How much does Paris cost per day in 2026?

Budget €50/day ($58) is doable if you commit to it. A dorm bed at Generator Paris in the 10th runs €28-35/night. The smell of fresh bread from the boulangerie next door is your alarm clock, and a croissant with an espresso costs €3 taken at the counter. Lunch is a jambon-beurre sandwich from a tabac in the 11th for €4.50 (the same sandwich near Opéra costs €7, which tells you everything about tourist-zone markup). Dinner at a kebab joint on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis runs €8-10 with crispy frites. Transport on single t+ tickets costs €2.15 per ride. Budget 4 rides and you're at €8.60/day on metro alone. That leaves nothing for paid museums, so your itinerary needs to lean on free sites and first-Sunday openings.

Midrange €150/day ($173) gets you a private room and one proper meal. A double at Hôtel du Nord et de l'Est near République goes for €90-110/night. The room will be the size of a large closet. That's standard for Paris at this tier, not a defect. Breakfast at the hotel runs €8-12, or grab a pain au chocolat and café crème standing at the zinc bar for €5. Le Bouillon Chartier in the 9th still serves 3-course formules under €20, and the dining room, all mirrored walls and worn wooden drawers from 1896, is worth seeing even if you're not hungry. Dinner with a glass of Côtes du Rhône at a neighborhood bistro in Ménilmontant or Oberkampf lands around €30-35. A Navigo Jour day pass covers unlimited metro and bus in zones 1-2.

The Navigo Jour day pass costs €8.45 and only breaks even if you take 4+ rides in a day. On days when you're walking Montmartre or staying around one arrondissement, skip it. The weekly Navigo Découverte runs €30.75 for Monday-to-Sunday unlimited travel and covers the RER to Versailles, which single metro tickets do not. Timing matters. Arrive Monday, get 7 days. Arrive Thursday, get 4 days for the same price. That gap can cost you €15 of dead value. The pass also requires a passport photo, so print one before you leave or use the booth at Gare du Nord for €5. From CDG, the RER B into central Paris takes 35 minutes and costs €11.45. The taxi flat rate to the Right Bank is €55, which erases 5 days of metro budget in one car ride.

To be fair, the single biggest budget leak is one you'll walk into willingly. The café terrace markup. An espresso at the comptoir in the 18th or 19th costs €1.20-1.50. Sit on the terrace and it becomes €3.50-4.50. Same cup. The warm air and the sound of scooters on cobblestones might feel worth the upcharge, but over 7 days that's €15-20 gone on coffee alone. At restaurants, always ask for "une carafe d'eau" (tap water). The server will likely steer you toward bottled Evian or Badoit at €5-7. Tap water is free by law and tastes fine. Tourist tax (taxe de séjour) adds €1-5/night depending on accommodation class, and hostels sit at the low end. Public toilets cost €1-2 at train stations. The free alternative is any department store like BHV Marais near Hôtel de Ville or Galeries Lafayette on Boulevard Haussmann.

Free Paris is worth planning around. The Louvre (founded 1793) and Musée d'Orsay (opened 1986) are both free on the first Sunday of each month, October through March. Père Lachaise Cemetery costs nothing any day and covers 44 hectares of moss-covered stone, with Oscar Wilde's tomb and Jim Morrison's grave pulling steady foot traffic since the cemetery opened in 1804. Notre-Dame de Paris reopened in December 2024 with free entry to the nave. That said, the tower climb still has a separate ticket. The Sacré-Cœur basilica in Montmartre is free, and the view from its steps across Paris on a cloudless August afternoon at 32°C reaches past La Défense to the west. The Canal Saint-Martin walk from République to Stalingrad takes about 40 minutes and costs nothing. The iron footbridges and plane trees along the water tend to feel 2-3 degrees cooler than the surrounding streets in summer.