Back to Amsterdam Attractions

Moco Museum Amsterdam: Everything You Need to Know Before You Visit

Updated August 2026

The Moco Museum is a privately owned modern and contemporary art museum on Museumplein, occupying Villa Alsberg, a 1904 townhouse designed by Eduard Cuypers, whose uncle Pierre built the Rijksmuseum directly across the square. It holds more than 100 works by over 35 artists including Banksy, Warhol, Basquiat, Keith Haring, Yayoi Kusama and KAWS, alongside a basement of digital and immersive installations, and it has become the default answer for anyone searching for a Banksy museum in Amsterdam. It is also the most divisive museum in the city, so knowing what it actually is, and how its sliding ticket prices work, matters more here than at most attractions.

At a Glance

How Early to Book:

Book a timed-entry ticket a day or two ahead to avoid queues, and a pre-booking also comes with a discount. Same-day tickets are also usually available at the on-site ticket office.

Best Times to Visit:

At the 9am opening is the best. The admission price will be the cheapest, and the crowds will be at their smallest.

Ticket price:

From €19.95 to €48.00 for adults depending on day and time.

Where to Book:

The Moco Museum Website

Museum Address:

Museum Square, Honthorststraat 20, 1071 DE Amsterdam, Netherlands

Do You Need to Book Moco Museum Tickets in Advance?

I'd recommend snagging a ticket just a day or so ahead of time. Tickets are sold at the door, but door prices are higher, and the museum advertises savings of supposedly up to 20% for booking online. On busy afternoons the queue outside the villa is real, and the building takes limited numbers at once.

Where to book: mocomuseum.com, with the ticket shop at tickets.mocomuseum.com. Plenty of resellers list Moco tickets, and buying through them means you then have to go back to the museum's own site to reserve a time slot separately, which is an avoidable extra step.

Prices are dynamic, which is unusual for an Amsterdam museum. The same ticket costs different amounts depending on the day and the time slot, with cheaper prices early and late in the day and savings of up to €5 on off-peak slots.

Starting prices:

Adult: from €19.95
Youth 7 to 17: from €17.95
Student: from €17.95, valid only with a student ID card, including international ones
Children 0 to 6: free
Museumkaart holders: 30% discount, from €10.47

The Museumkaart does not get you in free. Moco is privately owned and unaffiliated with the Dutch Museum Card, so cardholders pay a discounted rate rather than nothing. This is the most common misunderstanding at the door, since the Museumkaart covers almost every other museum in the country.

The I amsterdam City Card and Stadspas do give free entry, but you must reserve a time slot in advance through the museum's free-entry booking page. Without a reservation, immediate entry is not guaranteed.

ICOM cards are not valid in Amsterdam. They give 20% off at Moco Barcelona only.

Two ticket types worth knowing: a Flex Ticket lets you turn up at any time during opening hours without booking a slot. A Priority Ticket does the same and adds skip-the-line entry for about one euro more. If your schedule is loose, the Priority Ticket is the better euro you will spend here, because the queue is the main friction point.

Time slots are tight. If you arrive at the start of your slot, entry is guaranteed, with a five-minute margin either side. Turn up outside your window and the museum cannot promise to let you straight in.

Refunds: tickets are non-refundable. You can change the date and time yourself through the museum's self-service link up to the day of the visit, using your ticket number, but only for bookings made on the museum's own website.

Discounts cannot be combined.

How far ahead: a couple of days is usually enough. Book a week out for a Saturday in July or August, and further ahead if you want a specific cheap early slot.

Moco Museum Opening Hours and Entry Information

Open daily, Monday to Sunday, 09:00 to 20:00. These are among the longest museum hours in Amsterdam, and the 09:00 opening is a full hour before the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum.

Last entry: not separately published, but with a 20:00 close and a visit of around an hour, anything after 18:30 will feel rushed.

Free areas without a ticket: none. Unlike most Amsterdam museums, the shop sits inside the ticketed route rather than before it, so there is no browsing without admission.

The Moco Garden is part of the ticketed visit and holds outdoor sculpture. You can linger there and in the store for as long as you like after finishing the galleries.

Air conditioning is installed throughout, which is worth knowing in a July heatwave when much of central Amsterdam has none.

Address: Honthorststraat 20, 1071 DE Amsterdam.

