Christiansborg Palace visitor guide — everything you need to know before visiting

At a glance

Address

Prins Jørgens Gård 5, 1218 Copenhagen K, Denmark

Operator

Kongernes Samling (The Royal Danish Collection)

Entry model

Date-only combination ticket; all four sites on one date, no time slot

Present palace

Built 1907 to 1928 to designs by Thorvald Jørgensen; tower 106 metres

Ruins open to the public

Since 1924

Time needed

Three to four hours for all four sites

What is Christiansborg Palace?

Christiansborg is the seat of Danish power in a single building. The Danish Parliament, the Folketing, sits in the southern wing; the Royal Reception Rooms, the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister's Office are in the northern wing. No other building in the world holds all three branches of a country's government, which is why Danes often call it simply Borgen, the castle.

The monarch still uses the palace. The King holds audiences here, attends meetings of the Council of State, and hosts gala banquets, state dinners and the New Year's levée in the Reception Rooms. That is what makes a visit here different from a museum palace, and it is also why sites can close at short notice when the rooms are needed.

Three palaces on one island

The building you see is the third Christiansborg. The first was a vast baroque palace begun in 1733 for Christian VI, and it burnt in 1794. Only the riding ground complex and its stables survived, which is why the Royal Stables are older than the palace they now stand beside.

C. F. Hansen rebuilt the palace in a neoclassical style between 1803 and 1828. That second palace burnt in 1884, sparing the Palace Chapel. After years of political argument, Thorvald Jørgensen won the competition for the third palace, built between 1907 and 1928 in a neo-baroque style, with granite-faced walls and a tower that reaches 106 metres, still the tallest in Copenhagen.

The Royal Reception Rooms

This is the longest part of the visit and the reason most people come. You climb the King's Staircase to the Tower Hall, hung with five tapestries of Danish folk ballads designed by Joakim Skovgaard, then continue into the oval Throne Room. The thrones at the end of the room are relics of absolutism, the king's flanked by gilded lions and the queen's by griffins.

Beyond it come the Hall of the Giants, with six limestone figures carrying the ceiling on their shoulders, the Alexander Hall with Bertel Thorvaldsen's marble frieze of Alexander the Great entering Babylon, and the Velvet Hall, lined with 300 metres of red velvet. The Audience Chamber and the State Council Room are the only reception rooms closed to visitors.

The Great Hall and the Queen's Tapestries

The Great Hall is the largest room in the palace: 40 metres long, 14 metres wide and 10 metres high, with room for 400 dinner guests. After gala dinners the tables are cleared and it becomes a ballroom. It is lit by Murano glass chandeliers and has a gallery running around the walls.

Its walls carry Bjørn Nørgaard's 17 tapestries, which tell a thousand years of Danish history from the Viking Age to the present. They were a gift from the Danish business community for Queen Margrethe II's 50th birthday in 1990, woven in France at Les Gobelins and Beauvais, and hung in the hall in 2000. Allow time here: the tapestries are dense with detail and reward a slow look.

The Throne Room balcony

The Throne Room faces the Palace Square, and its balcony is where new Danish monarchs are proclaimed. Since absolutism began in 1660, the head of government has proclaimed each new monarch from the palace on Slotsholmen. On 14 January 2024 King Frederik X waited in this room before Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen proclaimed him from the balcony to the crowds below.

His mother, Queen Margrethe II, was proclaimed from the same balcony in 1972, and her father, Frederik IX, in 1947. Look up at the ceiling painting by Kræsten Iversen, which shows the Danish flag, the Dannebrog, falling from the sky in 1219. It is still the room where the King receives ambassadors and heads of state.

The Royal Kitchen

The Royal Kitchen sits in the basement and was built for the third palace as an event kitchen. The palace never served as a royal residence, so from the start its kitchen was designed to cater for banquets upstairs rather than daily family meals.

The exhibition freezes the kitchen on 15 May 1937, the day of the gala dinner for Christian X's silver jubilee: 275 guests, the largest royal banquet in 90 years. Around the vaulted room hang some 800 pieces of copper cookware weighing about two tonnes, one of the largest collections in Europe. The oldest piece is an oval stockpot from 1767. Look into the chef's office too, where the radio still plays the jubilee speeches.

The Ruins under the palace

Below the palace lie the remains of the castle Bishop Absalon built in 1167 and of Copenhagen Castle, which replaced it. Absalon's ring wall was made of limestone shipped from the cliffs at Stevns and enclosed a site about 53 metres across. The Hanseatic League, which had captured the castle, had it torn down stone by stone in 1369.

Copenhagen Castle rose on the same ground and became the principal residence of the Danish kings, until Christian VI had it demolished in 1731 to make way for the first Christiansborg. Workers found the ruins while laying the foundations of the present palace, and they have been open to the public since 1924. Look for the base of the Blue Tower, Copenhagen Castle's notorious prison.

The Royal Stables

The riding ground complex behind the palace is the oldest surviving part of the first Christiansborg. Its stables date from the 1740s and survived both the 1794 and 1884 fires, and they are still home to the royal horses, including white Kladruber horses reintroduced in the 1990s.

The coach collection includes the Gold Coach, first used by Christian VIII in 1840, and the Golden Wedding Anniversary Coach of 1892, which carried the King and Queen through Copenhagen after the proclamation on 14 January 2024. In the Harness Museum you meet Pearl, Frederik VII's white Frederiksborg horse, preserved beside Christian V's dappled horse. The Stables open only from 13:30 to 16:00, so plan them for the afternoon.

How to plan your day

Your combination ticket is valid for one date and lets you visit the four sites in any order during their opening hours, with last entry 30 minutes before each closes. The simplest plan is the Reception Rooms at 10:00 when they open, then the Royal Kitchen and the Ruins, a lunch break, and the Royal Stables once they open at 13:30.

From 30 March to 1 November 2026 the Reception Rooms, Kitchen and Ruins open daily from 10:00 to 17:00 and the Stables from 13:30 to 16:00. The palace publishes winter hours later in the year; in the 2025 winter season Mondays were closed. Christiansborg is closed on 24 and 25 December and 1 January, and on 31 December the Stables are closed and the other sites close at 14:00.

Royal events, bags and accessibility

Christiansborg is an active palace. The Royal Family uses it for state visits, audiences and Council of State meetings, and any site may close without prior announcement for official state or royal events. The palace recommends checking the week's opening hours before your visit, and we do this for your date and tell you if a closure is announced.

The cloakroom is small and takes only small bags and umbrellas; large bags, suitcases, prams and pushchairs are not allowed inside, though pushchairs can be left in the Queen's Gate at your own risk. All visitor sites can be reached with a wheelchair or walker: ask the ticket desk staff at each site for the lift. Wheelchairs can be borrowed at the Reception Rooms. Food and drink are not allowed inside.

Who this ticket is not for

If you only have an hour, the combination ticket is more than you can use. The free Tower viewing platform, run by the Danish Parliament, gives you the palace and the city from above in a fraction of the time, and the Palace Square and Riding Ground are open to walk through.

If your date has to be fixed and cannot move, be aware that royal events can close a site without notice, and the Stables only open in the afternoon. And if you plan to see Rosenborg and Amalienborg as well, the Royal Palace Pass is the better buy. Under-18s enter free, so families should book only the adults and collect free tickets for the children.

Frequently asked questions