For eighteen days the four Seoul palaces, Jongmyo shrine and the royal tombs waive admission. It coincides with the city’s foliage peak. Which days each palace is closed, what the hours are, and the one part that still charges.
Written by the Kverything editors from the sources below. Photograph by Rina Kemppainen on Unsplash. Last checked November 3, 2026.
단풍 is autumn foliage and the habit of going to see it. In Seoul the colour arrives late: the mountains turn in October, the palaces and parks in the first half of November.
This year the Royal Palaces and Tombs Center, the agency that runs the sites, has made general admission free from 29 October to 15 November for the Korea Grand Festival. That covers Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung, plus Jongmyo and the Joseon royal tombs. Changdeokgung’s Secret Garden tour is excluded and still needs a timed ticket.
The free weeks are timed to the festival, and the festival is timed to the leaves. Gyeongbokgung’s ginkgos by the eastern wall and the maples around Hyangwonjeong pond are the pictures everyone takes; a video from the grounds on 2 November shows them turning, with the hanbok crowd already there.
Free entry changes the maths for a visitor: the usual reason to pick one palace falls away, so people do two in an afternoon.
Gyeongbokgung in autumn, 2 November 2026, 4K 크레용픽쳐스 Crayon Pictures. Plays on YouTube.Closing days do not change. Gyeongbokgung and Jongmyo close on Tuesdays, which this month means 3 and 10 November. Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung and the tombs close on Mondays, 2 and 9 November.
Gyeongbokgung opens 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon in November, last entry an hour before. Go at opening on a weekday for the quiet version. Hanbok rental still gets you in free on any day of the year; this fortnight it simply makes no difference.
Gyeongbokgung station, line 3, exit 5, for the main palace. For a walk with the leaves overhead, the stone wall path from City Hall station past Deoksugung.
Entry is free today, right?