The outside of the Moco Museum in Amsterdam.

Image Credit: BGCopy, CC BY-SA 4.0

What is the Best Way to Get to the Moco Museum?

Moco sits on the corner of Museumplein, next to the Van Gogh Museum and directly opposite the Rijksmuseum, which makes it one of the easiest addresses in the city to reach.

By tram: lines 2 and 12 stop at Rijksmuseum, two minutes away. Lines 3, 5, 12 and 19 stop at Van Baerlestraat or Museumplein, both a short walk.

On foot from Centraal Station: about 30 minutes south, or 10 minutes on tram 2 or 12.

On foot from Leidseplein: eight minutes southeast.

From the Van Gogh Museum: one minute. They are neighbours.

From the Rijksmuseum: four minutes across the square.

By bike: racks around Museumplein, though they fill fast in summer. The underground bike garage beneath Museumplein is the reliable option.

By car: Q-Park Museumplein is directly beneath the square and is the museum's recommended option. Driving into central Amsterdam is otherwise not worth the effort or expense.

One practical tip: there is no luggage storage at all, not even for small bags, and this is enforced. If you are visiting between hotels or before a flight, use the Lockerpoint facility at Museumplein, roughly 125 metres away, before you arrive. Turning up with a suitcase means being turned away at the door.

How Much Time Should I Spend at the Moco Museum?

You only need about an hour in my estimation. Most visitors are through in 45 to 75 minutes.

The museum suggests allowing 90 minutes for an unhurried run through the whole collection, after which you can spend as long as you like in the store and the garden. That is the figure to use if you intend to watch the immersive installations properly rather than walking past them.

This is a small museum spread over the floors of a townhouse, and it is one of the easiest attractions in Amsterdam to slot into a gap. Booking a 09:00 slot at Moco before a 10:30 entry to the Van Gogh Museum next door works neatly.

Combining: Moco plus the Van Gogh Museum makes a comfortable half day. Moco plus the Rijksmuseum makes a longer one. What does not work is treating Moco as the main event of a museum day, because you will be back outside within the hour.

Image Credit: Elekes Andor, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Moco Museum (Modern Contemporary Museum) in Amsterdam is an independent private art museum on Museumplein. Opened in April 2016, it showcases modern, contemporary, street, and digital immersive art by famous creators like Banksy, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Yayoi Kusama.

What is the Best Time to Visit the Moco Museum?

Best time of day: the 09:00 opening, which is also among the cheapest slots. The first hour is quiet, the mirrored rooms downstairs are empty enough to actually see, and you are out before Museumplein fills up. The last two hours before closing are the second-best window and similarly discounted.

Worst time: midday to mid-afternoon, especially at weekends. The rooms are small and the immersive installations create bottlenecks, and Moco at 14:00 on a Saturday can feel cramped in a way that undermines the art.

Best days: midweek. Sunday mornings are also reliably calm.

Best season: this is an indoor, air-conditioned, compact museum, which makes it one of the better rainy-day options in Amsterdam and a sensible choice in winter when Museumplein is bleak.

A note on photography crowds: a significant share of visitors are here to photograph themselves in the installations, particularly the mirrored rooms. If that is not your reason for coming, the early slot matters more here than at almost any other museum in the city.

Is the Moco Museum the Banksy Museum in Amsterdam?

A lot of people search for a Banksy museum in Amsterdam and end up here without quite knowing what they have booked.

There is no separate Banksy museum in Amsterdam. Cities including Barcelona, Paris and Brussels have standalone Banksy venues showing reproductions. Amsterdam does not. Moco holds the substantial Banksy collection in this city, and it is the place people mean.

There is also no official Banksy museum anywhere. Banksy has never established one and does not authorise exhibitions of his work.

Moco's permanent Banksy exhibition is called Laugh Now. It is explicitly unauthorised and not curated by Banksy, which the museum states openly. What it does have is authentication: the works carry certificates from Pest Control, the only body that verifies Banksy pieces, and many come from private collections and have rarely been shown publicly. So these are original works rather than prints or copies, obtained through the indoor art market rather than cut off walls.

Works on display include Girl with Balloon, Flower Thrower, Laugh Now, Smiling Copper and pieces from the Crude Oils series, alongside satirical monkey works and pieces engaging with surveillance and authority.

