Paris Photo: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Paris)

Under the Glass Nave

Paris Photo fills one of the city’s great iron halls. The Grand Palais was built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, and its nave sits under a vaulted roof of glass and riveted steel. On fair days that space is divided into gallery stands: white partition walls, framed prints at eye level, and dealers sitting at small desks near the aisle.

The 2026 edition runs from November 12 to 15. Paris Photo is the leading international fair dedicated to photography, which in practice means galleries from many countries in one building. You can see vintage silver prints and recent large-format colour work within a few metres of each other.

Most of the work is for sale. You don’t have to buy anything, though. Plenty of visitors treat the fair as the biggest photography exhibition of the year, one that just happens to have price lists.

Getting to the Grand Palais

The building faces Avenue Winston Churchill, the short avenue that runs from the Champs-Élysées down to the Pont Alexandre III. Two Métro stations are close:

• Champs-Élysées–Clemenceau (Lines 1 and 13): the closest, a short walk along the avenue.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt (Lines 1 and 9): a little further up the Champs-Élysées, and handy if you’re coming from the west.
• Invalides (Lines 8 and 13, plus RER C): across the Pont Alexandre III on the Left Bank, a scenic ten-minute walk over the river.

Taxis and ride-shares can drop you on the surrounding avenues. Traffic around the Champs-Élysées is slow in the late afternoon, so the Métro is usually quicker. November in Paris is cold and often wet, and it gets dark early. The walk over the bridge looks best in the last of the daylight.

Tickets, Dates and What Is Posted Where

The fair sells tickets and publishes its daily opening times on its official website. That is also where you’ll find the exhibitor list, the floor plan and the programme of talks and signings for each edition. This guide doesn’t print a price or a schedule, because both change from year to year.

A Paris Photo ticket covers entry for one fair day. Many people find one visit is enough. Collectors and photography students often come back on a second day, once they’ve spotted which stands they want to see again.

Working the Aisles Like a Regular

The aisles reward a plan. Regular visitors usually skim the floor plan at the entrance or on their phone, pick a handful of galleries they don’t want to miss, and wander between them. Otherwise it’s easy to spend two hours in the first third of the hall.

How it works at the stands:

• Say “Bonjour” when you step in. It’s ordinary French courtesy, and dealers notice when you skip it.
• Ask for the price list. Prices are rarely printed beside the work. Staff keep a list at the desk and will usually show it to anyone who asks.
• Photographing the work: many visitors take phone pictures, but some galleries prefer you don’t. A quick question at the desk settles it.
• Paying: cards are standard in Paris for anything from a catalogue to a print. Galleries arrange larger purchases directly with the buyer, including shipping.

Bag screening at the entrance is normal for major Paris venues, so a small bag gets you through faster. Very few people manage the hall in under three hours. Benches are scarce, and a café break in the middle helps.

The Photobook Aisles

Paris Photo has a dedicated area for photobook publishers and booksellers, and for many visitors it’s the best part of the fair. Tables are stacked with new titles, limited editions and out-of-print volumes. Unlike the gallery stands, you can pick most things up and leaf through them.

Book signings are a regular part of the programme. Photographers sit at publishers’ tables, sign copies and talk to readers. The schedule of signings is printed in the fair’s programme. A signed photobook is also the most affordable way to take something home from Paris Photo, and that’s why the queues at the popular tables are often longer than at any gallery stand.

Photo Days: The Fair Spills Into the City

This edition overlaps with Photo Days, a festival that spreads photography exhibitions across galleries, institutions and less obvious spaces around Paris. In November, then, the fair is the centre of a much larger photography month. Many visitors build a few days around it.

The city’s permanent photography venues fit easily into that kind of trip:

• Jeu de Paume, in the Tuileries Garden at Place de la Concorde: a twenty-minute walk east from the Grand Palais.
• Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP), in the Marais: one of the city’s main photography museums.
• Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, also in the Marais, on Rue des Archives.

Galleries in the Marais and around Saint-Germain-des-Prés often hang their strongest photography shows during fair week. Walking from one to the next makes a good afternoon away from the crowds in the nave.

Around the Avenue Winston Churchill

You don’t have to go far once you leave the fair. The Petit Palais, also built for the 1900 exhibition, stands directly across the avenue. It houses the City of Paris fine arts museum, and its courtyard garden is a calm place to sit after a few hours under the glass roof.

Walk south and the Pont Alexandre III takes you over the Seine towards Les Invalides, with gilded statues on its pillars. Walk north and you reach the Champs-Élysées, where you’ll find the nearest cafés and restaurants. They’re busy in fair week. For a quieter, cheaper meal, many visitors take Line 1 a few stops east, or cross the river into the 7th.