Is the Imperial Crypt in Vienna worth visiting?
Updated September 18, 2026
Quick answer
Yes — and if you have done the Sisi Museum, it is arguably the most necessary forty minutes in Vienna. The Imperial Crypt under the Capuchin church holds twelve emperors and around 150 Habsburgs, including Empress Elisabeth, Franz Joseph and Rudolf side by side. EUR 15 for an adult, five minutes' walk from the palace.
The common mistake is treating it as an optional extra for people interested in tombs. It is the ending of the story the Hofburg tells. The palace shows you how the family lived and the museum argues about who Elisabeth really was; this is where she is.
What is down there
Ten interconnected vaults under the Capuchin church on the Neuer Markt, founded in 1618 and in use since 1633. The two authorities give slightly different counts and both are worth having. The Capuchins' own site says the remains of 150 Habsburg personalities rest here, including 12 emperors and 22 empresses and queens. Wikipedia gives 145 bodies plus urns for four others, with 12 emperors and 18 empresses. The difference is mostly a matter of what gets counted. What both agree on: 107 visible metal sarcophagi and five heart urns, running from puritan plain to full rococo, and more than a quarter of everyone entombed was five years old or younger when they died. There is one space left.
The three graves people come for
Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen, in a double sarcophagus under a lid weighing around 1,700 kg, in the domed chamber she built in 1754 — the only part of the crypt with natural light. Franz Joseph, Elisabeth and Rudolf, side by side in the chamber Franz Joseph had built in 1908 for his sixtieth jubilee, without knowing it would hold him. Rudolf died at Mayerling in 1889; Elisabeth was murdered in Geneva in 1898 and carried here on 17 September with eighty-two sovereigns following the cortege; Franz Joseph died at Schönbrunn in 1916. For a great many visitors those three tombs are the whole reason to come, and they are the reason this page says yes.
Who should skip it
Small children, and anyone who finds tombs genuinely upsetting. It is a burial place, dimly lit, with a large number of infant sarcophagi, and it is not softened for visitors. Anyone who has no interest in the Habsburgs as a family. Without the context of the apartments or the museum, it is a room of metal boxes with names on them. And anyone in a hurry. Forty minutes is the realistic minimum and rushing it is worse than not going.
Price, hours and where it is
Read from the crypt's own visitor page on 18 September 2026: EUR 15 for an adult and EUR 13 reduced, with the reduced rate covering the Vienna City Card, the Vienna PASS, the Flexi Pass and the Kulturpass among others. Open daily 10:00 to 18:00, last admission 17:30. The address is Tegetthoffstraße 2, on the Neuer Markt, 1010 Vienna. From the Hofburg it is about five minutes: out at Michaelerplatz, along the Kohlmarkt, right at the Graben and down to the Neuer Markt. It is also on the Vienna PASS's own list of included sights, where the pass covers entry outright rather than at the reduced rate. It is a working religious site and a dozen Capuchin friars still look after it. Behave as you would in a church.
The thing that makes it click
The Habsburgs divided their dead across three buildings, and once you know that, this stops being a crypt and becomes one third of something. Bodies went here. For about a third of them the heart went into a silver urn in the Herzgruft at the Augustinerkirche — which is inside the Hofburg, on Josefsplatz, and holds 54 hearts. The intestines and other organs went into copper urns in the Ducal Crypt beneath St Stephen's Cathedral. All three are within ten minutes of each other. Walking between them in that order takes an afternoon and is the clearest possible account of what this family thought a death was — and almost nobody does it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Imperial Crypt worth visiting?
Yes, especially after the Sisi Museum. It holds twelve emperors and around 150 Habsburgs including Elisabeth, Franz Joseph and Rudolf, for EUR 15 and about forty minutes.
Is Sisi buried in the Imperial Crypt?
Yes, beside Franz Joseph and their son Rudolf, in the chamber Franz Joseph built for his sixtieth jubilee in 1908.
How much does the Imperial Crypt cost?
EUR 15 for an adult and EUR 13 reduced, which covers Vienna City Card, Vienna PASS, Flexi Pass and Kulturpass holders. It is open daily 10:00 to 18:00 with last admission at 17:30.
Is the Imperial Crypt part of the Hofburg?
No. It is under the Capuchin church on the Neuer Markt, about five minutes' walk from the palace, and run by the Capuchin order.
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