Sanssouci and the Potsdam palaces: what each palace is and how the SPSG tickets work

The short answer

Sanssouci is in Potsdam, not Berlin. Sanssouci Palace, Frederick the Great's summer residence beside its vineyard terraces, and the other palaces of Sanssouci Park are run by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten, SPSG).[7][1] SPSG's own pages answer the two planning questions. First, visits to Sanssouci Palace and the New Palace are bound to fixed admission times and the number of tickets per day is limited, so SPSG recommends buying online in advance.[3] Second, the palaces are ticketed separately, and the sanssouci+ day ticket is SPSG's way of combining them.[2][1]

What each palace is

SPSG counts the Picture Gallery and the New Chambers as part of Sanssouci Palace, and treats the New Palace, at the other end of the park, as a separate visit with its own entry rules.[3][1]

Sanssouci Palace. The name means "without a care", and SPSG calls the palace the place most closely linked with Frederick the Great, his favourite retreat and summer residence, with its 18th-century interiors preserved in the original. The visit is self-guided, at a fixed admission time.[1]

Picture Gallery. Built for Frederick next to Sanssouci Palace and the New Chambers "from 1755–63 (or 1764)", the dating SPSG itself gives, to house his newly assembled collection of paintings. SPSG says more than 140 paintings of the 16th to 18th centuries can still be seen there, including Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas, five works by Anthony van Dyck and seven by Peter Paul Rubens.[5]

New Chambers. An orangery by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, built as a pendant to the Picture Gallery, which Frederick decided in 1768 to have redesigned into a guest palace; SPSG names the Jasper Hall and the adjacent Ovid Gallery among its highlights.[6]

New Palace (Neues Palais). SPSG describes it as the large palace at the western end of the park's Hauptallee, built after the Seven Years' War as a show of the Prussian state's power, used mostly for guest apartments and celebrations, and later the preferred residence of William II; it includes a palace theatre in the southern wing.[3] Its King's Apartment was "closed until further notice" for restoration when XTOUR read SPSG's page on 9 October 2026.[4]

Sanssouci Park. SPSG gives the park nearly 300 hectares, an east-west axis of more than 2 kilometres and over 1,000 sculptures, from Frederick's terraced vineyard and pleasure garden to the landscape park added under Frederick William IV.[7] On 9 October 2026 its list of buildings in the park marked the Orangery Palace and the Roman Baths as closed for restoration work.[1]

Seasons and closing days

The palaces do not keep the same calendar. As SPSG's pages stood on 9 October 2026:

• Sanssouci Palace lists opening times for April to October and for November and December, closed on Mondays.[1]
• New Palace lists times for April to October, November and December, and January to March; it is closed on Tuesdays from April to December and on Mondays from January to March. Its visit type also changes with the season: from April to October a self-guided or a guided tour, from November to March a guided tour in German, with information in other languages.[3]
• Picture Gallery lists opening times from May to October and is closed from November to April.[5]
• New Chambers lists opening times from April to October and is closed in November and December.[6]

XTOUR's reading is that, of the four palaces in this guide, only Sanssouci Palace and the New Palace list opening times for November and December on SPSG's current pages, and only the New Palace's page lists times for January to March; the Sanssouci Palace page gives none for those months, so XTOUR does not know whether it opens then.[6][5][3] XTOUR does not publish the hours themselves; SPSG's pages carry them, with last admission 30 minutes before closing.[1]

Tickets, as SPSG lists them

Prices below are as SPSG's pages gave them on 9 October 2026.

• Single ticket, Sanssouci Palace: 14 euros, reduced 10, with a fixed admission time slot; sold on the day at all palace registers and visitor centres, subject to availability.[1]
• Single ticket, New Palace Grand Tour: 14 euros, reduced 10, sold in the visitor centres with a fixed time slot; Prince Henry's Apartment in the New Palace has its own ticket, sold in the New Palace visitor centre.[3]
• Single ticket, Picture Gallery: 8 euros, reduced 6.[5]
• sanssouci+: 22 euros, reduced 17, valid for a single visit to all SPSG palaces in Potsdam open to the public on one day; not valid for Sacrow House, the Stern Hunting Lodge or special exhibitions, and only a reduced rate at the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg. It is sold at all palace registers, in the visitor centres and online, and buying it books a fixed admission time at Sanssouci Palace and optionally at the New Palace.[1]
• sanssouci+ Family Ticket: 49 euros, for up to two adults and up to four children aged 18 or younger.[2]
• Combined Ticket Potsdam: 18 euros, reduced 14, for all Potsdam palaces open that day except Sanssouci Palace (the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg and the Stern Hunting Lodge are also excluded), available from 1 April to 31 October.[2]
• Annual Pass for the Palaces: 80 euros, reduced 60, valid for a year at all SPSG palaces open to the public except Sacrow, including special exhibitions.[2]

SPSG's passes page says children under seven are admitted free and need no ticket.[2]

Two of SPSG's pages describe the family ticket differently. The Sanssouci Palace page says the sanssouci+ Family Ticket is sold at registers, visitor centres and online and books a time at Sanssouci Palace "and optionally also" at the New Palace.[1] The passes page says the same ticket includes a fixed time slot for "Sanssouci Palace an[d] the New Palace" and lists it as on sale at palace registers and visitor centres.[2] XTOUR cannot tell which is current; the booking itself will show what is included.

XTOUR's reading of the choice, from these terms alone: sanssouci+ is the ticket that includes Sanssouci Palace and the other Potsdam palaces in one day, while the cheaper Combined Ticket Potsdam leaves out Sanssouci Palace itself.[2][1] Whether either pays off depends on how many palaces are open on the day, which the seasonal list above changes.

The park and its current notice

On 9 October 2026, SPSG's home page carried a warning that, after extreme drought, branches in its parks were at risk of falling; it asked visitors to stay on the visitor paths, not to rest under old trees, and to avoid the parks when severe weather warnings are issued.[9] SPSG publishes park rules for Sanssouci Park on its park page.[7] Its Sanssouci Palace page says luggage cannot be left at the entrance or stored in the listed buildings, and prams cannot be used in the exhibition rooms.[1]

World Heritage: Potsdam and Berlin together

SPSG's World Heritage page explains that Sanssouci belongs to a property called "Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin", added to the UNESCO World Heritage List on 12 December 1990, with extensions in 1992 and 1999 and a total area of 2,064 hectares. The GDR applied in 1989 and the Federal Republic added Glienicke and Peacock Island in 1990.[8] The designation crosses the city boundary; Potsdam and Berlin remain two cities.

SPSG also runs Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, with its own day ticket, charlottenburg+, for the SPSG museum institutions in the Charlottenburg Palace Gardens.[2] This guide does not cover it.

XTOUR publishes no travel times between Berlin and Potsdam and does not describe Potsdam as part of Berlin. For Berlin itself, see Museum Island and the Berlin page; for Potsdam, the Potsdam page; and Germany.