Which Is the Best New York City Pass to Buy?

The New York pass market shrank in 2025, and most guides have not noticed. The Sightseeing Pass ceased trading in June 2025, which leaves two real products behind the three names you will see online: the New York CityPASS, and Go City's Explorer and All-Inclusive passes, the latter co-branded as the New York Pass. Choosing between them is not about which card looks better. It is about how many attractions your trip can honestly absorb, because every one of these passes loses money for someone who buys it and uses it twice.

Which Is the Best New York City Pass to Buy?

For most first-time visitors on a three-to-five-day trip, the New York CityPASS is the best pass to buy. It costs $149 for adults and $129 for children aged 6-17, covers your choice of five attractions from an eleven-attraction list, and stays valid for nine consecutive days from the first day you use it. CityPASS claims a 51% saving against combined adult box-office prices.

It wins because its anchors sit on almost every first-visit itinerary anyway.

The logic is simple. A pass only pays when the attractions you would have paid full price for anyway add up to more than the pass costs. The CityPASS list is built almost entirely of things a first-timer plans to do regardless: the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, Edge, the Intrepid, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and one Circle Line sightseeing cruise. These are all box-office-priced heavyweights, and that is the point: the bundle works because the contents were already on your list.

If your itinerary is loose, or you are in the city for only a weekend, the Explorer Pass is usually the better fit. You buy a set number of visits, from two upward, and spend them from a large menu over thirty days from your first attraction, with no need to decide in advance which sights you will see. The All-Inclusive option, sold from $169, only makes sense for go-go-go itineraries stacking three or more paid attractions a day.

There is a third answer that matters more than any ranking: none of them. A visitor doing two paid attractions in four days loses money on every pass sold. The pass question is really a planning question, and the rest of this page gives you the numbers to answer it for your own trip, not a generic verdict.

If you already know your trip is a classic first-visit circuit, the current options are here:

How Much Does Each New York Pass Cost?

The New York CityPASS costs $149 for adults and $129 for children 6-17, covering five attractions over nine consecutive days. Go City's Explorer Pass starts at $89 for adults, with the price rising as you add choices, and gives you thirty days from your first attraction to spend them. The All-Inclusive pass, sold as the New York Pass, starts at $169 for adults and runs consecutive calendar days from first scan.

Go City prices are dynamic and promotional, so treat its figures as starting points.

Those are the only numbers safe to publish, because Go City's pricing moves with promotions in a way CityPASS's does not. What is stable, and what should drive your decision, is the validity structure, which differs sharply between the products.

The validity column is where trips are won or lost. Nine consecutive days is generous for a five-attraction pass: it means a week-long trip can absorb a rain day without wasting a ticket. The Explorer's thirty-day window is even more forgiving, and its non-consecutive structure suits travelers who want museum days separated by walking days. The All-Inclusive pass is the least forgiving: every unused day is money burned, and it demands a pace most visitors cannot sustain past day two.

One warning that belongs next to any price table. The Sightseeing Pass ceased trading in 2025, and its website is an empty shell. Any reseller still selling one, or any guide still recommending it, is telling you something about how current its information is.

Before comparing further, it is worth checking the live price of the pass most trips end up choosing, since CityPASS runs its own promotions from time to time and the booking page is the only place the current figure is guaranteed:

Latest data One of the big three New York passes no longer exists

• The Sightseeing Pass suspended operations around 19 June 2025 and is not selling New York passes; its site now serves an empty page.
• That leaves two companies: CityPASS, and Go City, whose All-Inclusive product is co-branded as the New York Pass.
• CityPASS publishes its own savings maths: $307.04 in adult box-office prices against the $149 pass, a claimed 51% saving.
• Plenty of competing NYC guides still list the dead pass as an option, which is the fastest way to spot a guide that was never updated.

What Does the New York CityPASS Actually Include?

The CityPASS covers your choice of five attractions from a list of eleven: the Empire State Building's AM/PM Experience, Top of the Rock, the official Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry, the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, Edge, the Intrepid, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, and one Circle Line sightseeing cruise. Reservations are required at some attractions and recommended at others, handled through the My CityPASS app.

The pass does not cover MoMA, the Met, or Broadway.

The box-office prices CityPASS publishes for its own savings maths double as a useful planning table, because they show what each ticket costs on its own:

Two things jump out of that table. First, the deck-and-cruise half of the list is expensive: the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock and Edge together already cost more at the box office than the entire $149 pass, which is why the bundle works for anyone visiting all three. Second, the cheap half is where the pass's value quietly erodes. If your five choices include the $26 ferry and the $30 Guggenheim rather than a third deck, you are saving less than the headline maths suggests. The pass is best when your five choices are the expensive five. Everything else covered here is indexed on New York City Travel Guide.

Note the fine print on the Empire State Building entry: the CityPASS version is the AM/PM Experience, which includes the 86th floor plus the second-floor museum and a bonus same-night re-entry. That is a richer ticket than the plain deck admission, and it is the single most valuable line in the bundle.

The Statue of Liberty line is the official Statue City Cruises ferry, the only operator authorized by the National Park Service to land on Liberty Island. A pass that covers the real ferry is worth more than one covering a lookalike cruise that only circles the islands. If standing on Liberty Island itself matters to you, this inclusion is a genuine differentiator, because plenty of harbor cruises sold alongside passes never land anywhere.

