Why Berlin Christmas Market
Most of Berlin’s Christmas markets open on Monday 23 November 2026, and several of the big central ones keep going right through to 3 January 2027.
This is because Germany keeps the last Sunday before Advent, Totensonntag, as a quiet day to remember the dead, and in 2026 that falls on 22 November, so the markets wait politely and open the day after.
However, you’ll see a few of them jumping the gun.
The medieval market at RAW, for example, in Friedrichshain opens on 12 November, and the winter market outside the Humboldt Forum opens on 18 November, which makes it the one to aim for if you’re in town the week before everything else gets going.
The closing dates are where Berlin gets interesting, because they’re, in fact, spread over a fortnight. Lucia, Spandau and RAW finish on 22 December, Alexanderplatz on Boxing Day, Charlottenburg on 27 December and Gendarmenmarkt on New Year’s Eve.
The Rotes Rathaus, the Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz and the little market outside KaDeWe on Wittenbergplatz all stay open until Sunday 3 January, which is rare for a German city and the main reason Berlin is such a good bet if you can only travel after Christmas.
| Market | 2026 dates | Usual hours | Entry |
| WeihnachtsZauber Gendarmenmarkt | 23 Nov to 31 Dec | 11:00 to 22:00, Fri and Sat to 23:00 | €2, free weekdays 11:00 to 14:00 |
| Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz | 18 Nov to 3 Jan | 11:00 to 22:00 | Free |
| Rotes Rathaus | 23 Nov to 3 Jan | 12:00 to 22:00, weekends from 11:00 | Free |
| Alexanderplatz | 23 Nov to 26 Dec | 11:00 to 22:00 | Free |
| Charlottenburg Palace | 23 Nov to 27 Dec | 13:00 to 22:00, Fri to Sun from 12:00 | Free |
| Breitscheidplatz | 23 Nov to 3 Jan | 11:00 to 21:00, Fri and Sat to 22:00 (2025 hours) | Free |
| Lucia, Kulturbrauerei | 23 Nov to 22 Dec | 15:00 to 22:00, weekends from 13:00 | Free |
| Spandau Old Town | 23 Nov to 22 Dec | 11:00 to 20:00, Fri and Sat to 22:00 (expected) | Free |
| RAW medieval market | 12 Nov to 22 Dec | 15:00 to 22:00, Fri to 23:00, Sat 12:00 to 23:00, Sun from 12:00 | €3, €4 at weekends, Mondays free |
| Alt-Rixdorf | 4 to 6 Dec only | Fri from 17:00, Sat and Sun from 14:00 | Free |
Plan your days around the light, because there isn’t much of it.
In mid-December the sun sets just before 16:00, so the markets are lit up by mid-afternoon and the best of the atmosphere comes early in the evening.
Berlin in December averages about 4°C by day and just below freezing at night, and it’s far more often grey and damp than snowy, with snow on the ground for about five days in a typical December.
Bring a hat, gloves and shoes that don’t mind a wet pavement.
Which Berlin Christmas Market Is Best?
Since there are more than 80 individual Christmas markets in Berlin, it’s really hard to nail it down. While Nuremberg and Dresden give you one big historic Christmas market on one old town square, Berlin gives you a market in front of a palace, a Nordic one in an old brewery, a medieval one with fire shows in a former railway works, a charity market that lasts a single weekend, a queer market under an elevated railway, and a handful of big city-centre markets that sell much the same mugs and bratwurst as each other.
If you treat Berlin like a single market, it will feel scattered and samey. But if you pick three or four that each do something different, it’s one of the best Christmas trips in Germany.
As far as what I can recommend, my shortlist goes like this. For the grandest setting, it’s Gendarmenmarkt, between its two cathedrals and the concert hall.
For a free market with a palace behind it, Charlottenburg, which is the one locals recommend more than any other.
For kids, the Rotes Rathaus, with its ice rink and big wheel.
For an evening with a bit more character, Lucia at the Kulturbrauerei or the medieval market at RAW.
And if you’re in town on the first weekend of December, drop everything for Alt-Rixdorf.
People often ask which one is the biggest. There’s no official answer, because nobody counts the same way, but the Humboldt Forum and Breitscheidplatz are among the biggest of the markets that run all season, with well over 100 stalls each, and Alt-Rixdorf squeezes over 200 charity stalls into its one weekend.
Size isn’t really the point in Berlin, though. Two markets in an evening is plenty, and you’ll enjoy them far more than racing round five.
Gendarmenmarkt and Its €2 Gate
The WeihnachtsZauber is back where it belongs.
