What Time Does the Eiffel Tower Sparkle on a Paris Night?

What time is the first Eiffel Tower sparkle each month?

Find your month and read across to the hour you want to be standing somewhere with a view.

Times shift by up to 45 minutes across a month and jump an hour at each clock change. The last column counts the hourly sparkles from the first one through to 11pm.

The golden lighting has no timetable: twilight sensors switch it on within ten minutes of dark. The sparkle then waits for the next full hour. If night falls at 7.40pm, the first sparkle is at 8pm.

So the hour moves with the sunset. In midwinter you get six sparkles before the lights go off, and in June and July you get one. The clocks make it jump twice a year, on 29 March and 25 October in 2026. By 31 October it is dark at about 18:05, so the first sparkle falls at 6pm or 7pm, against 8pm two weeks earlier.

Our sunset times, month by month add the temperatures and what to wear. Choose a night illumination tour paris departure the same way: by the hour it gets dark on your dates.

What time is the last sparkle?

Plan on 11pm. The tower's own site says so in two places: the last sparkle is at 11pm, and the golden lighting and the beacon go off at 11.45pm, once the tower has emptied. That has been the rule since 23 September 2022, under the City of Paris energy-saving plan. Before then the lights ran until 1am.

One older article on the same official site still says the sparkles run “until midnight or 1am, depending on the season”. If you see that figure quoted, it is the earlier wording. Be in place for 11pm, and treat anything later as a bonus.

How do the five minutes work?

The sparkle is 20,000 six-watt bulbs flashing in quick succession, an effect inspired by camera flashes. It sits on top of the golden lighting, which is 336 sodium lamps first lit on 31 December 1985. The sparkle itself arrived on 31 December 1999, to welcome the year 2000. Our facts post tells you how the sparkle was built.

7 best places to watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle

Each of these gives you a different picture. Choose by what you want in the frame, then be there ten minutes before the hour.

1. Trocadéro esplanade and fountains

The Trocadéro esplanade is raised, across the river, and faces the tower square-on. This is the postcard view. A Paris photographer quoted on the tower's own site calls the fountains, seen from the centre, the best place to photograph it.

2. Champ de Mars

The official site pairs these lawns with the esplanade as the best viewpoints close to the tower. Here it fills the sky above you. You get the better experience and the harder photograph.

3. Pont de Bir-Hakeim

This bridge is the official pick for a view with the Seine in the foreground. You get the water and the tower in one frame, which neither of the first two gives you.

4. A Seine cruise from the foot of the tower

Two cruises board at pontoons beside the tower, at Port de Suffren and Port de la Bourdonnais. From the deck you see the sparkle over the water, provided you are on the river, or back at the pontoon, on the hour. Our guide has the three night cruises compared.

5. The Arc de Triomphe terrace

The tower's site calls the Arc de Triomphe terrace the ideal raised viewpoint on the Right Bank. It closes at 23:00 from April to September and at 22:30 from October to March, with last admission 45 minutes earlier. So the 10pm sparkle is the last one you can watch from up here, and in June and July the terrace shuts as the first one starts. See what stays open late for the rest.

6. The Eiffel Tower's own second floor

You can watch the sparkle from inside it. The official advice is to be on the lower level of the second floor as the hour strikes. Opening hours are published date by date: in mid-September 2026 the tower closed at 23:00, with last ascents at 22:45, so check your own date.

7. Pont Alexandre III and the Right Bank quays

The embankments and bridges of the Right Bank give you the long view down the river, as far back as Pont Alexandre III. It is on your way if you walk between the Champs-Élysées and the tower.

Which night tours are timed for the sparkle?

Some departures build the sparkle into the route. The segway night tour ends under the tower for it. The open-top Paris night bus tour counts the tower's sparkling lights among its inclusions and runs for two hours, from $33 per person. The champagne 2CV tour stops beneath the tower for photographs and costs from $336 per group of up to 3. Its operator asks you to take the 9pm or 10pm departure from May to August, because sunset is later in summer.

A 6pm departure sees the sparkle in December and daylight in May, so match your departure to the table before you book.

How do you plan an evening around it?

1. Find your month in the table and note when it gets dark.
2. Take the next full hour after dark. That is your first sparkle.
3. Be in position ten minutes early. It lasts five minutes, and the next one is an hour away.
4. Count on 11pm as the last. In summer it may be your only one.
5. Book a departure that leaves after dark, or a cruise that has you on the water on the hour.

For the rest of the evening, our hour-by-hour Paris night itinerary puts a time against every stop, and Paris night tours by season tells you what to book in which month. Every departure, with its start time and price basis, sits on Paris Night Tours.

Frequently asked questions

Three departures that start within sight of the tower

Paris by Night: Exclusive Segway night tour with a Local Guide

★ 4.994 reviews1 hour 30 minutes

Helmet providedGuidedUp to 15

Ninety minutes on two wheels from Avenue de la Bourdonnais, ending under the tower in time for the sparkle.

From $76 per person

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Seine River Evening Cruise with Music (Drink Options)

★ 3.8587 reviews1 hour

Electric boatNo guide on board

One hour on a fully electric boat from Port de Suffren, with a playlist and a sailing you choose by the clock.

From $29 per person

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Bateaux Parisiens Seine River Gourmet Dinner & Sightseeing Cruise

★ 4.47,399 reviews2 hours 30 minutes

Dinner2 hours 30 minutes

Dinner at a table of your own, boarding at Port de la Bourdonnais and cruising past the tower and Les Invalides.

From $147 per person

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