Munich Oktoberfest 2026: dates, opening hours, prices and the figures that do not add up

Oktoberfest 2026 is the 191st Wiesn, as locals call it, and runs from Saturday 19 September 2026 to Sunday 4 October 2026 on the Theresienwiese. This page sets dates, opening hours, prices and visitor numbers side by side, each with year and source.

It also names where the sources diverge: on the number of tents, on the beer price and on the 2025 visitor total. We do not settle these cases; we show both figures.

When is Oktoberfest 2026, and how long does it last?

From 19 September 2026 to 4 October 2026, so 16 days. The dates have been on oktoberfest.de and muenchen.de since summer 2026, last updated in early September 2026.

Behind them is a fixed rule: the Wiesn starts on the Saturday after 15 September and ends on the first Sunday in October. If that Sunday falls on 1 or 2 October, it is extended to 3 October, German Unity Day.

One caveat worth knowing: the city's reports for 2025 and 2024 give the length and the end date, and we derived the start date from the rule. One travel magazine even wrote "Sunday 20 September" for 2025, although 20 September 2025 was a Saturday.

Where in Munich is Oktoberfest held?

On the Theresienwiese in the Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt district, south-west of the old town. For your satnav: Theresienwiese, 80336 München; the coordinates are around 48.1315 degrees north and 11.5488 degrees east.

U-Bahn lines U4 and U5 stop right at Theresienwiese station. From the main station it is 15 to 20 minutes on foot, and at weekends walking is often faster than the packed U-Bahn. How tickets and zones work is explained in the overview of the MVV with tickets and zones.

If you are flying in, do not add a hire car for the festival days: parking spaces around the Wiesn are traded as long-term parking, as the page on parking in Munich with prices and fines documents.

What are the opening hours in 2026?

Grounds, rides and tents follow a weekly pattern that has barely changed in years. Beer service in the big tents ends earlier than the grounds close, and that is the point late arrivals regularly miss.

The small tents serve until 11pm. Two exceptions: Käfer's Wiesn-Schänke and Kuffler's Weinzelt serve until 12:30am and close at 1am. 2 October 2026 falls on a Friday, so the night before the public holiday already has the late Friday hours.

On the opening Saturday the tents open at 9am, but beer only flows after the first keg is tapped at noon in the Schottenhamel tent. The parade of the Wiesn landlords starts around 10:45am.

According to muenchen.de, the Oide Wiesn (the historic section) opens daily from 10am to 11:30pm. The city's brochure and in-muenchen.de give 10am to midnight for Friday and Saturday instead. If you arrive late at the weekend, go by the sign at the entrance, not by us.

How much does Oktoberfest cost?

Entry to the grounds and to all the tents is free. Only the Oide Wiesn charges: €4 per adult in 2026, children up to age 14 free. Rides charge individually at the booth; Tuesdays are family days with reduced prices, the amount of which nobody publishes centrally.

According to the city, a Mass (one litre of beer) costs €14.80 to €15.90 in 2026, depending on the tent and brewery, published in July 2026. Travel portals already quote €16 to €17 for 2026. Both figures are shown here; the official list is the binding one. For comparison: in 2024 the range was €14.00 to €15.50.

Half a roast chicken (Hendl) cost €14 to €18 in 2024. Add a tip of 10 to 15 percent, and a classic tent visit with two litres of beer and half a chicken comes to 50 to 70 euros per person, more in the most popular tents.

How do you reserve a table, and what does a reservation cost?

There is no central booking office. Each tent allocates its own tables, through a form or by email on its own website. Reservation windows for the next Wiesn open between March and May; right after the festival, nothing can be booked.

According to the city, the reservation itself is free. What you pay in advance are food and drink vouchers, plus, depending on the tent, handling or wristband fees of up to €1.50 per person.

The value of the vouchers varies, and here too the sources disagree. Reservation portals count on €40 to €50 per person in 2026 for two litres of beer and half a chicken. Other guides cite €300 to €400 per table for five to eight people. Tent operators themselves gave €60 to €80 per seat for 2024.

If you are travelling from the UK, North America or further afield, that spring reservation window usually falls around the time you book flights. Planning both together avoids arriving with a flight but no table.

How many visitors come, and how many tents are there?

The visitor numbers come from the preliminary reports of the city's Department of Labour and Economic Development. They are the most reliable figures there are, and still not free of contradictions.

Before the 2025 festival, expectations of more than 7.2 million visitors were circulating; the report gives around 6.5 million. For the 2025 Oide Wiesn, the report PDF shows 360,000 visitors, muenchen.de 373,083 paying guests. Both figures come from the city, just from different documents.

