The Top 100 Most Visited Museums At A Glance

Total visits to the world’s top 100 art museums passed 200 million in 2025, still short of the 230 million recorded in 2019 but a long way from the 54 million counted during the worst of the pandemic in 2020. The picture that emerges is uneven: some institutions are thriving, others are still struggling to recover ground lost years ago, and a handful of new openings have exceeded all expectations.

United Kingdom

British Museum, London — 6.4 million visitors, broadly level with 2024 and ahead of 2019
Natural History Museum, London — 7.1 million visitors, a record year (not included in the main survey)
National Gallery, London — 4.2 million visitors, up 30% on the previous year following the reopening of the redesigned Sainsbury Wing, but still 30% below 2019 figures. The institution announced staff redundancies in February to address an £8.2 million deficit.
National Portrait Gallery, London — 1.5 million visitors, back at pre-Covid levels following its 2023 reopening
V&A East Storehouse, London — averaging nearly 60,000 visitors per month since opening in May 2024, beating its annual target within five months
Tate Modern, London — still 26% below 2019 figures
Tate Britain, London — 36% below 2019 figures
Tate St Ives — 19% below 2019 figures
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford — up 16% on 2019
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge — up 38% on 2019
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery — 672,000 visitors following full reopening after five years of closures, slightly ahead of 2019

Europe

Musée du Louvre, Paris — over 9 million visitors, retaining top position globally despite a year marked by theft, ticketing fraud and the resignation of its director
Musée d’Orsay, Paris — 3.8 million visitors, holding steady
Centre Pompidou, Paris — closed in September for major refurbishment; programming transferred to the Grand Palais.
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris — slight fall in numbers following a temporary closure
Museo del Prado, Madrid — broke the 3.5 million barrier for the first time, though director Miguel Falomir cautioned against celebrating, warning that overattendance risks overwhelming the institution.
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid — 1.6 million at the main site, with two satellite venues closed during 2025
Vatican Museums, Rome — 6.9 million visitors
Uffizi, Florence — 5.3 million across three interconnected sites
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam — 2.3 million, down from 2.5 million in 2024
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam — 1.9 million, boosted by a joint Anselm Kiefer exhibition with the Stedelijk that drew 340,000 visits in total
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam — 675,000 visitors
Munch Museum, Oslo — 775,000 visitors, with reported growth in international and younger visitors
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin — 608,000 visitors, up 8%
Humboldt Forum, Berlin — 634,000 visitors, down 13% following ticket price increases in October 2025
State Russian Museum, St Petersburg — more than 5 million visitors, more than double its 2019 attendance
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg — 3.8 million visitors
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow — 3.1 million visitors, up from 2024

Asia, the Middle East and Australia

Shanghai Museum East — 4.6 million visitors, up from 4.2 million in its debut year of 2024. Its Ancient Egypt exhibition drew 2.8 million people across a 13-month run
Shanghai Museum, People’s Square — 2.4 million visitors
National Museum of Korea, Seoul — 6.5 million visitors, a rise of more than 70% on 2024 and one of the largest year-on-year gains in absolute numbers on record. Regional branches also saw significant increases.
MMCA Seoul — 2.1 million visitors, up 28%
M+, Hong Kong — 2.6 million visitors, holding level with 2024
Hong Kong Palace Museum — 940,000 visitors
Tokyo National Museum — 2.6 million visitors, up slightly on 2024
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo — 1.7 million visitors, up 20%, driven largely by a Monet water lilies exhibition that drew 808,000 visits alone
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum — 1.7 million visitors, down 14%
Grand Egyptian Museum, Cairo — formally opened in November 2025; early figures suggest up to 18,000 visitors per day, a rate equivalent to roughly 6.5 million annually.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne — 3 million visitors across two sites, up 7.8% on 2024. Its Yayoi Kusama exhibition sold nearly 571,000 tickets, the most popular ticketed art exhibition in Australian history
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney — 2.4 million visitors across two sites, nearly double its pre-pandemic figures
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney — 820,000 visitors
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra — 749,000 visitors, up on the previous year
QAGOMA, Brisbane — just under 1.2 million visitors, down 15% on 2019
Israel Museum, Jerusalem — down 40% on 2024 following a two-day-per-week closure
Tel Aviv Museum of Art — open for only 244 days due to security concerns, yet still drew over a million visitors

United States

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — nearly 6 million visitors at the main building, up 4% on 2024. The reopened Michael C. Rockefeller Wing was a particular draw
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. — 2.9 million visitors, down 28% due to a federal government shutdown lasting over a month in autumn 2025
Museum of Modern Art, New York — 2.8 million visitors, up 4%. Its Jack Whitten retrospective was among the most popular shows in the city.
Art Institute of Chicago — 1.5 million visitors, up 14%
Getty Centre, Los Angeles — 1.3 million visitors, up 2%
Getty Villa, Los Angeles — 189,000 visitors, down 58% after closing for nearly half the year following the Palisades fire
Huntington, San Bernardino — 1.1 million visitors, down 5%
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — 1.1 million visitors, up 7%. A Van Gogh exhibition focused on portraits of the Roulin family accounted for more than a quarter of annual footfall.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York — numbers remain well below 2019 but held broadly steady
Brooklyn Museum, New York — 422,000 visitors, down 29% on 2024, attributed to having only one ticketed exhibition during the year
National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C. — 1.4 million visitors, down 13%
National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC — 938,000 combined, down 26% on 2024 and 44% on 2019, following a turbulent year of political disputes, artist withdrawals and staff departures
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — nearly half of all annual visitors attended the Ruth Asawa retrospective.
Cleveland Museum of Art — up more than 20% on 2024
Morgan Library and Museum, New York — up more than 20% on 2024
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego — 132,000 visitors, nearly double 2024 figures

Mexico and Latin America

Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City — 5.1 million visitors, up 36% on 2024, closing the gap on the Met
Museo Nacional de Historia, Castillo de Chapultepec, Mexico City — 2.7 million visitors
Museo Soumaya, Mexico City — 2.2 million visitors, down 5%
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey — 203,000 visitors, down 22%, likely a correction following an exceptional year driven by a Dan Flavin retrospective in 2024
Museu de Arte de São Paulo (Masp) — 1.2 million visitors, more than double 2024 figures, following a long-delayed expansion and a blockbuster Monet exhibition drawing 503,000 people
Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo — 665,000 visitors, up 84%
Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo — 532,000 visitors, up 36%
Casa Fiat de Cultura, Belo Horizonte — 453,000 visitors, up 65%
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro — 325,000 visitors for a touring exhibition of 1980s Brazilian art alone

Here are the Top 12 most Popular Museums in the World:

2025 Figures

9,046,000 — Musée du Louvre
6,933,822 — Vatican Museums
6,507,483 — National Museum of Korea, Seoul
6,440,120 — British Museum
5,984,091 — Metropolitan Museum of Art
5,087,276 — State Russian Museum
5,048,893 — Museo Nacional de Antropología
4,593,216 — Shanghai Museum East
4,514,266 — Tate Modern
4,147,544 — National Gallery
3,846,375 — State Hermitage Museum
3,785,134 — Musée d’Orsay

Read More

Visit