Book Flights to Paris, France
Paris is the most visited city in the world, and the transatlantic market serving it is among the most competitive anywhere. Air France, Delta, United and American all fly nonstop from multiple US hubs, and low-cost long-haul carriers French Bee and Norse Atlantic undercut them on base fare.
Charles de Gaulle (CDG) handles most long-haul arrivals, 25 km northeast of the centre; Orly (ORY) sits 14 km south and is closer in. FareOptic compares every carrier and both airports to find the cheapest fare to Paris on your dates.
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*All above fares are one way/round trip. Fares incl. all fuel surcharges, taxes & fees and our service fees. Displayed fares are subject to change and cannot be guaranteed at the time of booking. See all booking terms and conditions.
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Why Visit Paris, France?
From a wrought-iron tower the city once wanted demolished to the most-visited museum on earth, a cathedral reopened after fire, a chapel made almost entirely of glass, and a food culture inscribed by UNESCO — Paris rewards both the first visit and the tenth.
The Eiffel Tower — 330 Metres of Wrought Iron That Paris Wanted Demolished
Built for the 1889 World's Fair as a 20-Year Temporary Structure, Saved Because It Made a Good Radio AntennaThe Eiffel Tower was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch to the Exposition Universelle marking the centenary of the French Revolution, designed by engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier of Gustave Eiffel's company. It is 330 metres tall including antennas, weighs about 10,100 tonnes, and is made of 18,038 individual wrought-iron pieces held by 2.5 million rivets. It was the tallest structure in the world for 41 years until the Chrysler Building. Paris largely hated it: in 1887 a group of 300 artists and writers including Maupassant, Dumas fils and Garnier published a furious protest against this 'useless and monstrous' tower, this 'odious column of bolted sheet metal.' The permit gave it twenty years, after which the city could pull it down. It survived because Eiffel had shrewdly installed a meteorological station and then a radio transmitter at the top, making it militarily valuable — it intercepted German communications in the First World War — and by 1909, when the lease expired, it was too useful to demolish. Three visitor levels are open, with lifts and 674 stairs to the second floor.
Booking, Timing and the Best Places to Photograph It
Tickets sell out well ahead, particularly for the summit, and the official ticket site releases inventory roughly 60 days in advance; buying there is substantially cheaper than through resellers. Stair tickets to the second level are cheaper than lift tickets, need less advance booking, and the climb is manageable for most people. The tower sparkles for five minutes on the hour every hour after dark until 1 a.m., a light show separate from the standard golden illumination. For photographs, the classic angles are the Trocadéro terrace across the river to the north, which gives the full symmetrical view and is best around sunrise before crowds; the Champ de Mars lawn to the southeast; the Rue de l'Université at number 55, where the tower appears framed at the end of a Haussmannian street; and the Pont de Bir-Hakeim, whose iron arcades echo the tower's structure. Note that airport-style security fences now enclose the base, so allow extra time.
The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Great Collections
35,000 Works on Display Across 73,000 Square Metres — Plus the Best Impressionist Collection in the World in a Converted Railway StationThe Louvre is the most-visited museum on earth, drawing around 9 million people a year to a former royal palace whose galleries run more than 70,000 square metres and hold roughly 35,000 works on display out of a collection exceeding 480,000. It became a public museum in 1793 during the Revolution, and I.M. Pei's glass pyramid, bitterly controversial when it opened in 1989, is now inseparable from the building's image. The headline works — the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, Géricault's Raft of the Medusa — draw the crowds, but the Louvre's real depth is in Egyptian antiquities, Mesopotamian sculpture including the Code of Hammurabi, and the Richelieu wing's northern European painting, all of which are comparatively quiet. Across the Seine, the Musée d'Orsay occupies the Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station of 1900 converted in 1986, and holds the world's greatest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting — Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat — beneath the original iron and glass train shed with its enormous station clock.
How to Actually See the Louvre Without Losing the Day
The Mona Lisa is small, behind glass, at the far end of a crowded room, and viewed for an average of well under a minute in a slow-moving queue; seeing it is an experience of logistics rather than of painting, and many visitors are happier skipping it. If you do want it, go straight there at opening. More broadly: book a timed entry slot in advance, since walk-up queues at the pyramid can run over an hour, and enter through the Carrousel du Louvre underground entrance or the Porte des Lions rather than the pyramid itself, both of which are usually far quicker. The museum is closed on Tuesdays. It stays open late on Friday evenings, when it is markedly emptier and one of the best times to visit. Choose two wings and accept that you will not see the rest — trying to cover the whole building in one visit produces exhaustion rather than pleasure. The Paris Museum Pass covers the Louvre, Orsay, Versailles, Sainte-Chapelle, the Pompidou and dozens more, and pays for itself quickly if you are visiting several, though you still need to reserve a time slot for the Louvre separately.
Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle and the Île de la Cité
A Cathedral Reopened in December 2024 After the 2019 Fire, and a Chapel of 1,113 Stained-Glass Panels Next DoorNotre-Dame de Paris, begun in 1163 and largely complete by 1345, stands on the Île de la Cité at the historic centre of the city — the point from which all road distances in France are measured. On 15 April 2019 a fire destroyed the roof and the 19th-century spire and threatened the whole structure; the stone vaults largely held, and the towers, the great organ and most of the treasury and relics survived. Reconstruction, funded by roughly a billion euros in donations and carried out with traditional oak framing and lead roofing, completed in time for the cathedral's reopening on 7 December 2024. Entry to the nave is free, and the cleaned interior stone is dramatically lighter than most visitors remember. A short walk away, Sainte-Chapelle is the more astonishing building: a royal chapel built by Louis IX between 1242 and 1248 to house the Crown of Thorns, whose upper chapel dispenses almost entirely with wall in favour of 15 windows of 15 metres each, holding 1,113 stained-glass panels that narrate the Bible from Genesis to the Resurrection. Two-thirds of the glass is original 13th-century work.
Visiting Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle Since the Reopening
Notre-Dame is free to enter but demand since reopening has been extremely high, and a free timed-reservation system operates through the cathedral's official site and app, with slots released a couple of days ahead and a standby queue for those without one. Going early in the morning or during evening Mass is the most reliable way in. The tower climb and the archaeological crypt are ticketed separately. Sainte-Chapelle is ticketed, sits inside the Palais de Justice complex, and requires passing through court security, so allow time; a combined ticket with the neighbouring Conciergerie — the medieval palace turned revolutionary prison where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution — is good value. Sainte-Chapelle's glass needs sun to work, so go on a bright day, ideally late morning when light comes through the southern windows, and evening classical concerts held in the upper chapel are among the best things to do in Paris after dark.
Montmartre, the Marais and the Paris of Neighbourhoods
A Hilltop Village of Vineyards and Artists' Studios, and a Medieval Quarter That Escaped Haussmann's DemolitionsParis rewards walking a single quarter far more than it rewards a monument checklist. Montmartre, the 130-metre butte in the 18th arrondissement, was a rural village of windmills and gypsum quarries outside the city until 1860, and its cheap rents drew Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Modigliani, Utrillo and the young Picasso, who painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the Bateau-Lavoir studios. The Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, built between 1875 and 1914 in white travertine that self-cleans in rain, crowns the hill with a view across the whole city; the streets behind it — Rue de l'Abreuvoir, Place Dalida, the Clos Montmartre vineyard that still produces a few hundred bottles a year — are far quieter than the tourist crush at Place du Tertre. The Marais, spanning the 3rd and 4th arrondissements, is the opposite kind of survival: a district of 17th-century hôtels particuliers that escaped Haussmann's boulevard-cutting and 20th-century redevelopment, now holding the Place des Vosges of 1612, the Musée Picasso, the Musée Carnavalet on the history of Paris, the historic Jewish quarter along Rue des Rosiers, and the city's most concentrated independent shopping.
Other Quarters Worth a Day Each
Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th holds the cafés where Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus worked — Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, now expensive but still functioning — along with the Musée Delacroix, the Église Saint-Sulpice, and the Jardin du Luxembourg, the finest public garden in the city. The Latin Quarter in the 5th, named for the language once spoken at the Sorbonne, holds the Panthéon where Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola, Marie Curie and Josephine Baker are buried, the Roman baths at Cluny, the Arènes de Lutèce amphitheatre, and Shakespeare and Company. Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th, with its iron footbridges and locks, is where young Parisians actually spend summer evenings. Belleville in the 20th is the city's most genuinely diverse quarter, with the best Chinese and North African food and a strong street-art scene. And Père Lachaise, also in the 20th, is a 44-hectare cemetery holding Chopin, Proust, Wilde, Balzac, Piaf, Delacroix and Jim Morrison, and is one of the most atmospheric places in Paris on a grey morning.