The CityPASS product itself, with the current attraction list and booking flow, is here:

When Does a Pass Stop Making Sense?

A pass stops making sense the moment your realistic attraction count drops below the break-even line. For the $149 CityPASS, you need roughly three of the expensive choices, decks and cruises, to break even, and four or five to come out clearly ahead. For the Explorer Pass from $89, the floor is lower but the maths is tighter. If your trip includes only one or two paid attractions, no pass beats paying at the door.

The failure mode is buying the pass for the trip you imagine rather than the trip you will take. A five-day visit sounds like pass territory until you sketch the actual days: a morning in Central Park, an afternoon walking the High Line and Chelsea Market, an evening Broadway show, a day in Brooklyn. None of those cost a box-office admission. The paid attractions on such a trip might total two, and a pass covering five would have been a donation.

The reverse failure exists too. The All-Inclusive pass, from $169, is priced for travelers who visit three or more paid attractions a day, every day. That pace is possible, but it turns a vacation into a checklist, and by day three most people slow down and the pass stops earning. The honest guidance: buy All-Inclusive only if your draft itinerary already lists that many paid stops per day, written down, before you buy anything.

The Explorer Pass sits between the two, and it is the right pick for a specific traveler: someone with loose plans who wants the option of paid attractions without the commitment. Its thirty-day window and non-consecutive choices make it forgiving in a way the fixed bundles are not. You can see the current choice tiers and pricing on the listing:

For deciding what your non-pass days might hold, the things to do in NYC guide on this site lists the free and paid options side by side, which is the fastest way to test whether your trip has enough paid attractions to justify any pass at all.

Which New York Pass Is Best for Your Trip Style?

For a classic first visit of three to five days, buy the CityPASS: the five-attraction structure matches the standard itinerary and the nine-day window absorbs delays. For a short weekend or a trip built around free sights, buy the Explorer Pass with a small number of choices. For a packed week where you will genuinely visit three or more paid attractions daily, the All-Inclusive pass wins.

For a trip with one or two paid attractions, buy no pass.

That last row deserves emphasis, because it surprises people. The two most famous art museums in the city, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA, are not in the CityPASS bundle. The Met charges a fixed $30 adult admission, and MoMA $30, so a museum-focused visitor can spend heavily on attractions and still have no use for the flagship pass. Check what each pass actually covers against your own list before buying anything, not after.

The full set of current options, with live pricing:

For a deeper worked example of the CityPASS maths on a real itinerary, see is the New York CityPASS worth it, which runs the numbers on a typical five-day trip. If you are weighing the two companies head to head, New York Pass vs CityPASS breaks down the differences in coverage and validity in more detail than this page needs.

Common Questions About New York City Passes

The best New York city pass for most visitors is the New York CityPASS at $149, covering five attractions over nine days, because its list matches the standard first-visit itinerary. Travelers with loose plans do better with the Explorer Pass from $89, and only high-density itineraries justify the All-Inclusive pass from $169. The Sightseeing Pass no longer exists, and any page still selling or recommending it should be treated as out of date.

which is the best new york city pass to buy?

For most first-time visitors, the New York CityPASS: $149 adult, five attractions from a list of eleven, valid nine consecutive days. It wins because the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock and the official Statue of Liberty ferry, its anchors, are on nearly every first-visit itinerary. If your plans are loose or your trip is short, the Explorer Pass from $89 fits better; if you will visit three or more paid attractions every day, the All-Inclusive pass from $169 pays off.

Is the New York CityPASS worth the money?

It is worth it if you will use four or five of your choices, especially the expensive ones. The Empire State Building AM/PM Experience ($75.12 box office), Top of the Rock ($71.86) and Edge ($62.06) together already cost more than the $149 pass. If your five choices lean toward the cheaper entries, like the $26 ferry and the $30 museums, the saving shrinks. CityPASS claims a 51% adult saving against combined box-office prices.

What is the difference between the Explorer Pass and the All-Inclusive pass?

Both are Go City products. The Explorer Pass buys a fixed number of visits, from two upward starting at $89, which you spend from a large menu over thirty days from your first attraction, and the days need not be consecutive. The All-Inclusive pass, from $169, gives unlimited entry but runs consecutive calendar days from your first scan, so unused days are lost. The Explorer suits loose plans; the All-Inclusive suits a packed, high-density itinerary.

Is the New York Pass the same as Go City?

Effectively yes. The New York Pass is no longer a genuinely separate product; it sits inside Go City, same parent company, same inventory, co-branded. Treat "New York Pass" as a synonym for the Go City All-Inclusive pass rather than a fourth option, because comparing it as an independent product double-counts the market.

Does any New York pass cover the Met or MoMA?

The CityPASS list does not include the Metropolitan Museum of Art or MoMA. The Met charges a fixed $30 adult admission, and MoMA $30, so museum-focused visitors should price those separately and may find no pass fits. Check the current attraction list on the live booking page before buying, because inclusions change.

Can I still buy the Sightseeing Pass?

No. The company suspended operations around 19 June 2025 and is not selling New York passes; its website now serves an empty page. Do not buy one from a reseller, and treat any guide still recommending it as a sign the whole page may be out of date.

The one-sentence version of all of the above: count the paid attractions on your real, written-down itinerary first, then buy the cheapest pass whose structure matches that count, and if the count is two, buy nothing at all.