Dolmabahçe Palace: what to see, what entry costs and how to choose between it and Topkapı

Dolmabahçe Palace was the last great residence of the Ottoman sultans, on the European shore of the Bosphorus in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul. For a foreign visitor, the main ticket, which covers the Selamlık, the Harem and the Painting Museum, costs 2,000 TL. The ticket office is open from 09:00 to 17:00, and the palace is closed on Mondays. These are the figures of the operator, the National Palaces administration (Milli Saraylar), as of 6 November 2026. Choosing between Dolmabahçe and Topkapı comes down to what interests you more: the old Ottoman court or the 19th century, when the sultans lived in the European manner. And if you want both, the two palaces fit into one day.

A palace that faces the water

Dolmabahçe was not built as a walled city but as a façade on the Bosphorus: a long building stretches along the shore and is best seen from the water. Inside there are three parts. The Selamlık, or Mabeyn, is the state and administrative half, where the sultan worked and received dignitaries. The Harem held the private apartments of the sultan and his family. Between them stands the Ceremonial Hall (Muayede), where, according to the Islamic encyclopedia of the Türkiye Diyanet Foundation (TDV), bayram receptions and meetings with foreign guests took place. By the count of Milli Saraylar, the palace has 285 rooms, 44 halls and six hamams.

What to see: from the Crystal Staircase to Room 71

The visit begins in the Selamlık. Its centrepiece is the Crystal Staircase, whose handrails rest on crystal balusters. The TDV encyclopedia also singles out in this half the Ambassadors' Hall, or Red Hall (Süferâ), the library of Mecid Efendi and the sultan's hamam, with walls of Egyptian alabaster and a floor of marble from the island of Marmara.

The Ceremonial Hall is almost square in plan, about 25 by 37 metres, and roofed with a dome. A huge chandelier hangs beneath the dome. Its weight and the story of where it came from are told in different ways, and the operator's pages do not give these figures, so we leave them out here.

The Harem is joined to the Selamlık by a corridor about 300 metres long. It has five large halls, among them the Blue Hall and the Pink Hall on the upper floor. Here too is Room 71, where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk died on 10 November 1938 at 09:05; according to the DHA news agency (2022), the room is open to visitors.

After the main route you can visit the museums attached to the palace. The Painting Museum occupies the former apartments of the heir to the throne (Veliahd Dairesi) and shows 553 works from the 16th to the 20th century. The Palace Collections Museum is housed in the former palace kitchens (Matbah-ı Âmire): furniture, porcelain, Hereke textiles, clocks, musical instruments and personal belongings of Abdülhamid II. The Clock Museum is closed for restoration as of 6 November 2026.

Why the court left Topkapı for the shore

According to Metin Sözen's article in the TDV encyclopedia, Mahmud II had already wanted to leave Topkapı. By then the city had outgrown its old walls: new neighbourhoods linked Pera, Boğazkesen and Cihangir, and the shore at Dolmabahçe and Beşiktaş ended up inside the city. At the same time the court was turning towards European models. According to Milli Saraylar, this spot was once a natural harbour, and later the wooden Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace stood here.

Soon after coming to the throne, Abdülmecid I ordered it to be replaced with a stone one. According to the TDV, work began in 1842 (Milli Saraylar gives 1843), and the palace opened on 7 June 1856. It was built by a father and son, Garabet and Nikogos Balyan, and the interiors were decorated by Charles Séchan, who had worked on the Paris Opera building. The encyclopedia calls the style eclectic: Baroque, Rococo, Empire and Neoclassicism, with gilded stucco and painted ceilings.

From 1856 six sultans lived here, and so did the last caliph, Abdülmecid, who left the palace in 1924. Under the Republic, Dolmabahçe became a "national palace": Atatürk stayed here from 1927 and received foreign statesmen in it, and İsmet İnönü used the palace as a presidential residence until 1949. It became a museum in 1984.

