Paris in January: Weather, Events and the Best Tours

Is January a good time to visit Paris?

January is for people who want Paris rather than Paris in good weather. From about the 5th the city is emptier than at any other point in this guide, museum queues effectively disappear and hotel rates are at their floor. You pay for it with 7.3C days and thirteen wet ones.

The first four days are not the January most people mean. New Year's Day is a public holiday, the Louvre and Versailles are both closed on 1 January, and the city is still running on Christmas demand. From roughly the 5th the switch flips completely: French visitors go back to work, international visitors go home, and Paris becomes a working city with a small number of tourists in it.

That emptiness is the product. The Mona Lisa room is walkable rather than a scrum. The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles can be photographed without twenty people in the frame. You can get a same-day table at restaurants that will not answer the phone in October. Nothing else in this guide, not November, not the first week of December, comes close to January for having Paris to yourself.

What January cannot do is anything outdoors that requires standing still. At 1.7C average lows with thirteen wet days, an hour on an open observation deck or an open-top bus is genuinely unpleasant rather than merely chilly. The Eiffel Tower compounds that: the summit is an exposed platform 276 metres up, and it usually goes down for annual maintenance in this part of the winter, so it is the one attraction to verify before you commit to it.

Paris weather in January

January is the coldest month in Paris at 7.3C average highs and 1.7C average lows, with 64mm of rain over thirteen wet days. Daylight is 8 hours 46 minutes mid-month, twenty-five minutes more than December, and sunset moves from about 17:05 on the 1st to roughly 17:45 by the 31st.

Temperature, rainfall and wet days: Open-Meteo ERA5 reanalysis for Paris, ten-year observed means. Daylight and sunset: day length computed for Paris (48.86N, 2.35E) on the 15th of each month.

January is where the daylight recovery becomes obvious. The month starts with sunset around 17:05 and ends with it around 17:45, so Paris gains about forty minutes of evening across the four weeks. Sunrise barely moves, staying stubbornly around 08:40 until the middle of the month, which is why January mornings feel darker than December ones even though the day as a whole is longer.

The cold is real but modest by continental standards. An average low of 1.7C means frost most weeks and hard freezes occasionally, but Paris very rarely holds sub-zero daytime temperatures for long. The Atlantic influence that keeps snow away also keeps the deep cold away. What it brings instead is damp, and 7.3C with rain and river wind is a more uncomfortable proposition than 2C in still dry air would be.

Thirteen wet days is the same count as December, from a slightly lower total of 64mm. In practical terms that means roughly four days in ten will have some rain on them, and the rain will be light and persistent rather than heavy. It is the sort of weather that spoils a walking itinerary and does nothing at all to a museum one.

Crowds, prices and what to book ahead

After about 5 January this is the emptiest Paris in the guide. Louvre timed slots are available same-day, Versailles has no forecourt queue, and hotel rates match the early-November floor. The winter sales draw domestic crowds to the department stores but not to the monuments.

January genuinely does not need advance booking, which is not something we say about any other month here. A Louvre slot can usually be had for the following morning. The Eiffel Tower lift queue at 10:00 on a January Tuesday is a few minutes rather than an hour. If you like planning a trip in the morning over coffee, January is the month that rewards it.

The one crowd that does exist is domestic and retail. The French winter sales, the soldes, run for several weeks from early January, and the dates are fixed by the government each year rather than by the shops, so check the current dates rather than assuming. Their effect on a visitor is confined to the big department stores on Boulevard Haussmann and the Marais boutiques; the museums and monuments are unaffected.

Book two things and only two things. The first is anything on 1 January itself, because the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and the Chateau de Versailles are all shut and the alternatives are correspondingly busy. The second is the Eiffel Tower summit, and booking here means checking rather than reserving: the summit typically closes for annual maintenance during the winter, so confirm on the official Eiffel Tower calendar before you buy a summit upgrade you cannot use.

The best tours in Paris in January

Ranked for January: heated, indoor and seated first, because 1.7C lows and thirteen wet days make every exposed experience a worse buy than it is in any other month. Prices, ratings and review counts were checked against live GetYourGuide listings on 28 July 2026.

1. Mona Lisa & Louvre Masterpieces Tour

4.7 out of 5 from 7,461 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £50 • 1 - 3.5 hours

Ranked first because January is the one month when the Louvre is a pleasure rather than an endurance test. The galleries are quiet enough that a guided three-hour route can actually stop in front of things. Closed Tuesdays, closed 1 January, and open to 21:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Best for in January: The emptiest Louvre of the year

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2. Musée d’Orsay Skip-the-Line Tour with Guide

4.8 out of 5 from 1,177 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £60 • 1.5 - 2.5 hours

At 4.8 this is the best-rated tour on the site, and January is when the Impressionist rooms are calm enough to stand still in. The Thursday late opening to 21:45 is worth using: a January evening has nothing else to offer and the museum is warm.

