From the First Courtyard to the Harem with a licensed guide, the tickets and timing planned for you.
At the Imperial Gate, behind Hagia Sophia
9 am to 5:30 pm, last tickets at 5 pm, closed on Tuesdays
One ticket for the palace, the Harem and Hagia Irene; we can arrange it with your day
On the Fourth Courtyard’s terraces, above the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus
Each courtyard of Topkapı is more private than the one before it, and your visit follows that order. The Harem is yours to include or leave out.
The First Courtyard was open to anyone with business at the palace, and petitions for the Council were handed in at a small kiosk here. Hagia Irene, the Byzantine church the Ottomans kept as an armoury, stands in the courtyard, and the palace’s administration is preparing its restoration.
The gate’s foundation inscription is dated December 1478; its two niches call the sultan God’s shadow on earth.
Only the sultan rode through the Gate of Salutation; grand viziers walked, and beyond it the Imperial Council met under the Tower of Justice about four days a week. Along one side run the kitchens Mimar Sinan rebuilt after the fire of 1574, which cooked 1,500 to 3,000 meals a day.
The gate’s iron door is signed and dated 1524 to 1525, in the reign of Süleyman I.
You enter through the Carriage Gate, dated 1587, into the rooms where the valide sultan ran the household and, often, the dynasty. The Privy Chamber of Murad III, built by Mimar Sinan in 1578, is the only original interior surviving from that period.
In May 2026 the Courtyard of the Consorts and Concubines opened in full, adding about 20 minutes to the visit.
Every sultan’s accession was held in front of this gate, and beyond it the Audience Chamber keeps the canopied throne that survived the fire of 1857. The Treasury in the Conqueror’s Pavilion holds the Spoonmaker’s Diamond and the Topkapı Dagger among about 1,100 objects.
The Treasury reopened on 20 April 2023 after nine years closed.
The relics came to the palace after Selim I’s Egyptian campaign of 1517, and since 2023 you can step into the Hırka-i Saadet room itself.
The Quran has been recited here around the clock since 25 October 1996; the Ottoman custom ended with the sultanate.
Murad IV built the Revan Kiosk in 1635 and the Baghdad Kiosk in 1639, the second inlaid with ivory, mother of pearl and tortoiseshell. From the terrace by the İftariye bower, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus open below you.
The rebel Patrona Halil was strangled in the Revan Kiosk in 1730, not in the Baghdad Kiosk, as the story is often told.
You cross the courtyards in the court’s own order, and each gate makes sense when you reach it.
A household and a seat of power, read through the women who ran the dynasty from it.
Over the Gate of Felicity’s inner door, in Ahmed III’s own hand: the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. Your guide reads each door as you pass.
You decide where to stay longer: the more than 300 clocks in the new Clock Museum, the kitchens or the terrace.
You know what the Sacred Relics room asks you to wear before the day begins.
About half the palace’s summer visitors go into the Harem; your guide takes it when the line is short.
Tickets and queues are what guests ask us about most, so we take both off your hands.
Tell us your date and who is coming. From the first email to the end of the day, you deal with us.
Your start fits the 5 pm last ticket, and your visit never lands on a Tuesday, when the palace is closed.
Tickets can be arranged with your day, and a car can collect you from your hotel and take you back.
At your hotel or at the Imperial Gate. The one line you still join is security, which every visitor passes.
“…if you don’t have a ticket, no worries, we’ll just get one for you in a matter of a few minutes.” Burak Plakay, one of our guides
Ask for any of them by name when you write.
The Harem
At Topkapı she takes apart the orientalist myths about the Imperial Harem and brings its women, Hürrem Sultan among them, back to life.
Six years a professional guide, in English.
Court protocol
At Topkapı he opens up the protocol of the Ottoman court, the way he did for a family from Texas.
Trained through Nişantaşı University’s tourist guide programme, he guides in English and Spanish.
Ottoman history
She brings the dynasties, the sultans and their architects back to life without the day ever feeling like a lecture.
She walks guests through the Topkapı Palace harem, Hagia Sophia and the Süleymaniye Mosque.
Licensed guides, TÜRSAB member #7651Guiding Istanbul since 2011145 Google reviews rated 5.0560 TripAdvisor reviews rated 4.8Topkapı has been run by the National Palaces Administration since September 2019, not by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and its visitor rules were last amended in May 2026. Your guide plans your day around every one of them.
A guided visit to Topkapı Palace takes about two to three hours with the Harem, and three to four for the whole palace at an easy pace. The last tickets are sold at 5 pm and visiting ends at 5:30 pm, so a morning or early afternoon start works best.
No. The National Palaces Administration sells tickets online for its other palaces and museums, but not for Topkapı: the palace’s box office sells them, and a ticket is valid on the day you buy it. More than a dozen websites with Topkapı in their name sell tickets and tours, and none of them is run by the palace. On a private visit with The Other Tour, the tickets can be arranged with your day.
Yes. The standard Topkapı ticket covers the palace, the Harem and Hagia Irene, and the Harem is also sold on its own. The Museum Pass Istanbul and the MüzeKart get you into the palace but not into the Harem or Hagia Irene, under the palace’s 2026 rules.
Only for the Sacred Relics, where men and women alike cover up as for a holy place or cannot go in. Elsewhere in Topkapı there is no dress rule, though comfortable shoes matter: the visit is on foot across four courtyards.
On summer Saturdays. In 2026 Topkapı opened from 8:30 to 10:30 pm on Saturdays from 13 June, Harem, Treasury and Sacred Relics included, with a night ticket sold at the box office. That season has ended; the dates for 2027 have not been announced.
Take the T1 tram to Gülhane or Sultanahmet and walk up to the Imperial Gate behind Hagia Sophia. Do not get off at the T1 stop called Topkapı: it is by the old land walls, nowhere near the palace.
About 4.7 million people visited Topkapı in 2024, and UNESCO names it a supreme example of an Ottoman palace. It was the sultans’ seat for about four centuries and became the first museum of the Turkish Republic in 1924.
Tell us who is coming and what matters most: the Harem, the Treasury, the Sacred Relics, or the whole palace. There is nothing to buy in advance. We reply within a day with a start time that fits the palace’s hours and the name of the guide who would lead it.
