New York City Pass Guide: CityPASS, Explorer Pass and New York Pass Compared

A New York city pass is the single most common thing visitors get wrong in their trip budget, and not because the products are complicated. The confusion comes from three facts that most guides either ignore or get stale. First, the best-known pass, CityPASS, does not have one savings figure: the identical $149 ticket saves either $158.04 or barely $11 depending on which five attractions you choose. Second, one of the big three competitors, The Sightseeing Pass, ceased trading in 2025, and plenty of guides still list it. Third, the pass called "The New York Pass" is no longer a genuinely separate product at all; it sits inside the Go City family.

This guide works through each of those with the actual published box-office prices, the validity windows, and the break-even maths, so you can decide in ten minutes whether a pass belongs in your plans or whether walk-up tickets win. Everything here comes from the operators' own published figures, cross-checked where possible.

What Is the New York City Pass and What Does It Include?

"New York city pass" is a generic search term that maps onto three separate products: New York CityPASS, a fixed bundle of 5 attractions from an 11-attraction list for $149 adult and $129 child; the Explorer Pass, a choose-as-you-go product starting from $89; and the New York Pass, which is Go City's All-Inclusive unlimited-entry product starting from $169. They are sold by two different companies, expire on different clocks, and suit completely different itineraries.

Understanding which one you are actually buying is the first decision.

The name people usually mean is New York CityPASS. It is a single product sold by CityPASS, Inc.: you pay once, and you choose 5 attractions from a list of 11. The list currently includes the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, the American Museum of Natural History, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry, a Circle Line sightseeing cruise, the Intrepid Museum, the Guggenheim, Edge, and the Whitney. That is a strong list: it contains most of the expensive headline attractions a first-time visitor already wants.

The Explorer Pass and the All-Inclusive product sold as the New York Pass come from Go City, a different company. The Explorer Pass works on a credit system: you buy a pass for a number of attractions (2, 3, 4, 5 or more) and then choose from a much larger menu as you go. The All-Inclusive, co-branded as the New York Pass, gives unlimited entry to the menu over consecutive days.

If your head is already spinning between them, that is normal. The rest of this guide separates them cleanly, but the short version is this: fixed five-heavyweight itinerary, buy CityPASS; loose plans or a short list, buy Explorer; packing three attractions into every day of a packed week, look at All-Inclusive. Our broader things to do in NYC page helps you sketch the itinerary first, and the pass should follow the itinerary, never the other way round.

How Much Does the New York City Pass Cost?

New York CityPASS costs $149.00 for adults (18+) and $129.00 for children (6-17), covering 5 attractions over 9 consecutive days. CityPASS itself claims savings of $158.04 (51%) against a $307.04 adult regular price, and $166.51 (56%) for children. The Go City products price differently: the Explorer Pass starts from $89 adult and the All-Inclusive New York Pass from $169 adult, both published as "from" prices because Go City's pricing is dynamic and promotional.

The $149 CityPASS figure is a fixed, published price, read directly from CityPASS's own New York page, and it is the same whether you buy for a March weekday or a July weekend. What changes is the value you extract, because the regular prices it discounts against vary enormously, from $26.00 for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry to $75.12 for the Empire State Building's AM/PM Experience.

The Go City prices deserve a caveat. Go City's website blocks automated reads, so only the two official "from" prices ($169 All-Inclusive, $89 Explorer) are safe to publish. Third-party sellers list per-tier prices for both products, but those are reseller data, not operator figures, and Go City's pricing moves with promotions. Treat anything more specific than the "from" price as unreliable until you see it on the booking page.

One more cost that catches people: the pass prices do not include a few things you might assume. Special exhibitions at some museums, add-ons like Top of the Rock's Beam experience, and anything outside each pass's attraction list is paid separately. Check the inclusions on the operator's live listing before you buy.

Prices above come from the live listings, which is where you should confirm today's figure before committing. The bands and exact attraction lineups do shift, and a pass bought against last year's list is a common complaint.

