8 Best Museums in Singapore 2026: Which Are Free for Locals, and What Every Ticket Actually Costs

The largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian art in the world, in the old Supreme Court and City Hall on the Padang. General admission is free for Singaporeans and PRs on presentation of a pink or blue NRIC, and $20 for other nationalities, with $5 off for children aged 7 to 12, seniors 60 and above, full-time NSFs and overseas students and teachers. The ticket worth knowing about is All Access, which covers every special exhibition on at the time: $15 for citizens and PRs, $30 for other nationalities, again $5 off with a concession. Children 6 and under, Singapore-based students and teachers, and persons with disabilities plus one caregiver go free. On now: Art Remembers to 18 October 2026, Fear No Power: Women Imagining Otherwise to 15 November 2026, Temple by Tuan Andrew Nguyen to 11 October 2026, and the children's exhibition When Art Meets Nature to 1 November 2026. Passion is Volcanic: Desire in Southeast Asian Art is an R18 show, strictly 18 and above, ticketed separately at $5 for locals and $8 standard, and it closes on 20 September 2026. Singapore Stories in the DBS Singapore Gallery runs all the way to 2 April 2030, so there is no rush on that one. THE CATCH: the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery, the reason a lot of people come, is temporarily closed and will not reopen until late 2027; works from the National Collection are spread across the rest of the building in the meantime. One more piece of timing: because of the F1 road closures the Gallery carpark opens only 7am to 10am on 7, 8 and 9 October, then shuts from 10am on 9 October and reopens 7am on 13 October. 1 St Andrew's Road, Singapore 178957. Daily 10am to 7pm, last admission 6.30pm.

The country's oldest museum, and the one to send visitors to first. Singapore Citizens and PRs get free admission to all permanent galleries; present a pink or blue NRIC for scanning. Tourists and foreign residents pay $20 standard adult and $15 concession, the concession band covering seniors 60 and above, students and Special Access for persons with disabilities, whose caregiver enters free regardless of nationality. Children 6 and below are free for everyone. Admission to the permanent galleries is also free for students, staff and teachers of Singapore government, government-aided and independent schools and the local universities, whatever their nationality. RUNNING PROMOTION: HSBC card members get $6 off General Admission tickets bought at the ticketing counters, plus up to 20% off selected merchandise in the museum shop, valid till 9 October 2026 and not combinable with other discounts. Work Permit and Special Pass holders also enter the permanent galleries free on the last Sunday of every month to September 2026, on presentation of the permit at Visitor Services. What is on: Singapore Odyssea: A Journey Through Time and Wings of a Rich Manoeuvre are both permanent, on Level 2, so they are not going anywhere. Once Upon a Tide, on B1, is the one with a deadline, running to 9 October 2026, and the free Tails from the Coasts: Nature Stories of Singapore runs to 1 November 2026. Note the museum is currently undergoing restoration and upgrading works. 93 Stamford Road, Singapore 178897. Daily 10am to 7pm, opening at 9am on Quiet Mornings (the first Saturday and the first and third Thursday of each month). Last ticket sales 6pm, last admission 6.30pm.

Housed in the Empress Place Building by the Singapore River, ACM is the one museum here built entirely around how Asia's cultures met and traded with one another, from a shipwreck cargo to devotional sculpture to the objects that moved along the maritime routes. Singaporeans and PRs enter the permanent galleries free on presentation of a pink or blue NRIC. Foreign residents and tourists pay $15 for an adult and $10 concession, the concession covering seniors 60 and above with valid ID, students, and persons with disabilities plus one caregiver. Children 6 years and below are free. Free highlights tours in English run daily at various timings, and the museum also publishes virtual tours and an audio description tour that are permanently available online, which is worth knowing if you want to walk in already knowing what to look for. THE ONE THING TO PLAN AROUND: it is the only museum on this list open late, till 9pm on Fridays, against a 7pm close every other day, and admission to all galleries closes 30 minutes before. That makes it the sensible after-work option. 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555, a short walk from Raffles Place MRT across Cavenagh Bridge. BEST FOR: a first-time visitor who wants the region rather than just Singapore, and anyone who can only get out after 6pm on a Friday.

The reopened museum on Armenian Street is small, dense and the easiest of the national museums to finish in one visit, which is exactly why it works with children or with visitors who have half a day. It is built around Peranakan life rather than a single community: origins, family and community, fashion, food and the objects a household actually used. Singaporeans and PRs go free at the permanent galleries with a pink or blue NRIC. For everyone else it is $12 an adult and $8 concession, the cheapest foreign-visitor ticket of any museum on this page, with the concession covering seniors 60 and above, students, and persons with disabilities plus one caregiver; children 6 and below are free. Same hours as ACM, daily 10am to 7pm and Fridays to 9pm, with gallery admission closing 30 minutes before. PRACTICAL NOTE ON PARKING: the museum's own advice is that although there are public carparks nearby, you are better off at NTUC Income Centre, Funan, Excelsior or Peninsula Plaza, and the drop-off is via Loke Yew Street and Coleman Street. 39 Armenian Street, Singapore 179941, +65 6332 7591. BEST FOR: pairing with a Peranakan lunch, and for anyone who wants a museum they can actually finish.