Best for in January: The highest-rated thing we sell, in its quietest month

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3. Louvre Museum Tour: Mona Lisa & Iconic Masterpieces

4.7 out of 5 from 6,071 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £75 • 2 - 3 hours

The two to three hour version, and January is the only month in this guide where taking the longer option is obviously right. There is no competing outdoor plan you are giving up at 7.3C in the rain, and the museum is empty enough to reward the extra time.

Best for in January: A longer, slower museum day

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4. 3-Course Dinner Cruise on the Seine with Live Music

4.7 out of 5 from 8,452 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £98 • 2.5 hours

Ranked up sharply for the coldest month. This is the longest heated indoor experience on our list that still shows you the city, and with sunset around 17:20 the whole sailing happens against lit monuments rather than a bright sky.

Best for in January: Two and a half heated hours

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5. Bateaux Mouches Dinner Cruise on the Seine

4.5 out of 5 from 4,248 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £98 • 2.5 hours

The Bateaux-Mouches version, boarding at Pont de l'Alma at Port de la Conference in the 8th rather than at the Eiffel Tower. Worth knowing which pier you are booking in January specifically, because arriving at the wrong quay in the cold and dark is a miserable start to an evening.

Best for in January: The same idea, from the Bateaux-Mouches pier

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6. Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with Champagne

4.7 out of 5 from 17,909 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £100 • 2 hours

Nothing about a fixed indoor cabaret can be affected by 1.7C or by thirteen wet days, which is a real advantage in January. It also fills the long evening that January hands you whether you want it or not, with sunset before half past five.

Best for in January: Certainty in a month with none

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7. Crazy Horse Cabaret Show

4.6 out of 5 from 2,995 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £102 • 1.5 - 3 hours

January trips tend to have more evenings than daytime plans, which is exactly when a second cabaret makes sense in a way it would not in May. Rated 4.6 with free cancellation on most options, which matters more in a month when travel disruption is likelier.

Best for in January: A second indoor evening, if you have several

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8. Macaron Class at Galeries Lafayette

4.3 out of 5 from 1,352 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £50 • 1.5 hours

Ninety minutes of hands-on pastry under the Galeries Lafayette dome, which puts you in the warmest and most theatrical interior in central Paris on a day the street has nothing to offer. You leave with four macarons and two recipes. The winter sales make the surrounding store busy, so book a session rather than hoping.

Best for in January: A wet January afternoon, indoors, with a result

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9. Fragonard Paris: Mini Perfume Workshop

4.5 out of 5 from 2,342 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £27 • 45 minutes

Short, indoor, £27, and you leave with a 12ml eau de toilette you blended yourself. In a month where the gap between two plans is likely to be spent sheltering, a forty-five minute workshop near the Opera is a better use of it than another cafe.

Best for in January: Forty-five minutes out of the rain

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10. Eiffel Tower Entry Ticket with Summit Access

4.5 out of 5 from 22,116 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £21 • 1.5 - 2 hours

The only Eiffel Tower ticket we keep on the January list, and specifically because the summit is optional on it. Buy the second-floor level and leave the upgrade: the summit is an exposed platform at 276 metres in 1.7C air, and it is usually the part of the tower that closes for annual winter maintenance. Check the official calendar before booking any summit ticket in January.

Best for in January: The tower, with the summit upgrade skipped

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Three of our four Eiffel Tower products are off the January list, and that is a deliberate call rather than an oversight. The tower typically takes its annual maintenance shutdown of the summit during the winter, and we could not confirm the 2027 dates from the official calendar when this page was written, so we are not going to sell you a summit ticket for January without saying that first. Also absent: Giverny, which is shut for the winter; the Versailles Full Access passport, whose fountain upgrade does not run; the open-top bus; and the fourteen-hour Mont-Saint-Michel day. Gaps we cannot cover: no ice rink, no winter sales shopping experience and no Sainte-Chapelle ticket, and Sainte-Chapelle in low winter light with almost nobody in it is one of the best things in Paris in January. Buy that one direct.

Events and festivals in January 2027

January is the thinnest month of the year for events, which is the point of it. New Year's Day on Friday 1 January is a public holiday that closes the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and Versailles. The winter sales follow shortly after, on dates the government sets annually.