Versailles, Giverny and the Day Trips
A 2,300-Room Palace and 800 Hectares of Garden Half an Hour Away, and Monet's Water-Lily Pond an Hour NorthwestThe Château de Versailles, 20 km southwest and reached in about 40 minutes on RER line C, was Louis XIII's hunting lodge before Louis XIV transformed it from 1661 into the seat of French government and the instrument by which he controlled the nobility — obliging some 3,000 to 10,000 courtiers to live at court, competing for proximity to a king whose every waking act was a public ceremony. The palace holds roughly 2,300 rooms; the Hall of Mirrors, 73 metres long with 357 mirrors facing 17 arched windows onto the gardens, is where the German Empire was proclaimed in 1871 and where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919. André Le Nôtre's gardens run to 800 hectares of geometric parterres, 50 fountains and the Grand Canal, with the Grand and Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette's deliberately rustic Hameau de la Reine at the far end. About 75 km northwest, Giverny holds Monet's house and the water garden he built and then painted for the last 30 years of his life, including the Japanese bridge and the lily pond that produced the Nymphéas series; it opens roughly April to November, and the wisteria in May and the water lilies in June and July are the peak.
Timing Versailles, and the Musical Fountain Days
Versailles receives around eight million visitors a year and the State Apartments become genuinely unpleasant at peak times. Go on a weekday, book a timed slot in advance, and arrive either at opening or after about three in the afternoon; avoid Tuesdays, when many Paris museums close and the overflow lands here, and note that Versailles itself closes on Mondays. The gardens are free on most days but ticketed on Grandes Eaux Musicales and Jardins Musicaux days, typically weekends from April to October, when the fountains run to Baroque music as they were designed to — worth paying for, since the fountains are otherwise static. Renting a bicycle or golf cart, or taking the little train, makes the long walk to the Trianons and the Hameau far more manageable. Other strong day trips: Chartres, an hour southwest by train, for the best-preserved medieval stained glass in France; Fontainebleau, a less crowded royal palace an hour south; Reims in Champagne, 45 minutes by TGV, for the coronation cathedral and the champagne houses; and Disneyland Paris, 40 minutes east on RER A.
Paris Food — Bakeries, Bistros, Markets and the Culture of Eating
A City Where the Baguette Is Legally Defined, the Best Croissant Is Decided by Annual Competition, and Lunch Is a Fixed-Price InstitutionFrench gastronomy was inscribed on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list in 2010, and Paris is where its everyday form is most visible. The baguette de tradition is legally defined by a 1993 decree specifying that it may contain only wheat flour, water, salt and yeast, with no additives and no freezing, which is why the traditional loaf tastes different from the ordinary baguette sold alongside it. The city runs an annual Grand Prix de la Baguette, whose winner supplies the Élysée Palace for a year and is worth seeking out, and a parallel croissant competition. Beyond bakeries, the essential Paris institutions are the neighbourhood bistro, the brasserie, and the covered and street markets — Marché d'Aligre in the 12th, the covered Marché des Enfants Rouges in the Marais dating to 1615, and the Rue Mouffetard and Rue Cler market streets. The formule du midi, a fixed-price two- or three-course weekday lunch, is the single best value in Paris dining and lets you eat at restaurants whose dinner prices would be prohibitive.
Practical Rules for Eating in Paris
Service is included by law — the bill will say service compris — so tipping is genuinely optional; rounding up or leaving a euro or two for good service is normal, and 15 to 20 percent is not expected. Tap water is free and safe: ask for une carafe d'eau rather than accepting bottled water. Lunch service typically runs noon to about 2 p.m. and dinner from 7.30 or 8 p.m., and many neighbourhood restaurants genuinely close in between, so a 4 p.m. meal usually means a brasserie or a café. Booking is advisable for dinner at anywhere well regarded, often days ahead. Coffee ordered as un café means a small espresso; if you want something longer, ask for un allongé, and a café crème is the morning milk coffee. Bread is served without butter and without charge. Saying bonjour on entering any shop or restaurant, and au revoir on leaving, is not optional politeness but the baseline social expectation, and its absence accounts for a large share of the rudeness visitors report encountering.
How to Find Cheap Flights to Paris
Paris Is One of the Most Competitive Transatlantic Markets — Check All Four Majors
Air France, Delta, United and American all fly nonstop to Paris from multiple US hubs, and they compete directly on most city pairs. That competition makes fares volatile: the same route can swing by several hundred dollars between carriers and between weeks. Always price all four, and add French Bee and Norse Atlantic, whose base fares undercut the legacy carriers substantially if you can travel with minimal baggage.
