Salam Palace: Two Hours for Eight Dinars, and Nobody Under Twelve
Tickets are sold on the website alone — there is no counter at the door — smart dress is required, and sandals are refused.
Salam Palace Museum is not a museum you walk into and buy a ticket at the door. A visit is a pre-booked guided tour of two hours, covering three museums inside one building: the history of the palace itself, the civilisations that lived on Kuwait’s land, and the history of Kuwait through its rulers.
The price
- Standard tour: eight dinars, two hours, in Arabic or English.
- Private (VIP) tour: twenty dinars, also two hours.
- A schools tour for pupils aged twelve to eighteen, on a separate registration form for the school.
The price is the same for every visitor aged twelve and over; there is no reduced rate for younger ones.
The clause that surprises families
Children under twelve are not admitted. This is not a recommendation but a condition of entry, and anyone arriving with a younger child does not get in.
Tickets on the website only
There is no ticket counter at the palace, and no booking by phone. Tickets are limited in number and sold only through the museum’s site, paid by KNET or credit card. The ticket arrives as a QR code, printed or shown on your phone to the security officer. Booking opens some time before the visit, so tickets cannot be bought on the day.
Dress
Smart formal dress. Not allowed: shorts, sleeveless shirts, short dresses, revealing clothing, and sandals. Comfortable shoes are advised, since the tour is two hours on foot. Food and drink are not allowed inside the museum.
Why this building
It was built in the fifties as a residence for Sheikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Salem Al Sabah, then passed to the state as an official guest house. It received its first visitors in 1964, and over the twenty-six years that followed hosted more than a hundred and sixty-six visits by emperors, kings and heads of state. It was damaged and looted in the invasion of 1990; restoration began twenty-three years later, and it opened as a museum in April 2019.
Photograph: Salam Palace from the air, from the materials of the Kuwait News Agency.
Source: the official Salam Palace Museum site — the tours, FAQ and our story pages.
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