The honest caveat: the Banksy collection is a room's worth rather than a museum's worth. If you have seen a dedicated Banksy touring show elsewhere, Moco's selection will feel modest. If you are coming specifically and only for Banksy, and you have already seen a major Banksy exhibition, temper what you are expecting. If you have not, it is a good, well-chosen introduction sitting inside a broader collection.

For street art proper, Amsterdam has two dedicated museums that Moco is not: STRAAT in a former NDSM shipyard warehouse, which is vast and mural-focused, and Street Art Museum Amsterdam in Nieuw-West. If murals and graffiti culture are what you actually want, those serve you better.

What Artists Are at the Moco Museum?

The collection runs across four permanent strands, and the artist list is the main draw.

Modern Masters covers the twentieth-century names: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Salvador Dalí and Roy Lichtenstein. The original Haring subway drawings are among the pieces people single out.

Contemporary Masters covers the living and recent: KAWS, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama and rising names the museum rotates through.

Banksy: Laugh Now occupies its own space.

Digital and Immersive Art is a separate strand covered below.

Temporary exhibitions run alongside, and have included Robbie Williams, Andrés Reisinger, Six N. Five and the Dutch street artist Frankey.

The most important practical advice: check the current exhibition list before you book if you are coming for a specific artist. Moco leans heavily on big names in its marketing, and the actual number of works by any one of them can be small. Kusama in particular is prominent in the promotional material while sometimes being represented by a single piece. Nobody is being deceived exactly, but people arrive with a mental image of a Kusama room and find one work, and that gap accounts for a good share of the disappointed reviews.

A Complete Guide to the Best FREE Things to Do In Amsterdam

Everything to Know About the

I Amsterdam City Card

A Complete Guide to the Best FREE Things to Do In Amsterdam

Everything to Know About the

I Amsterdam City Card

A Complete Guide to the Best FREE Things to Do In Amsterdam

Everything to Know About the

I Amsterdam City Card

What is Inside the Moco Museum?

The museum is arranged over the floors of a townhouse plus a basement and a garden, and the layout does a lot of work in how the visit feels.

Villa Alsberg itself is worth a moment. Built in 1904 to a design by Eduard Cuypers, nephew of Pierre Cuypers who designed both the Rijksmuseum and Centraal Station, it is a handsome, formal Dutch townhouse now filled with deliberately irreverent art. The contrast is the museum's whole aesthetic argument, and standing in a 1904 drawing room looking at a Murakami is the point rather than an accident.

The upper floors hold the paintings, prints and sculpture, in a sequence of connected rooms rather than large galleries. Rooms are compact, hung densely, and can feel tight when busy.

The lower ground floor holds the digital and immersive work, which is where Moco diverges most sharply from the museums around it. Installations by Studio Irma, including the mirrored Diamond Matrix, and Andrés Reisinger's work, use mirrors, light and projection to make rooms that respond to you. The mirrored room is consistently the single most photographed and most enjoyed thing in the building, and it is also the biggest bottleneck.

The Moco Garden wraps the villa with outdoor sculpture, including large pieces you can walk around, and it is where you can sit for as long as you like once you have finished inside.

What not to miss: go slowly downstairs. Most people put their head into the immersive rooms, take a photograph and move on. The installations are timed pieces that change over a couple of minutes, and standing still through a full cycle is a completely different experience from passing through.

How to Get Cheaper Moco Museum Tickets

Because pricing is dynamic rather than fixed, there are real savings available, and they are the legitimate ones rather than promo codes.

Book online rather than at the door. The museum advertises up to 20% off for online booking, and this is the largest single saving available to most visitors.

Choose an early or late time slot. Off-peak slots run up to €5 cheaper than midday ones, and the 09:00 slot is both the cheapest tier and the quietest hour of the day. This is the rare case where the cheap option is also the better experience.

Use a Museumkaart if you have one for 30% off, taking an adult ticket to around €10.47.

Use an I amsterdam City Card or Stadspas for free entry, remembering to reserve a slot separately.

Students should bring a student ID card for the reduced rate. Unlike some Amsterdam museums, international student cards are accepted here.

On discount codes: the ticket system does accept them, and codes circulate through the museum's own newsletter and occasional promotions. Third-party coupon sites listing Moco codes are mostly recycling expired offers, and discounts cannot be stacked in any case, so the online booking plus off-peak slot combination is where the actual money is.