The square was dug up for a renovation, so the market spent three winters on Bebelplatz by the State Opera, and plenty of guides online still send you there.
It came home to the Gendarmenmarkt in 2025, and the setting is the whole reason to come.
The Konzerthaus sits in the middle with the French Cathedral on one side and the German Cathedral on the other, and the white tents fill the square between them under a thousand strings of lights.
It’s also the most polished Christmas market in the city.
The heart of it is a heated crafts tent of about 1,000 square metres, where makers work in front of you, glassblowers, goldsmiths, woodcarvers and candle-makers among them, and the market’s own café bar is there for when your toes give up.
The big stage in front of the Konzerthaus runs choirs, ballet and an acrobatic winter circus show, and the Sonari choir, which has sung here for more than 20 years, leads a sing-along at the Christmas tree.
Around the edges are proper sit-down restaurant tents that you book directly.
Last season’s line-up ran from a Tyrolean hut with a goose menu to Swiss cheese fondue, plus a stall doing British pies with mash, peas and gravy, in case you’re already missing home.
Now the €2. Gendarmenmarkt is the one big central market that charges, and the rules are simple once you know them.
Entry is €2, but it’s free for everyone Monday to Friday from 11:00 to 14:00, except on 24, 25, 26 and 31 December.
Under-12s are always free, and so are disabled visitors with ID.
You pay at the four gates as you go in, and nothing in the rules says you have to leave at 14:00, so walking in at 13:30 and staying on as it gets dark should cost you nothing.
The money goes on the stage programme and security, and everything taken at the gates on Thursdays goes to local charities.
A few rules to know before you go.
The square has a cap of 5,000 people at a time, with electronic counting at the entrances, so on a Friday or Saturday night you might have to wait to get in.
Bags are limited to small daypacks, roughly A4 size, and there’s no left luggage, so leave the big rucksack at the hotel. Dogs aren’t allowed apart from assistance dogs, of course. Cards work for food and drink, but some of the craft stalls want cash.
Is it worth €2, however? Yes, and at lunchtime it’s free, which is even better.
I’d come on a weekday, walk in just before 14:00, do the crafts tent while there’s still daylight and stay for the stage once the square lights up.
It’s also open on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, closes at 18:00 on Christmas Eve, and on New Year’s Eve it runs until midnight with a separate ticket, which the organiser lists at €9.
Alexanderplatz, Rotes Rathaus and the Humboldt Forum
When people talk about the Alexanderplatz Christmas market, they usually mean two different markets, and the better one isn’t on Alexanderplatz.
The Alexanderplatz market itself sits on the big square by the World Clock. The one with the ice rink and the Ferris wheel is the Berliner Weihnachtszeit, a few minutes away at the Rotes Rathaus, the red-brick town hall, right under the TV Tower.
Alexanderplatz has a reputation as Berlin’s most commercial market, the loud, flashing, funfair one, and plenty of visitors and locals skip it.
For 2026, though, it’s been redesigned around the Fountain of International Friendship, with warm sand-coloured lighting and a Christmas-around-the-world theme.
It runs from 23 November to 26 December. I’d walk through it on the way to somewhere else rather than make it the evening, however.
The Rotes Rathaus market is the family one.
The ice rink runs round the Neptune Fountain in 90-minute sessions, at €5 to skate plus €3 to hire skates, there’s a 50-metre Ferris wheel with closed gondolas, and its old-fashioned carousels include one that’s more than 100 years old.
Santa also flies over the market on his sleigh three times a day, at 16:30, 18:30 and 20:30, which small children find thrilling and grown-ups find mildly surprising.
Entry is free. Reviews are mixed and it’s packed at weekends, but if you’ve got kids with you, it’s the best stop in the centre.
It’s closed on 24 and 31 December and open every other day until 3 January.
Then keep walking west across the Spree to the Humboldt Forum, which is the one in this corner I’d actually linger at.
Its winter market fills Schlossplatz and the Schlüterhof, the baroque courtyard of the rebuilt city palace, with more than 150 stalls, a champagne bar, historic rides and a Feuerzangenbowle stand, and the palace walls get a light show after dark.
In 2025 the laser show ran on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
It feels calmer and better looking than either of the Alex markets, and its Glühwein started at €4 last season, a euro under most of its neighbours.
It opens on 18 November, earlier than the rest, and runs until 3 January, closing only on 22 November and Christmas Eve.
Charlottenburg and the West
The Christmas market at Charlottenburg Palace is the one I’d pick if I only had one night in Berlin.