In 2025, around 6.5 million Mass of beer were drunk according to muenchen.de; the English report says around 6.5 million litres. A Mass nominally holds one litre, so the order of magnitude matches, but it is unclear whether beer served or beer sold was counted.

For 2026 the city counts 14 large and 21 small tents on the main grounds, plus 3 large tents at the Oide Wiesn. Private guides arrive at 14 to 17 large, 20 to 22 small and 3 to 4 historic tents, depending on whether they include the Oide Wiesn.

The largest tent, the Pschorr-Bräurosl, seats 8,250 people inside. The city publishes no total capacity; adding up the big tents gives roughly 90,000 to 120,000 indoor seats. That is our estimate, not a city figure.

What does the Wiesn bring the city?

There is no official overall figure here, only private estimates. For a record year of 18 days, one study calculated around €442 million of spending on the grounds, or around €70 per head, plus around €505 million on accommodation.

The total impact is estimated at €1.25 to €1.57 billion, with 12,000 to 13,000 seasonal jobs. The city publishes its own reports, but their figures are not in the freely available extracts. So we report the estimates for what they are.

When is it packed, and when can you still get in without a reservation?

Nobody publishes an hourly visitor curve, neither the city nor the landlords. What exists are ratings in travel guides from "quiet" to "extreme", and the experience that the big tents close their doors from early afternoon at weekends.

• Busiest: the opening Saturday from 11am, every Saturday from 11am to midnight, and the evenings around 3 October. The big tents then often stop letting anyone in without a reservation from 4pm to 6pm.
• Quietest: Monday to Thursday between 10am and 2pm. You will find a seat without a reservation then, and the queues at the rides stay short.
• Tuesdays: family day with discounts, lots of children, less crowding in the tents than at the weekend.

If you are only coming once, put the tent visit on a weekday morning and keep the evening free for the grounds. We have worked out the day plan against the crowds, hour by hour, on the page about the Wiesn with tent hours and visitor totals.

Where does Oktoberfest come from, and how is it different from other folk festivals?

The festival goes back to October 1810: Crown Prince Ludwig, later King Ludwig I, married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and the city celebrated with a horse race on a meadow outside the gates. The meadow has borne the bride's name ever since.

In the 19th century the race grew into a folk festival with stalls, beer tents and rides. The Oide Wiesn, a separate area with historic rides and traditional tents, recalls this early form.

Compared with the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart or the Bergkirchweih in Erlangen, the difference is first of all size: six to seven million visitors against a few hundred thousand to around a million. Then there is the city's management, beer served exclusively by Munich breweries, and a high share of international guests, for which there is no reliable current figure.

Which figures are missing from the official sources?

• Visitors by hour or by day. There are only totals per edition. The advice "weekday morning" is based on experience, not measurement.
• The first day of the 2024 and 2025 editions. The city's reports give length and visitors, and the end date for 2025, but not the opening day. Our table above derives it from the calendar rule; only the 2023 dates appear as such in the 2023/2024 report.
• The share of international guests. Claims such as "over 70 percent non-Munich residents" appear in the media, with no study and no year.
• Additional reservation costs per tent. The city calls reservations free; no central list shows each tent's wristband and handling fees.
• Same-day closures of tents and rides. Neither capacity closures nor outages due to technical problems or weather are reported centrally.

As soon as one of these figures appears, it will be here with a date. Until then, the gap stays named rather than filled with an estimate.

Further reading

The day on the grounds itself, with detailed tent hours and the 2025 report, is covered on the page about the Wiesn and its tents. We have taken a closer look at one tent: the Ochsenbraterei with its hours and particulars.

If you are planning the weekend around the Wiesn, the weekend plan for Munich with real journey times gives the order that works. And for the room: the comparison of districts with prices and journey times, with the Wiesn mark-up by location.

Sources

Sources: oktoberfest.de (opening hours, as of 4 September 2026; overview of what is new in 2026, 31 July 2026; tapping ceremony and events), muenchen.de (Oktoberfest pages, FAQ, tents, facts and records, as of 10 and 11 September 2026), the city's brochure at munich.travel.

Also: City of Munich Department of Labour and Economic Development, preliminary reports 2024 and 2025 (PDF); Wikipedia on Oktoberfest and the Theresienwiese for the history; oktoberfesttent.com and travelprnews.com for the economic estimates; discover-oktoberfest.com, festivian.com and oktoberfest2026.com.de for reservation costs; Time Out, Kings Hotels and Wanderistan for the 2025 and 2026 dates.

All prices with year; the city's official price list takes precedence over any other figure. Research as of 12 September 2026.