Is the New York City Pass Worth the Money?

A New York city pass is worth it when your five (or more) chosen attractions are the expensive ones: pick the Empire State Building, Edge, Top of the Rock, the American Museum of Natural History and a Circle Line cruise and CityPASS saves $158.04 against $307.04 at the box office. Pick the five cheapest options instead and the same pass saves around $11 on roughly $160.

The pass rewards a heavyweight itinerary and quietly penalises a museum-heavy one, so run your own list before buying.

That swing is the entire decision, and it is the thing most pass reviews blur over. The savings percentage CityPASS advertises, 51% for adults, is calculated against the most expensive possible combination on its list. It is a real number, honestly derived from published box-office prices, but it is a ceiling, not a floor. The floor is close to break-even.

There is also a timing dimension. CityPASS's 9-day consecutive window is generous for a week-long trip and punishing for a long weekend split across two weekends, because the clock starts at your first attraction and does not pause. The Explorer Pass's 30-day, non-consecutive window is the forgiving one, and for many travellers that flexibility is worth more than the raw discount.

If you are still weighing it, our longer worked comparison on whether the New York CityPASS is worth it runs through specific itinerary types, and our budget planning guide covers how a pass fits into an overall NYC on a budget trip.

New York City Pass vs Explorer Pass vs New York Pass: Which Should You Buy?

Buy New York CityPASS if you want exactly the five heavyweights on its list and will use them inside 9 consecutive days. Buy the Explorer Pass if your plans are loose, because you choose attractions day by day over 30 non-consecutive days and can include Edge.

Buy the New York Pass, which is Go City All-Inclusive, only for a stacked itinerary of three or more paid attractions per day, since unlimited entry at from $169 only beats the cheaper passes when you pile visits high. A relaxed two-attractions-a-day trip usually loses money on all three.

The honest framing is that these are three different products for three different travellers, not three price points on one ladder. CityPASS is a fixed menu with the highest per-attraction discounts. The Explorer Pass trades some discount for freedom. All-Inclusive trades everything for volume.

For a side-by-side with more itinerary worked examples, see our dedicated New York Pass vs CityPASS comparison. And if the choose-as-you-go model appeals, the Explorer Pass listing shows the current attraction menu and pass durations:

The New York Pass listing, meanwhile, is the one to check if you are planning a genuinely stacked week, because the unlimited-entry maths only works when you are ruthless about stacking:

How Do the Validity Windows Actually Work?

CityPASS runs for 9 consecutive days, counting the first day of use as day one, so a Monday start expires the following Tuesday. The Explorer Pass gives you 30 days from your first attraction visit, and your chosen visits do not need to be consecutive, which suits trips split across weekends. The All-Inclusive New York Pass runs consecutive calendar days from your first scan, with the clock starting at the first attraction, not at purchase.

Unactivated passes are generally valid for about a year from purchase.

The distinction that matters most is consecutive versus rolling. CityPASS's 9 days are calendar days, not 24-hour periods: activate on a Monday afternoon and the pass dies at the end of the following Tuesday, regardless of how you spread your visits. That is generous for a single continuous trip and useless for a city break that straddles two weekends.

The Explorer Pass is the opposite design. Your 30 days start at the first attraction, and you can bank visits: a museum on arrival weekend, then a deck and a cruise ten days later, then the final two in your last week. For anyone whose plans genuinely flex, this is the pass that forgives.

One planning tip that saves real money: do not activate any pass on a half day. If you land at 6pm, the pass clock should not start that evening. Start it the next morning with a full day of attractions ahead, because every consecutive-day pass burns a full calendar day on activation day no matter how late you begin.

Which Attractions Can You Choose with a New York City Pass?