Topkapı or Dolmabahçe, and how to fit in both

The difference between the two palaces lies not only in the centuries but in how you spend your time. Topkapı is a walk: open courtyards, pavilions, the Treasury and the relics, a court order that took shape over almost four centuries. Dolmabahçe is about interiors: one hall after another inside a single building. On a rainy or very hot day, Dolmabahçe is the easier choice. If early Ottoman history and the holy relics of Islam matter more to you, choose Topkapı.

You can combine both palaces from Wednesday to Sunday: Dolmabahçe is closed on Monday, Topkapı on Tuesday. The logical order is Topkapı in the morning and Dolmabahçe after lunch: the T1 tram runs from Sultanahmet to the Kabataş terminus next to Dolmabahçe. By the editors' estimate, the main Dolmabahçe route takes about two hours, so arrive well before the ticket office closes. For Topkapı's hours and prices, see its page on gezdir.me. The operator has no joint ticket for both palaces: the Dolmabahçe combined tickets do not include Topkapı.

Getting there

The palace's address: Vişnezade Mah., Dolmabahçe Cad., Beşiktaş. The nearest tram stop is Kabataş, the terminus of the T1 line (Kabataş – Bağcılar); from there you walk to the palace along Dolmabahçe Caddesi. From the Taksim area the F1 funicular runs down to Kabataş, and ferries call at the Kabataş pier, so the visit is easy to combine with a Bosphorus cruise. The tram and the funicular are paid with an Istanbulkart. After the palace, the same funicular is a convenient way up to İstiklal Avenue.

Beylerbeyi and Yıldız: worth going further?

Beylerbeyi is a summer palace on the Asian shore, in Üsküdar, built under Abdülaziz in 1863–1865. Foreign guests stayed here, among them Emperor Franz Joseph and the French Empress Eugénie, and Abdülhamid II spent the last six years of his life here. The palace is much smaller than Dolmabahçe, with 24 rooms and 6 halls, and is surrounded by a large garden. Foreign visitors pay 800 TL for entry; the closing day and ticket office hours are the same as at Dolmabahçe. The trip is worth it if one 19th-century interior is not enough for you, or if you will be on the Asian shore anyway.

Yıldız is a complex on the hill above Beşiktaş, from which Abdülhamid II ruled the country for 33 years; according to the operator, it is the last major palace built by the Ottoman state in Istanbul. It is open to visits: the ticket for foreign visitors costs 900 TL and the ticket office keeps the same hours, but here the closing day is Wednesday. The outer garden is now Yıldız Park, with the Çadır, Malta and Şale pavilions. The operator's page does not say whether the Şale Pavilion itself is open to visitors.

Tickets, combined passes and audio guide

The main ticket for Turkish citizens (yerli) costs 250 TL, and the reduced one 150 TL. Students aged 7–25 with a student card get the reduction, while foreign students pay twice the reduced rate, that is 300 TL, and those aged 12–25 must show a physical ISIC card. Children under 6 enter free. Müzekart, the Turkish museum card, is not valid for the Selamlık.

• Kombine I, covering all Milli Saraylar palaces and pavilions except Topkapı: 3,500 TL for foreign visitors.
• Kombine II (Dolmabahçe, Yıldız and the pavilions of the European shore) and Kombine III (Dolmabahçe and the palaces and pavilions of the Asian shore): 2,750 TL each.
• Combined tickets are valid for one month from the day of purchase, and each site on them can be visited once.
• Palace Collections Museum: 280 TL; the Painting Museum on its own, without the palace: 600 TL for foreign visitors.

Tickets are sold at the ticket office, on the Milli Saraylar website (the "Bilet Al" section) and in the Milli Saraylar app. The palace pages list no audio guide from the operator itself, and the Russian-language track offered by resellers who sell tickets "with an audio guide" could not be confirmed. If you would like to hear stories about places on the way between the palaces, take a look at the gezdir.me audio guide to Istanbul. The stories open from a place card or a route stop in the gezdir.me app, and some of the material can be downloaded in advance; exactly what is available depends on the content and your plan.

Photo: Francesco.Brocchi · CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dolmabah%C3%A7e_Palace_Bosphorus_side.jpg)