It sits on the forecourt of the palace, ringed by more than 200 fir trees, and once it’s dark the baroque front of the palace lights up with a projection show.
Entry is free, the 100-plus stalls lean towards crafts like candles, ceramics, jewellery and carved wooden pyramids, and there are two heated restaurant tents, a small Ferris wheel and carousels for kids.
When visitors ask Berliners where to go, this is the name that comes up most.
It opens at 13:00 Monday to Thursday and at 12:00 Friday to Sunday, so the best plan is a weekday afternoon.
Try to get there around 15:00, look round the stalls while there’s still some light, and be in front of the palace when the projections start.
You should also know that weekend evenings get crowded.
It takes a little effort to reach, because it’s a 15-minute walk from Sophie-Charlotte-Platz on the U2, or you can take the M45 bus to the palace.
It runs until 27 December, and while it’s closed on Christmas Eve, it’s open 12:00 to 22:00 on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
On the way back, stop at Breitscheidplatz.
This is West Berlin’s big market, set around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, whose bombed tower was kept as a ruin after the war and which Berliners call the Hollow Tooth.
The market itself is a classic one, with bratwurst, Flammkuchen, waffles and a long canopy of lights overhead, and it’s open until 3 January.
It’s also where 13 people died when a lorry was driven into the market on 19 December 2016.
A golden crack now runs across the square and up the church steps, with the victims’ names set into the steps beside it, and it’s worth a quiet minute.
Security is very visible these days, with bollards, security staff at the entrances and a police post on site, and the market is busy and cheerful again.
Two more things on this side of town. Since 2025 KaDeWe, Berlin’s grand old department store, has had a small market outside on Wittenbergplatz.
This year it’s been renamed the Weihnachtsmarkt am Wittenbergplatz, and it runs from 23 November right through to 3 January, with a late one until 03:00 on New Year’s Eve.
The store’s sixth-floor food hall is the warmest place in the city to shop for edible presents.
And the lights along Kurfürstendamm and Tauentzienstraße normally go up in late November and stay until early January, so the walk from Breitscheidplatz to Wittenbergplatz is lit up too.
The Smaller Markets Berliners Go To
The big central markets are fine, but the Berlin markets people come home talking about are usually the smaller ones out in the neighbourhoods.
Lucia, in the red-brick courtyards of the old Kulturbrauerei brewery in Prenzlauer Berg, does a Scandinavian Christmas.
You get Swedish glögg and Finnish glögi alongside the usual Glühwein, plus elk bratwurst, köttbullar and Finnish waffles, and you can borrow a pre-warmed fur coat if the cold gets to you, which might be my favourite idea at any Christmas market anywhere.
It’s free, it’s been running for about 25 years, and it opens at 15:00 on weekdays, so treat it as an evening market.
St Lucia’s Day is 13 December, a Sunday this year, and that’s traditionally when Lucia leads a candlelit procession through the courtyards. It closes on 22 December.
RAW, in Friedrichshain, is the medieval one, and it’s the opposite of glossy.
It sits on the site of an old railway works, lit by torches and fire pits, with blacksmiths and potters selling their work, hot mead and Glühbier, archery and crossbow shooting, and fire shows every evening.
It charges €3 on weekdays and €4 at weekends, Mondays are free, and it runs from 12 November to 22 December, a short walk from Warschauer Straße station.
Alt-Rixdorf is the one I’d plan a trip around.
For one weekend only, 4 to 6 December in 2026, Richardplatz in Neukölln fills up with more than 200 stalls, and every one of them is run by a charity or a non-profit group, so the honey, candles and wooden toys all raise money for something.
The old village square is lit by paraffin lamps, there’s no piped music, and it feels like the market a small country town would hold, not a capital city. Go on the Friday, when it opens at 17:00.
Spandau, out west at the end of the U7, turns its whole cobbled old town into a market from 23 November to 22 December.
It runs from the town hall down to the Gothic St Nicholas Church, with a historic market round the church and ice-stock lanes, which is basically curling for people holding a Glühwein.
It’s free, it’s big, and it feels local rather than touristy.
A few more are worth knowing. Christmas Avenue, at Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, is a queer Christmas market tucked under the elevated U-Bahn, so it stays dry when it rains, with drag bingo, drag shows and karaoke in the evenings, and it’s for over-16s only, of course.
The eco market on Sophienstraße, near the Hackesche Höfe, runs on Advent weekends with organic and fair-trade makers, and Domäne Dahlem, an organic farm out in the south-west, holds a family market every Advent weekend with tractor rides and fire shows.