The Versailles King's Tour that began on 12 December runs until 2 January, so the first two days of the month are the tail end of the Christmas programme rather than the start of the quiet season. After that, Versailles returns to its ordinary winter shape: state rooms open, fountains off, gardens free to walk.

Epiphany on 6 January is not a public holiday in France but it is a genuinely pleasant thing to be in Paris for. Every boulangerie in the city sells the galette des rois, a puff pastry and frangipane cake with a charm hidden inside, and they keep selling it through most of January rather than only on the day. It costs a few euros and it is the most reliably good thing about a Paris January.

We are not publishing exact dates for the winter sales. The soldes are regulated: the French government sets the start date and duration each year, and it varies. Because they are the one thing that will genuinely change how busy the department stores are, look up the current dates rather than working from a guide, including this one.

What is closed in January

Friday 1 January closes the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and the Chateau de Versailles. Giverny and the Versailles fountains remain shut for the winter. The item to check yourself is the Eiffel Tower summit, which usually takes its annual maintenance shutdown at this time of year.

Weekly closing days and fixed holiday closures read directly from the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay and Chateau de Versailles official sites on 29 July 2026. Seasonal opening dates for 2027 are set by each site and can move, so confirm before you book a non-refundable trip around one.

The Eiffel Tower is the honest uncertainty on this page. The tower has a long-established habit of taking the summit out of service for annual maintenance during the quiet winter months, and January is the usual window. We are not going to publish a 2027 date for it, because when we checked the official calendar the dates for that period had not been released, and inventing one would be worse than useless. Check toureiffel.paris before you buy a summit ticket for January, and if it is not published yet, buy the second-floor option and upgrade at the tower if it turns out to be running.

The 1 January closures are straightforward and they catch a lot of people, because a New Year trip is often exactly four nights and one of them is the 1st. The Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay and the Chateau de Versailles are all shut. The Versailles gardens and park stay open, and so do the Seine cruise operators, the catacombs and the cabarets, so a 1 January itinerary is perfectly possible; it just cannot be a museum one.

January 2027 opens on a Friday, which puts four Tuesdays and four Mondays in the month, so the weekly closures are as light as they get. Combined with 1 January that is five days without the Louvre and five without Versailles across thirty-one, which is the best ratio in the guide. If you have a week in January, there is no realistic way to miss anything through a closing day.

What to wear and pack for Paris in January

Pack for 7.3C days, 1.7C nights and thirteen wet days. January in Paris is damp cold rather than dry cold, which behaves differently: the temperature reads mild but the river wind and the wet air make a coat that is merely warm feel inadequate.

Damp cold defeats the wrong kind of coat. A padded jacket that would be comfortable at minus five in Prague can leave you cold at plus five in Paris if it wets out, because the moisture carries the heat away. A waterproof outer with an insulating layer underneath is the combination that works, and it also handles the thirteen wet days without a separate rain layer.

Museum days need one more thing than winter days elsewhere: something you can carry easily. Paris galleries run warm, cloakrooms have queues in January because everyone has a coat, and being stuck in a heavy jacket through three hours of the Louvre is genuinely unpleasant. A coat that compresses into a bag is worth the extra thought.

• •A waterproof outer layer, not just a warm one; Paris cold is wet cold
• •Gloves and a scarf for river wind at 1.7C
• •A coat you can carry, because museum cloakrooms queue in January
• •Waterproof shoes for thirteen wet days on cold stone
• •The official Eiffel Tower calendar checked before buying any summit ticket

How we chose these tours

We rank on seasonal fit first and verified GetYourGuide rating second, so the experiences that actually work in January's daylight, rainfall and opening calendar sit highest. Every price, rating and review count on this page was checked against the live listing on 28 July 2026.

1. Seasonal fit first. Each of the 26 tours we stock is scored against January on daylight hours, sunset time, wet days, temperature and whether the thing it visits is actually open. A tour that cannot deliver its own selling point this month drops out, and we say which ones and why.
2. Then rating, then review volume. Where two tours fit the month equally well, the higher verified GetYourGuide rating wins, and review count breaks any remaining tie. Both numbers are public and you can check them against the listing.
3. Nothing is invented. Prices, star ratings and review counts come from the live product page. We do not publish an opening date, closure or festival date we could not confirm from the venue itself, and where a 2027 date has not been published yet we say so instead of guessing.
4. We say what we do not sell. Where the obvious thing to do in January is not something we can book you onto, it goes in the text as advice rather than being quietly left out or replaced with a product that does not fit.
5. We earn a commission. Booking links go to GetYourGuide and pay us if you book. That does not change the ranking, and it is why the reasoning on every entry is written out rather than left implied.

FAQs about Paris in January