CityPASS lets you choose 5 from a fixed list of 11: the Empire State Building Observation Deck, Top of the Rock, the American Museum of Natural History, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Statue of Liberty Grounds and Ellis Island ferry, one Circle Line sightseeing cruise, the Intrepid Museum, the Guggenheim, Edge, and the Whitney. The Explorer and New York Pass menus are larger and include additional attractions.

Reservations are required at some CityPASS attractions and recommended at others, all handled in the My CityPASS app.

Here are the 11 CityPASS options with the adult box-office prices CityPASS itself publishes, which double as the numbers in its savings maths. These are the DIRECT figures used throughout this guide.

Two of these deserve a plain note. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum sits at the site of a mass killing; it belongs on an itinerary because it matters to you, not because it fits a discount structure, and the memorial plaza itself is always free to visit without any ticket. The Statue of Liberty entry is the official ferry from Statue City Cruises, the only operator authorised to land on Liberty and Ellis Islands, and the $26.00 grounds ticket is the one to compare against: lookalike harbor cruises that circle but never land are not the same product and sometimes cost more.

The Empire State Building price in the table is for the AM/PM Experience, which includes the 86th floor observatory, the second-floor museum, and bonus same-night re-entry, not the plain single-visit ticket. That is the version CityPASS bundles, and it is why the ESB anchors the top of the value list.

For the fixed five-heavyweight version of this itinerary, the CityPASS product page shows the current lineup and lets you check dates:

How Many Attractions Do You Need to Visit to Break Even?

Against the published box-office prices, CityPASS breaks even at roughly $149 of walk-up spend, which means as few as two attractions if they are the Empire State Building and Top of the Rock ($146.98, a hair under), or as many as five if you pick the cheapest museums. In practice, three heavyweight attractions cover the pass and everything beyond is profit.

The Explorer Pass breaks even when your chosen attractions' combined box-office price exceeds the pass tier you bought, typically at three to four picks.

The clearest way to see it is to price three realistic five-pick combinations against the $149 adult pass. Every figure below is a published box-office price from the table above.

Combination	Box-office total	CityPASS price	Saving
Heavyweight five (Empire State AM/PM, Top of the Rock, Edge, AMNH, Circle Line)	$307.04	$149.00	$158.04 (51%)
Mid-range five (Edge, Intrepid, 9/11 Museum, Guggenheim, Whitney)	$196.06	$149.00	$47.06 (24%)
Budget five (Statue ferry, Guggenheim, Whitney, 9/11 Museum, Intrepid)	$160.00	$149.00	$11.00 (7%)

Read that table twice, because it is the whole article in four rows. The same ticket is either the best deal in New York or nearly worthless depending on nothing but your taste. Observation decks and the AM/PM Experience carry the savings; museums and the ferry barely move the needle.

A note on the American Museum of Natural History figure: $43.00 is the box-office price CityPASS publishes for its savings maths, which corresponds to the all-inclusive tier rather than plain general admission. That matters if you were only planning the dinosaur halls, where the cheaper ticket erodes the pass's advantage further.

The published prices behind these figures can be checked on CityPASS's own site at citypass.com/new-york, and Go City's current "from" prices at gocity.com/new-york.

What Happened to the Sightseeing Pass?

The Sightseeing Pass ceased trading in 2025. Its website stopped selling New York passes, and the company suspended operations around June of that year; the exact legal status, bankruptcy versus voluntary suspension, is unconfirmed, so "ceased trading" is the honest phrasing. No page should recommend, link or compare it as a live option. Its disappearance is also why several competitor guides are now quietly out of date.

This matters to you in two ways. First, if an article you are reading lists The Sightseeing Pass alongside CityPASS and Go City as a live option, that article has not been checked recently, and you should treat its other prices with suspicion too. Second, if you hold an unused Sightseeing Pass from before the shutdown, contact your payment provider; there is no operator to honour it.

The New York pass market is now effectively a two-company market: CityPASS with its fixed bundle, and Go City with the Explorer and All-Inclusive products. That is a simpler decision than it used to be, and the comparison section above covers both.

