could not check how far ahead slots open, so look at the Bundestag page for your date and register as early as you can, particularly for weekends.
The tour has one advantage over a free Reichstag dome ticket: free cancellation up to three days ahead. If your plans are loose, that matters. If they are fixed, the free route costs less and gives the same view.
Hours matter more than usual for Reichstag dome tickets. I could not verify dome hours from a source I trust, so I won’t print them. They depend on parliamentary sessions and can change, which is why registration is date and time specific. The tour listing gives 1.5 to 3 hours as its length and puts the dome visit itself at 20 minutes in one option and 10 minutes in the other.
Check the Bundestag site for the date you want before you buy tickets for the Reichstag dome, and read this page as a comparison of Reichstag dome tickets rather than an hours table.
I could not confirm that the dome is open after dark, so I would not plan an evening visit around one. Search interest for the dome at night is real, but the sources I checked do not give evening hours. If you are set on seeing it lit up, ask the Bundestag site for late slots when you register.
If you need an evening plan without Reichstag dome tickets, a safer one is to look at the building from outside. It stands beside the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz, and both are open spaces you can walk to at any time.
The glass dome came out of the 1990s rebuilding. According to Wikipedia, Gottfried Böhm proposed the glass dome, Norman Foster’s February 1995 reconstruction plan included it, and Foster redesigned the building between 1995 and 1999. The original 1894 steel and glass cupola was heavily damaged in the war and removed in the 1950s and 1960s, and Wikipedia describes the new dome as a gesture to it.
The same article notes that arson badly damaged the building on 27 February 1933. The fire is a large part of what the tour guides talk about, and it explains why the building matters beyond the view.
Cloud cover decides how good the view is, so it matters when you book Reichstag dome tickets. In the 2025 weather data from Open-Meteo, the clearest month in Berlin is March at 45% average cloud cover, followed by August and September at 48%. The cloudiest is January at 77%, with October and November at 72%. Sunset runs from 15:52 in December to 21:31 in June.
| Month | Sunset (Berlin time) | Cloud cover | Sunshine a day | Rainy days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 16:22 | 77% | 3.1 h | 19 |
| Feb | 17:19 | 65% | 5.4 h | 7 |
| Marclearest | 18:11 | 45% | 8.9 h | 3 |
| Apr | 20:05 | 52% | 10.6 h | 4 |
| May | 20:56 | 59% | 11.6 h | 7 |
| Jun | 21:31 | 53% | 13.5 h | 15 |
| Jul | 21:21 | 63% | 10.8 h | 19 |
| Augclearest | 20:31 | 48% | 11.4 h | 8 |
| Sepclearest | 19:21 | 48% | 9.7 h | 9 |
| Oct | 18:11 | 72% | 5.9 h | 14 |
| Nov | 16:13 | 72% | 4.5 h | 10 |
| Dec | 15:52 | 70% | 4 h | 5 |
Pick a date and the planner shows the sunset and the entry time I would aim for.
Sunset planner
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book this entry time (50 min before sunset)
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sunset, Berlin time
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typical cloud cover that week
Sunset and cloud cover for the same dates in 2025 at the deck (Open-Meteo historical weather (ERA5), 2025); sunset moves by about a minute between years.
I’d arrive 45 to 60 minutes before sunset, as long as the Bundestag offers a slot then. September is my pick for Reichstag dome tickets: 48% cloud cover, 9.7 hours of sunshine a day and a sunset at 19:21.
The dome sits in the middle of the government district, so the sights close to it are the best ones to look for. Distances below are straight-line from the Reichstag, computed from the Google Maps coordinates.
Historical landmark
4.7 · 191,009 Google reviews
Pariser Platz, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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Pariser Platz, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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Plaza
4.4 · 72,635 Google reviews
Potsdamer Platz, 10785 Berlin, Germany
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Historical landmark
4.1 · 98,792 Google reviews
Friedrichstraße 43-45, 10117 Berlin, Germany
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Am Lustgarten, 10178 Berlin, Germany
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4.6
Großer Stern 1, 10557 Berlin, Germany
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4.6 · 67,210 Google reviews
Mühlenstraße, 10243 Berlin, Germany
The Brandenburg Gate is the nearest, 0.28 km (0.17 miles) away, with Pariser Platz at 0.31 km (0.19 miles). Potsdamer Platz is 1.04 km (0.65 miles) off, Checkpoint Charlie 1.57 km (0.98 miles), Berlin Cathedral 1.69 km (1.05 miles) and the Victory Column 1.82 km (1.13 miles). Alexanderplatz is 2.54 km (1.58 miles) away and the East Side Gallery 4.56 km (2.83 miles), the furthest I list.
Reichstag dome tickets cost nothing, so the choice between Berlin’s viewpoints is mostly about what else you want from the day. Ratings are from Google Maps and distances are straight-line from the Reichstag.
| Deck | Google rating | Distance | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reichstag dome | n/a | the dome itself | Free with registration, or $43.84 as a tour |
| Panoramapunkt, Potsdamer Platz | 4.7 | 1.05 km (0.65 mi) | Check locally |
| Berlin TV Tower | 4.4 | 2.27 km (1.41 mi) | Paid |
| Panorama Terrasse Park Inn | 4.2 | 2.51 km (1.56 mi) | Check locally |
| THF Tower | 4.2 | 4.67 km (2.90 mi) | Check locally |
The Panoramapunkt is the closest alternative, and the Berlin TV Tower is the one with a stronger view of the whole city from a higher platform. I’d do the dome for the history and the TV Tower for the skyline, because from the Reichstag you cannot see the Reichstag.
Not as a walk-in. Wikipedia describes the dome as open to visitors by prior registration, and the Bundestag runs that registration on its own website. The GetYourGuide tour I compared includes the registration for you, which is the only reason to pay for it. Register early, because I could not check how many slots are left for any given date.
For a free visit, yes. Wikipedia says the glass dome has a 360 degree view of the Berlin cityscape, and the building also holds the Bundestag, so you see the city and a working parliament in one stop. The guided tour at $43.84 is worth it mainly for the history of the government district and for having registration handled.
Almost. The Reichstag is the building and the Bundestag is the institution that sits in it. Wikipedia says the term Reichstag today mainly refers to the building, while Bundestag refers to the parliament, which has met there since 1999 after Norman Foster rebuilt it between 1995 and 1999.
The original 1894 steel and glass cupola was heavily damaged in the Second World War and was dismantled during the restoration of the 1950s and 1960s, according to Wikipedia. The glass dome you can visit today was part of the reconstruction finished in 1999 and is described there as a gesture to the original.
The tour listing gives 1.5 to 3 hours, depending on the option, and its itinerary allows 20 minutes for the visit to the dome and roof terrace in one option and 10 minutes in another. If you go on your own with a free registration, I would allow about an hour including the security check.
Yes. Wikipedia says the Bundestag has sat in the Reichstag building since 1999. That is why entry involves registration and a security check, and why the tour listing bans luggage, large bags, sprays and sharp objects. The plenary hall is only part of the German-speaking tour option.
Wikipedia explains that the term originally meant a diet, an assembly, and dates back to the Holy Roman Empire. Today it mostly names the building in Berlin, while Bundestag names the institution. Reich is usually translated as realm or empire, so Reichstag is roughly a diet of the realm.