The lotus-shaped building at Marina Bay Sands, and the only museum on this list where nobody gets in free on nationality. Pricing is per exhibition rather than per building, which is where people overpay. As at 9 September 2026: The Museum Ticket, covering both teamLab Future World and Into the Ocean: Journey Beneath, is from S$35 and is on sale 17 August to 1 November 2026. teamLab Future World on its own is from S$22 and runs daily. Into the Ocean: Journey Beneath, made with OceanX, is from S$16.50 and closes on 1 November 2026, which makes it the cheapest way in. There is also a Monday-to-Thursday combination of Future World with Digital Light Canvas from S$24, the VR Gallery showing David Attenborough's First Life from S$5 to 31 December 2026 (11 years and above), and guided tours from S$5. THE DEAL WORTH PLANNING AROUND: Family Fridays gives every paying adult free entry for up to four children under 12, on selected exhibition tickets. Read the exclusion before you book: it does not apply on Singapore public holidays or school holidays, and the museum spells out that this includes MOE-scheduled holidays such as Children's Day, Youth Day, Teachers' Day, the day after National Day and PSLE marking day. Sands Rewards members are also getting 25% off at the ticketing counter for a limited period while stocks last. Coming up: More than Human opens 28 November 2026 and runs to 16 May 2027. 6 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018974. Daily 9am to 6pm, last entry 5pm, so it opens earlier and closes earlier than every other museum here.

SAM is the contemporary art museum, and it is the exception on this page: Singapore Citizens and PRs pay, at $15 an adult and $10 concession, against $20 and $15 for tourists and foreign residents. Concession here means seniors 60 and above, full-time NSFs excluding foreign personnel, and overseas students and teachers. Free entry still applies to children 6 and below, local and locally-based students and teachers, and persons with disabilities with one caregiver, and all prices are quoted inclusive of booking fees, so what you see is what you pay. WHAT THE $15 ACTUALLY BUYS: the current ticket is for Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness, the artist's first major survey in Southeast Asia, 63 works from 11 series plus 14 fossils from his own collection, laid out by Sugimoto himself as a mandala so there is no single route through it. Crucially the ticket also includes access to all SAM galleries, so the other shows come with it rather than costing extra, which is the opposite of how ArtScience prices. It runs 29 May to 4 October 2026 in Gallery 1 and The Engine Room, so this is a real deadline. GETTING THERE JUST GOT EASIER: SAM is at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, which used to be the argument against going, and the new Cantonment MRT station (CC31) Exit 1 is now a short walk away. 39 Keppel Road, #01-02, Singapore 089065. Open daily including public holidays, 10am to 7pm, last entry 6.30pm.

The best-value family ticket in the country, with a condition attached that catches almost everyone. The Science Centre plus Omni-Theatre combo costs Singapore Citizens and PRs $8 off-peak, and that single price applies to a child aged 3 to 12, an adult and a senior alike; at peak it becomes $10 for a child, $12 for an adult and $10 for a senior. The standard rate for everyone else is $21.90 for a child and $23.90 for an adult, peak or off-peak. THE CONDITION: off-peak means weekdays only, excluding public holidays AND school holidays, and peak means weekends, public holidays and school holidays. So the $8 is unavailable on precisely the days most families are free, which is why quoting it as the headline price, as many guides do, is misleading. Plan a term-time weekday and it is genuinely the cheapest outing here. If you want the snow as well, Science Centre plus Snow City with one hour of snow play is $27 for a child and $31 for an adult for citizens and PRs, and $31 and $37 standard, with no peak split. Tickets are sold online or at the onsite kiosk only and cash is not accepted, and the NRIC must be presented for the resident rate. If you expect to go more than five times a year, the Family Annual Pass is $108 for citizens and PRs. 15 Science Centre Road, Singapore 609081, +65 6425 2500. Closed Mondays, except public holidays and gazetted school holidays; Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 5pm, last admission 4.15pm.

The world's first museum devoted to death and the afterlife, built around the Ten Courts of Hell dioramas that a generation of Singaporean children were marched past on school trips. It reads very differently as an adult: the galleries set Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Christian and Islamic ideas of what happens next beside one another, and then turn to how a land-scarce Singapore actually handles death, from void deck funerals to columbaria. General admission is S$22. THE REASON IT IS ON THIS LIST: it is one of the few museums that accepts SG Culture Pass credits, so Singaporeans aged 18 and above can pay for the ticket with credits rather than cash. The credits, S$100 for every eligible citizen, cannot be cashed out and run to 31 December 2028, and Haw Par Villa's own terms are specific: the Culture Pass route works only on an online purchase through Pelago, not over the counter. Complimentary highlight tours run at 10.30am, 12.15pm, 1.30pm, 2.45pm and 4.15pm, registered at the lobby counter on a first-come, first-served basis. THE CATCH NOBODY MENTIONS: Haw Par Villa itself has been partially closed since 8 December 2025 for essential maintenance and repair works, with no reopening date given. Hell's Museum, including the Ten Courts, stays open throughout, but do not plan a full afternoon wandering the sculpture gardens. 262 Pasir Panjang Road, Singapore 118628, one minute from Haw Par Villa MRT (CC25); parking is at ORTO, 27 West Coast Highway. Open daily 10am to 6pm, last entry 5pm.