CDG and Orly Are Different Airports With Different Trade-offs
Charles de Gaulle sits 25 km northeast and handles most long-haul traffic, connected by RER B and, since the recent extension, metro line 14. Orly is 14 km south, closer to the centre, served by Orlyval and tram, and used by French Bee and much of the European short-haul network. If you are booking separate tickets, do not assume you can transfer between them easily — allow at least three hours, since the cross-city journey takes well over an hour.
Late Spring and Early Autumn Beat Both Summer and August
May, June, September and early October give Paris its best weather with manageable crowds. July and August are hot, crowded and expensive, and August has a particular quirk: a substantial share of independent restaurants, bakeries and small shops close for several weeks as Parisians leave the city. Winter is cheap, quiet and often grey but perfectly pleasant, and the Christmas markets and museum-going are at their best.
Buy a Navigo Easy or Carnet Rather Than Single Metro Tickets
Paris fares were simplified recently into a flat-rate metro and RER structure across the region, and single paper tickets are the most expensive way to travel. Load a rechargeable Navigo Easy card, available at any station for a small one-off fee, or buy a carnet of ten. If you are staying a full week from Monday, the Navigo Découverte weekly pass covering all zones including both airports and Versailles is usually the cheapest option of all — bring a passport photo for it.
Airlines Flying to Paris (CDG & ORY)
Air France & the SkyTeam Alliance
CDG Is Air France's Global Hub — the Most US Gateways of Any Carrier to ParisAir France, founded in 1933 and the flag carrier of France, operates Charles de Gaulle as its principal hub and flies nonstop to Paris from more US cities than any other airline — typically New York JFK and Newark, Boston, Washington Dulles, Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Denver, with seasonal additions. Its joint venture with Delta, KLM and Virgin Atlantic means Delta-marketed transatlantic flights to Paris are frequently operated by Air France metal and vice versa, and the two carriers coordinate schedules and pricing across the Atlantic. Long-haul aircraft are mainly the Boeing 777 and Airbus A350, with the A380 retired in 2020. Air France's cabin tiers run Economy, Premium Economy, Business and La Première, the last available only on selected routes.
Key Routes
Nonstop to CDG from JFK, EWR, BOS, IAD, ATL, DTW, MSP, ORD, IAH, MIA, LAX, SFO, SEA, DEN and seasonal cities; Delta codeshares across the joint venture; KLM connects via Amsterdam; onward Air France and HOP! service from CDG to 100+ European and African destinations
Delta, United & American
All Three US Majors Fly Nonstop to Paris — Often the Cheapest Transatlantic FaresThe three US network carriers each serve Paris nonstop from their hubs. Delta flies to CDG from Atlanta, New York JFK, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Seattle and Salt Lake City, coordinating with Air France under their joint venture. United flies from Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and San Francisco, connecting into Star Alliance partner Lufthansa's network beyond. American flies from Dallas/Fort Worth, Charlotte, Miami, Philadelphia and Chicago, with onward connections via Oneworld partner British Airways. Because all three compete directly with Air France on most of these city pairs, the transatlantic Paris market is one of the most competitively priced in the world, and fares swing widely — checking all four carriers on your dates is genuinely worth the time.
Key Routes
Delta to CDG from ATL, JFK, BOS, DTW, MSP, SEA, SLC; United to CDG from EWR, IAD, ORD, SFO; American to CDG from DFW, CLT, MIA, PHL, ORD; all three also connect to Paris via European partner hubs — Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, London and Madrid
French Bee, Norse Atlantic & the Low-Cost Long-Haul Carriers
Orly and CDG Budget Transatlantic Service — the Cheapest Base Fares to ParisA small group of low-cost long-haul carriers serve Paris from North America at fares well below the legacy airlines. French Bee, part of the Groupe Dubreuil family that also owns Air Caraïbes, flies Airbus A350s from Paris Orly to New York Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami, with onward service to Tahiti and Réunion. Norse Atlantic Airways, the Norwegian successor to the collapsed Norwegian Long Haul, operates Boeing 787s to CDG from several US cities. Both use the unbundled model: the headline fare covers the seat only, and checked bags, seat selection, meals and changes are all extra. Add those before comparing, and note that French Bee flies into Orly rather than CDG, which is closer to central Paris but has fewer onward connections.