The Moco Museum Shop

The store sits at the end of the route inside the ticketed area, so you cannot browse it without admission, which is unusual.

It leans harder into merchandise than most museum shops, with prints, apparel, books and design objects tied to the artists on show, and it is strong on the Banksy and KAWS end of the catalogue. Prices reflect the licensing involved.

There is also a Moco online store operating separately from the museum, which is worth knowing if you spot something and would rather not carry it around Amsterdam for the rest of the day.

Guided Tours and the Audio Guide

The audio tour is free and included with admission, available in six languages. It covers the artists, the works and the context, and it is the main interpretive layer the museum offers.

Bring your own headphones. There is nothing to borrow at the desk. This is the tip most likely to save your visit, because wall text at Moco is light and the audio guide is doing most of the explanatory work.

There are no scheduled guided tours for individual visitors. Group visits can be arranged separately through the museum.

The Moco Boat Tour is a separate product the museum runs, departing from its own point away from the building, sold as its own ticket rather than included with admission. If you book one, note the departure location carefully, since it is not at the museum.

Honestly, the audio guide is decent but not great, and it is a bit thin on the works themselves. Several rooms do carry printed commentary alongside the pieces, which helps. If you want depth on Banksy specifically, read a little beforehand.

Is the Moco Museum Worth Visiting?

A lot of guides on this website try to play it "both sides". I'm just going to be brutally honest here, no, this museum is not worth it. It is the most overpriced museum in Amsterdam and it's probably the worst in terms of its art collection. There are at least a dozen museums in Amsterdam you could go and have a more engaging, happier time. If you go during an hour where it costs €40 or more for entry, you are just straight up getting scammed. If you want to get robbed, walk around Dam Square with your wallet hanging out your back pocket. At least the views will be better.

It is expensive for its size, starting at around €20 for a museum most people finish in under an hour, which puts it near Rijksmuseum pricing for a fraction of the content. The rooms are small and get properly cramped at peak times. Wall text is sparse and the works can feel densely hung and thematically loose. A meaningful proportion of the audience is there to take selfies, which changes the atmosphere. And the marketing promises more of the headline names than the walls always deliver. Overpriced, overrated and commercial are the words that come up again and again about this place, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

That being said, there are a few types of people that could enjoy it if they lower their expectations enough:

For street art and Banksy fans: worth it, with the caveat that the Banksy holding is a selection rather than a survey.

For people who dislike traditional museums: it could hold your attention for 45 minutes. It is short, bright, loud and unintimidating, and that is a real virtue.

For serious art audiences: you will probably find it thin. The Stedelijk, five minutes away, is a considerably more substantial contemporary collection for similar money.

For families: strong. Children get more out of an hour here than three at the Rijksmuseum, and the immersive rooms hold their attention.

For anyone with an I amsterdam City Card: it costs nothing and takes an hour so why not.

My own summary: book the 09:00 slot online, treat it as a well-designed hour rather than a museum day, and it is a good experience. Book a Saturday afternoon at full price expecting a major Banksy institution, and you will be one of the people writing that it was not worth it. The museum's reputation problem is largely an expectations problem, and it is a solvable one.

Where Should I Eat Near the Moco Museum?

Museumplein is ringed by convenient but mostly overpriced options. Five minutes in almost any direction improves things considerably.

Right on the square:

Kiosk Rembrandt Van Gogh, Paulus Potterstraat 3A, is the outdoor kiosk between the museums doing coffee, waffles and hot dogs at fair prices for the location. Good for a quick refuel rather than a meal.

´T Museumpleintje, Paulus Potterstraat 3E, is the other kiosk, with a lot of outdoor seating. Convenient, and priced accordingly, so check the menu before ordering rather than after.

A short walk away:

Brasserie Zuiderbad, Hobbemastraat 28, is the one I would actually choose. A corner café opposite the Rijksmuseum doing proper Dutch lunch, bitterballen, croquettes and sandwiches, at prices that have not been inflated by the address. Lunch for two comes in around €25. Open 11:00 to 16:00.

Soupenzo, Van Baerlestraat 81, does very good soups and salads with sizes from around €6, which is the cheapest decent meal in the museum quarter.

