informational 5 min read
The Butterfly House in the Burggarten
Updated September 18, 2026
The Schmetterlinghaus is a tropical butterfly house inside the art nouveau palm house at the edge of the Burggarten, directly behind the Hofburg. Around 500 butterflies fly free inside it, all year round. It takes about half an hour, and it is the one thing in the palace gardens that children ask to do twice.
The building it lives in
The palm house on the Burggarten is the reason to look up before you go in. It is a glass and steel art nouveau structure built for the imperial court, and the operator’s own description places Emperor Franz Joseph I in it: this is where he “once found rest and relaxation”.
The building has been divided. One half is the butterfly house; the other is the Palmenhaus café and restaurant, under the same glass roof. They are separate businesses with separate doors, which catches people out — buy your butterfly ticket at the butterfly house entrance, not at the café.
Inside
A single tropical hall, kept warm and humid for the animals, with a planted route through it. The operator states around 500 freely living and flying butterflies, present year-round rather than seasonally. You walk slowly, they land where they like, and the whole thing is over in twenty to forty minutes depending on how long you stand still.
The heat is the thing to prepare for. It is a tropical house in the middle of a city and it does not moderate itself for a cold Vienna day — coats come off at the door.
Admission
Read from the Schmetterlinghaus’s own price page on 18 September 2026:
| Ticket | Individual | Groups of 10+ |
|---|---|---|
| Adult | EUR 10.00 | EUR 9.00 |
| Senior | EUR 8.00 | EUR 7.00 |
| Student, apprentice or trainee to 26, conscript, pensioner, disabled visitor with ID | EUR 8.00 | EUR 7.00 |
| Vienna City Card holder | EUR 8.50 | EUR 8.50 |
| Child, age 3 to school entry | EUR 6.00 | EUR 4.50 |
Kindergarten groups go free, with one adult free per five children. Visitors with 100% disability and their companion go free.
It is not included in the Vienna PASS. The pass’s own list of sights ran to 84 entries when we read it on 18 September 2026, and the Butterfly House was not among them. The Vienna City Card discount above is the only pass benefit on offer here.
Opening hours
| Season | Daily, including public holidays |
|---|---|
| April to October | 10:00 to 17:45 |
| November to March | 10:00 to 15:45 |
The operator does not publish a last-admission time. The winter close at 15:45 is the one to watch: it is earlier than almost anything else in the palace, so in January this is a morning stop, not an afternoon one.
With children
It works for a wider age range than most of the Hofburg. There is nothing to read, nothing to queue for and no expectation of quiet, which makes it the obvious pressure valve after an hour of imperial apartments.
The practical pairing: the Burggarten is free and open air, the Butterfly House is ten euros and twenty minutes, and the Albertina is 100 metres away with free entry for under-19s. That is a workable afternoon for a family that has run out of patience for state rooms.
Getting there
The Burggarten side of the Hofburg, roughly 100 metres from the Albertina and 200 metres from the State Opera. Coming from the Imperial Apartments, walk through to Heldenplatz, along the front of the Neue Burg and into the Burggarten; the glass house is on the far side.