Key Routes
French Bee from EWR, LAX, SFO and MIA to Paris Orly ORY on A350s; Norse Atlantic to CDG from selected US cities on 787s; both charge separately for bags, seats and meals; Orly is 14 km south of central Paris with Orlyval and tram connections, CDG is 25 km northeast with RER B and the new metro line 14 extension
Things to Do in Paris
Important Information Before You Fly to Paris
Currency
Euro (€) — cards accepted almost everywhere including the metro; some cash useful at markets
Language
French — English widely spoken in hotels, museums and tourist areas. Always open with bonjour.
Time Zone
CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2) in summer
Country Code
+33 (France)
Airport Codes
CDG — Charles de Gaulle, 25 km NE (RER B, metro 14); ORY — Orly, 14 km S (Orlyval, tram); BVA — Beauvais, 85 km N, coach transfer
US Visa Required
No — 90 days visa-free in the Schengen Area for US passport holders; check ETIAS status before travel
Power Plugs
Type C/E — 230V / 50Hz; an adapter is needed for US devices
Emergency Number
112 (EU standard) / 15 (Ambulance) / 17 (Police) / 18 (Fire)
Most Popular Airlines
Best Airlines for Domestic & International Routes
Frequently Asked Questions on Travel to Paris
Everything you need to know about booking cheap flights to Paris, France
Which airport should I fly into for Paris?
Charles de Gaulle (CDG), 25 km northeast, handles the great majority of long-haul flights and is served by RER B and metro line 14. Orly (ORY), 14 km south, is closer to the centre and used by French Bee and much of the European short-haul network. Beauvais (BVA) is used by some ultra-low-cost carriers but is 85 km away and needs a coach transfer of well over an hour, so factor that in before booking a cheap Beauvais fare.
How long is the flight from the US to Paris?
From the US East Coast, roughly 7 to 8 hours eastbound to Paris and 8 to 9 hours westbound, the difference caused by the jet stream. From Chicago it is about 8.5 hours, from Dallas and Miami about 9.5, and from the West Coast 10 to 11 hours. Most transatlantic flights depart the US in the evening and land in Paris the following morning, which means your first day is spent tired — plan something undemanding for it.
Do US citizens need a visa for France?
No. US passport holders may visit France and the wider Schengen Area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa. Your passport must be valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure from the Schengen Area. The EU's ETIAS travel authorisation, comparable to the US ESTA, has been in development and will eventually be required for visa-exempt travellers, so check its current status before you go.
Is the Paris Museum Pass worth buying?
Usually, if you plan to visit three or more of the included sites. It covers the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the Arc de Triomphe, the Centre Pompidou, the Musée Rodin and around 50 more, and it lets you skip ticket queues. It does not cover the Eiffel Tower. Note that several sites, the Louvre and Versailles among them, still require you to reserve a separate timed entry slot even with the pass, so book those as soon as you buy it.
Has Notre-Dame reopened after the fire?
Yes. The cathedral reopened on 7 December 2024, five and a half years after the fire of 15 April 2019 destroyed the roof and spire. Reconstruction used traditional oak framing and lead roofing and was funded by around a billion euros in donations. Entry to the nave is free, but demand is very high and a free timed-reservation system operates through the cathedral's official site and app, with a standby queue for visitors without a booking. The cleaned interior stone is noticeably lighter than before.
What is the best way to get around Paris?
Walking, plus the metro. Paris is compact — the city proper is about 105 square kilometres — and most of what visitors want to see is walkable between quarters. The metro has 16 lines and stations roughly every 500 metres, and fares now work on a flat-rate structure across the region. Load a rechargeable Navigo Easy card rather than buying single paper tickets, or take the Navigo Découverte weekly pass if you are staying from a Monday. Buses are slower but give you the city above ground.
When is the cheapest time to fly to Paris?
January and February are the cheapest months, followed by November and early December. Fares peak from June through August and again around Christmas and New Year. Late spring and early autumn cost more than winter but give much better weather with fewer crowds than midsummer. Midweek departures are consistently cheaper than weekend ones, and booking transatlantic economy roughly two to five months ahead tends to catch the best fares.
What currency is used in France and should I tip?
The euro (€). Cards are accepted almost everywhere including on the metro, though carrying some cash is useful for markets and small bakeries. Tipping is genuinely optional: service is included by law and the bill will state service compris. Rounding up or leaving a euro or two for good service is normal and appreciated, but the 15 to 20 percent expected in the United States is not the practice here and staff are paid a full wage.
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