How to Use a New York City Pass Without Burning Out

The travellers who lose money on a New York city pass are rarely the ones who pick wrong attractions; they are the ones who plan two decks, two museums and a cruise into single days and then skip half of them. Pace a pass around two paid attractions per day, front-load the timed-entry ones like Top of the Rock and Edge, and keep at least one pass day empty for weather.

Reservations at some attractions are mandatory, so book timed slots in the app the evening before, not on the morning of.

A workable shape for a CityPASS week: day one, Empire State Building at opening plus the American Museum of Natural History; day two, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry in the morning and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in the afternoon; day three, Top of the Rock at sunset; day four, Circle Line cruise. That uses five attractions across four days with no day over two paid stops, and it leaves the 9-day window with slack for a washout or a late start.

Weather is the silent killer of pass itineraries. New York's wettest month is July, averaging 4.60 inches of rain in Central Park against the 1991-2020 NOAA normals, ahead of August at 4.56 and June at 4.54. Summer visitors should not assume dry days; the observation decks and the cruise are the exposures, and the museums are the cover. Keep the flexible bookings midweek where slots are thinner crowds.

Finally, remember the free counterweight. The memorial plaza, Central Park, the Staten Island Ferry, walking the Brooklyn Bridge and the High Line cost nothing, and a good itinerary balances paid pass attractions against them. The pass should buy you the things that genuinely need tickets, not a guilt-driven sprint through eleven sights. As a planning desk, New York City Travel Guide keeps every one of these figures checked against operator sources, so if a price here disagrees with a search result, trust the listing.

Common Questions About the New York City Pass

The short answers: CityPASS costs $149 adult and $129 child for 5 of 11 attractions over 9 consecutive days; the Explorer Pass starts from $89 with 30 non-consecutive days; the New York Pass is Go City's All-Inclusive from $169 over consecutive days. CityPASS saves 51% only on the most expensive five-pick combination and as little as 7% on the cheapest.

The Sightseeing Pass no longer exists, and reservations are required at some pass attractions and handled in each operator's app.

How much is the New York City Pass?

New York CityPASS costs $149.00 for adults and $129.00 for children aged 6-17, covering a choice of 5 attractions from an 11-attraction list over 9 consecutive days. The Go City Explorer Pass starts from $89 adult, and the All-Inclusive New York Pass from $169 adult. Go City prices are dynamic, so confirm the current tier price on the booking page.

Is the New York CityPASS worth it?

It depends entirely on your picks. Against published box-office prices, the same $149 pass saves $158.04 (51%) if you choose the Empire State Building AM/PM Experience, Top of the Rock, Edge, the American Museum of Natural History and a Circle Line cruise, but only around $11 (7%) on the five cheapest options. Price your own intended five before buying.

What is the difference between CityPASS and the New York Pass?

They are different products from different companies. CityPASS is a fixed 5-attraction bundle from an 11-attraction list, valid 9 consecutive days. The New York Pass is Go City's All-Inclusive product, from $169, giving unlimited entry across a large attraction menu over consecutive calendar days. CityPASS rewards a focused heavyweight itinerary; All-Inclusive rewards volume.

Can you buy a New York city pass at the attraction?

CityPASS is sold online, and attractions on its list will sell you their own tickets at the box office, but the pass discount only comes through the pass itself. If you arrive at an attraction without a pass, you pay the full box-office price. Buy before your first attraction, since the validity clock starts at first use, not purchase.

What happened to the Sightseeing Pass in New York?

The Sightseeing Pass ceased trading in 2025 after suspending operations around June of that year, and its website no longer sells passes. No current guide should recommend it. If you hold an unused pass from before the shutdown, contact your payment provider.

Do you need reservations with a New York city pass?

At some CityPASS attractions reservations are required, and at others they are recommended; both are handled through the My CityPASS app. Timed-entry attractions such as the observation decks are the ones where booking ahead matters most, particularly for sunset slots, which go first.