Are museums open on Mondays in Berlin?

Mostly not. Of 158 Berlin museums whose opening hours we hold, 87 are closed on Mondays and only 71 are open.

Are shops open on Sundays in Berlin?

No. Berlin's shop closing law (BerlLadÖffG) keeps ordinary shops shut on Sundays and public holidays, with a small number of exempted Sundays each year. Restaurants, bars, museums, petrol-station shops and shops in the main railway stations and airport are not affected.

Berlin facts

What is open on which day

Counted from the opening hours we hold for Berlin places, not from memory. If you only remember one thing: do not plan a museum day on a Monday.

87 of 158 museums with known hours are shut on Mondays

113 of 144 galleries are shut on Mondays too — most open Tuesday to Saturday

Open by day of the week

How many places of each kind are open on each weekday, out of those whose hours we hold. The quietest day for each category is marked.

Category	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Known
Restaurant	2758 — quietest day, 24% shut	3271	3510	3604	3605	3373	2980	3636
Café	1398	1527	1604	1652	1666	1495	1318 — quietest day, 22% shut	1691
Bar	326	406	443	458	466	462	314 — quietest day, 33% shut	472
Museum	71 — quietest day, 55% shut	109	130	136	130	130	130	158
Gallery	31 — quietest day, 78% shut	81	106	122	128	117	43	144
Market	8 — quietest day, 91% shut	24	21	20	28	43	21	90
Club	21 — quietest day, 52% shut	27	27	30	40	42	27	44
Landmark	18	19	21	21	21	21	21	22
Cinema	16	16	15	16	15	16	16	18
Spa / sauna	17	16	17	16	17	16	14	17

Shaded cell = the weekday with the fewest places open. "Known" is how many places of that kind have machine-readable opening hours; the rest are in the planner but flagged as unconfirmed rather than assumed open.

The rules behind the numbers

Mondays

Most state museums — including nearly all of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin — close on Mondays. Private galleries largely follow. Landmarks, parks and anything outdoors do not care.

Sundays

Shops are closed by law under the Berliner Ladenöffnungsgesetz. Supermarkets too. Exempt: restaurants, bars, cafés, museums, cinemas, bakeries for limited hours, shops inside the main stations and the airport, and Spätis operating in a grey area. A handful of designated shopping Sundays each year are the exception.

Public holidays

Treated as Sundays for shop closing, and many museums switch to Sunday hours. See the dates.

24 December

Not a public holiday, so it appears on no holiday list — and yet shops shut around 14:00 and most restaurants do not open at all. The single most common way a Berlin trip goes wrong.

Closed right now, whatever your guidebook says

Pergamon Museum — closed for refurbishment — the first section is not expected back before 2027 · since 2023-10-23 · official page

Turn up and you will not get in

Places that need registering or booking ahead of time.

Reichstag Building — book at least 2 days ahead. Free, but you must register in advance with full name and date of birth, and bring the identity document you registered with. Walk-ups are not admitted. Security screening at the entrance. · booking page
Reichstag dome — book at least 2 days ahead. Free, but you must register in advance with full name and date of birth, and bring the identity document you registered with. Walk-ups are not admitted. Security screening at the entrance. · booking page

Want this applied to your dates?

The planner runs every one of these checks against the days you are actually in Berlin, and tells you what it ruled out.

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