Design hunters should look at Holy Shit Shopping, a big design market on 28 and 29 November at the Haus der Visionäre in Treptow, which charged €7 online last year.
And Holzmarkt, the artists’ village on the Spree, usually turns into a Christmas market in December, though it hasn’t announced its 2026 dates yet.
Glühwein, Currywurst and Feuerzangenbowle
Berlin isn’t a cheap Christmas market city.
In 2025 a mug of Glühwein cost €5 at almost every central market, the Humboldt Forum started at €4, and Breitscheidplatz charged €5 to €6 for the standard one, with fancier versions like blueberry Glühwein going up to €7.50.
A bratwurst was €5 to €6.
The deposit on the mug, the Pfand, isn’t the same everywhere.
In 2025 it was €5 at the Rotes Rathaus and Breitscheidplatz, €3 at Charlottenburg and the Humboldt Forum and €2 at the KaDeWe market.
Hand the mug back to the stall you got it from, or keep it as a souvenir and count the deposit as its price, and nobody will chase you for it.
Most food and drink stalls take cards now, but carry some cash for the craft stalls and the smaller neighbourhood markets.
The food is mostly the German market classics, so bratwurst, Langos, potato pancakes, Handbrot, which is a loaf stuffed with cheese and ham and baked to order, and Schmalzkuchen, little deep-fried dough bites tipped into a paper bag with a shower of icing sugar.
Currywurst is the Berlin one, and most of the big markets do it. The more interesting food is at the edges.
Lucia has its Nordic dishes, Charlottenburg did venison burgers and suckling pig last year, and Gendarmenmarkt has a stall making Eierpunsch, a warm egg punch, fresh every morning with organic cream. It’s basically hot advocaat, and it’s much nicer than that sounds.
For the most Berlin drink of all, find the Feuerzangenbowle in the Nikolaiviertel, the little old quarter by the river behind the Rotes Rathaus.
A rum-soaked sugar loaf is set alight over a big copper kettle of mulled wine, and in front of the Nikolaikirche they screen the 1944 comedy the drink is named after, which every German has seen.
Last year anyone called Pfeiffer, with three Fs like the hero of the film, got a free cup every hour if they could prove it.
Christmas Week in Berlin
Berlin is one of the best cities in Germany for a Christmas-week trip, as long as you know which day is which.
Christmas Eve is the trap, and it gets easier after that.
Christmas Eve, Thursday 24 December, is when Germany does its main Christmas, with presents in the evening, so the city empties from lunchtime.
Shops have to close at 14:00, and with Boxing Day falling on a Saturday this year, ordinary shops won’t open again until Monday 28 December, so do your supermarket run by the 23rd.
The state museums are shut on the 24th as well. A handful of markets do open on Christmas Eve, Gendarmenmarkt until 18:00 with no free window, Breitscheidplatz until 14:00, the Wittenbergplatz market by KaDeWe until 15:00 and, according to the city’s website, Alexanderplatz until 16:00.
The Rotes Rathaus, Charlottenburg and the Humboldt Forum are all closed, and Lucia, RAW and Spandau will have finished two days earlier.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day are much better.
Gendarmenmarkt, the Rotes Rathaus, the Humboldt Forum, Charlottenburg, Alexanderplatz and the Wittenbergplatz market are all open, and Breitscheidplatz ran 13:00 to 21:00 on both days last year.
A lot of restaurants close, though, so book ahead for both days. After that, the season winds down a market at a time.
| Day (2026/27) | Open | Closed or finished |
| Thu 24 Dec | Gendarmenmarkt to 18:00, Alexanderplatz to 16:00 (expected), Wittenbergplatz to 15:00, Breitscheidplatz to 14:00 | Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Forum, Charlottenburg |
| Fri 25 and Sat 26 Dec | Gendarmenmarkt, Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Forum, Charlottenburg, Breitscheidplatz, Wittenbergplatz, Alexanderplatz | Nothing big, but the 26th is Alexanderplatz’s last day |
| Sun 27 Dec | Gendarmenmarkt, Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz, Charlottenburg, Wittenbergplatz | Charlottenburg finishes today |
| Mon 28 to Wed 30 Dec | Gendarmenmarkt, Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz, Wittenbergplatz | Everything else |
| Thu 31 Dec | Gendarmenmarkt to midnight (New Year’s Eve ticket), Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz, Wittenbergplatz to 03:00 | Rotes Rathaus |
| Fri 1 to Sun 3 Jan | Rotes Rathaus, Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz, Wittenbergplatz | Gendarmenmarkt finished on 31 Dec |
New Year’s Eve in Berlin is loud.