Fonda Café, Museumplein 10, is the serious coffee option, using La Cabra beans, with good pastries. Above-average prices, above-average quality.

Bistro Vincent, Museumplein 6, sits inside the Van Gogh Museum and is a pleasant sit-down lunch, though it is priced for its captive audience.

Brasserie van Baerle, Van Baerlestraat 158, is the upscale pick, a long-established Amsterdam brasserie about eight minutes south. Closed Saturdays, which catches people out.

A warning: the terraces immediately facing Museumplein charge a substantial premium for the view and the quality does not follow the price. Walking two streets to Hobbemastraat or Van Baerlestraat gets you noticeably better food for less.

What Else is There to Do Near the Moco Museum?

The Van Gogh Museum is one minute away and needs advance booking with timed entry, more strictly than Moco does. Pairing the two is the most common Museumplein combination.

The Rijksmuseum is four minutes across the square and is a full half-day in itself. If you are doing both, do Moco first at opening and the Rijksmuseum after.

The Stedelijk Museum, five minutes west, holds Amsterdam's major modern and contemporary collection. If Moco leaves you wanting more depth in the same territory, this is where to go, and it is the better museum by a distance for anyone serious about the subject.

Vondelpark begins three minutes southwest and is free, large and the natural decompression after a morning of galleries.

The Concertgebouw is at the southern end of Museumplein and runs free lunchtime concerts on Wednesdays during the season, which is one of the best-value cultural hours in the city.

Museumplein itself has the I amsterdam-style lawns, the pond that becomes an ice rink in winter, and enough space to sit outside with something from one of the kiosks.

Rules, Bags, and Security

Luggage and large bags are not permitted, and there is no storage of any kind on site. The museum directs visitors to the Lockerpoint luggage storage at Museumplein, about 125 metres away. This is the rule most likely to cause a problem, so deal with it before you arrive.

Strollers are not allowed inside, though you can park one in the garden by asking a member of staff.

Food and drink are not permitted in the museum.

Photography is allowed and actively encouraged, which is a deliberate part of Moco's identity and one of the reasons the museum draws the audience it does.

Children under 16 cannot enter without adult supervision.

Dogs are not permitted, with the exception of registered service dogs wearing a suitable harness.

Time slots carry a five-minute margin. Arriving significantly early or late means entry is not guaranteed.

Payment is by card and digital methods including iDEAL, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal.

Accessibility at the Moco Museum

The museum is not wheelchair accessible. Villa Alsberg is a protected 1904 building with numerous stairs and no lifts, and the museum is not permitted to install one. There is no alternative route and no accessible portion of the collection.

Strollers cannot be brought inside for the same reason, though staff will let you leave one in the garden during your visit.

The stairs run throughout the building and connect every floor including the basement immersive section. Anyone with limited mobility, balance difficulties or stamina concerns should weigh this carefully.

Service dogs with a suitable harness are welcome.

Air conditioning is installed throughout, which helps considerably for anyone affected by heat.

Final Tips for Visiting the Moco Museum

Book the 09:00 slot online. It is both the cheapest tier, saving up to €5, and by far the quietest hour, and online booking saves up to 20% over the door price. Cheapest and best coincide here, which is rare.
Do not assume your Museumkaart gets you in free. Moco is private and unaffiliated, so the card is worth 30% off rather than free entry. The I amsterdam City Card does cover it in full, but you must reserve a time slot separately.
Deal with your bags before you arrive. There is no storage of any kind on site and large bags are refused at the door. Lockerpoint at Museumplein is 125 metres away.
Bring headphones for the free audio tour. There is nothing to borrow, and with wall text this sparse the guide is doing most of the interpretive work.
Check the current exhibition list if you are coming for a specific artist. The big names in Moco's marketing are sometimes represented by a small number of works, and this is the single biggest cause of disappointment here.
Stand still in the mirrored room for a full cycle. The immersive installations are timed pieces that change over a couple of minutes, and almost everyone photographs them and leaves without seeing them.
Consider the Priority Ticket if your day is loose. For about a euro more than a Flex Ticket, it lets you arrive whenever you like and skip the queue, which is the main friction at this museum.
Pair it with the Van Gogh Museum next door, then walk into Vondelpark. Moco at opening, Van Gogh at mid-morning, lunch on Hobbemastraat and the park afterwards makes an efficient and unhurried Museumplein day.