Private fireworks have long been legal in most of the city, and by late evening whole neighbourhoods sound like they’re under siege.
Germany has been debating tighter rules, so check before you go.
In 2025 there were firework-free zones around Alexanderplatz and a few other spots, and the 2026 zones haven’t been announced yet.
The free party at the Brandenburg Gate isn’t confirmed for this year either.
One Berlin paper reported in September that it will go ahead, but the city’s own website still lists it as unconfirmed and says any party will be much smaller than it used to be.
The most civilised option is Gendarmenmarkt, which traditionally ends its season with a ticketed party, a DJ and fireworks at midnight.
After New Year, the Rotes Rathaus, the Humboldt Forum, Breitscheidplatz and the Wittenbergplatz market carry on until Sunday 3 January, and if you’re still in town after that, the Christmas Garden light trail at the Botanic Garden runs until 10 January.
How to Plan Two or Three Days
Berlin is far too big to walk between all of its markets, so think in clusters, and let the U2 do the heavy lifting.
It’s more or less Berlin’s Christmas market line.
It stops at Sophie-Charlotte-Platz for Charlottenburg Palace, Zoologischer Garten for Breitscheidplatz, Wittenbergplatz for the market outside KaDeWe, Potsdamer Platz, Stadtmitte for Gendarmenmarkt, Klosterstraße for the Rotes Rathaus, Alexanderplatz, and Eberswalder Straße for Lucia.
The first cluster is Mitte, and you can do it all on foot with about half an hour of actual walking.
Start at Gendarmenmarkt before 14:00 on a weekday, head up to Unter den Linden and along to the Humboldt Forum, cross the Spree to the Rotes Rathaus and finish at Alexanderplatz, where the station gets you home. That’s four markets, and three of them stay open until at least New Year’s Eve.
The second is the west. Take the U2 out to Charlottenburg Palace for the afternoon and the light show, then come back to Breitscheidplatz and the Wittenbergplatz market for the evening, along the lit-up Kurfürstendamm.
For a third day, mix in one of the neighbourhood markets in the evening, Lucia if you like your Christmas Nordic, RAW if you like it with fire, or Alt-Rixdorf if your dates line up.
Two markets an evening is plenty, three at the very most, and with dark falling before 16:00 your afternoons go quicker than you’d think.
Public transport is easy. A single AB ticket costs €4.00 and a 24-hour AB ticket €11.20, rising to €11.50 from 1 January, so the day ticket pays for itself on your third ride.
From BER airport you need an ABC ticket, €5.00 in 2026, and the airport express train gets you to the Hauptbahnhof in about 23 minutes. As for where to stay, Mitte puts you within walking distance of the markets that stay open longest.
The streets around Zoologischer Garten and Savignyplatz suit the west side and have a direct S-Bahn to the airport, and Prenzlauer Berg is the pick if you want Lucia on your doorstep and a neighbourhood that feels lived in.
Berlin, Dresden or Potsdam?
If what you want is one historic market on one old square, Dresden does that better than Berlin.
Its Striezelmarkt has been trading since 1434 and it’s 1 hour 39 minutes away on a direct train.
Nuremberg, the other city Berlin usually gets compared with, is the same story, with one big classic market in a pretty centre, and often a very crowded one.
Cologne has several big markets, but they’re all packed into a compact old town around the cathedral. Berlin can’t match that postcard.
What Berlin has instead is range, a proper night out, and a calendar that runs into January.
Potsdam is also an easy add-on. It’s about 35 minutes on the S7 and covered by the same ABC ticket you’d use for the airport.
Its main market fills Brandenburger Straße and Luisenplatz with blue lights from 23 November to 27 December.
There’s also a Bohemian Christmas market in Babelsberg’s old weavers’ quarter on the last weekend of November and the first weekend of December, and a Polish Christmas market at the Kutschstallhof runs from 4 to 6 December.
Give it an afternoon, then come back into Berlin for the evening.
So, Is the Berlin Christmas Market Worth It?
Yes, as long as you treat Berlin as a city full of markets and not as one market.
Taken one at a time, Berlin’s markets aren’t the prettiest in Germany, and the big central ones sell a lot of the same things.
But no other German city gives you a palace market, a Nordic market, a medieval market, a charity market and a New Year’s Eve party on Gendarmenmarkt in the same trip, or keeps four of its central markets going until 3 January.
It suits anyone who wants a proper city break with the markets as part of it, groups, families with kids who’d like to skate, and anyone who can only get away after Christmas.
It won’t suit you if all you want is one historic square and a cosy evening, and in that case Dresden is your trip.
