New Year’s Eve Fireworks in Paris

Updated on 27 December 2023

Will there be New Year’s fireworks at the Eiffel Tower?

Are you preparing your stay in Paris and wondering how to enjoy the fireworks on 31 December? Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you: there are no REAL fireworks displays in Paris on New Year’s Eve (although there are a few things, as I’ll explain below). Not at the Eiffel Tower, nor anywhere else… except Disneyland Paris! A few years ago, the Paris City Council explained that it would cost 150,000 euros to set off fireworks, and that in these times of economic crisis it was preferring to do it on 14 July. What’s more, the Police is banning the use of firecrackers and fireworks on New Year’s Eve, as well as the possession of glass bottles in the Champs-Elysées, Trocadéro and Champ-de-Mars areas, even if the bottle only contains sparkling water… So you’ve been warned.

Personally, I think this kind of penny-pinching is a shame for the 3rd most visited city in the world, because visitors expect a lot, and TV images of New Year’s Eve fireworks are always the talk of the town: Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Taipei, London… without Paris saving money!

SO WHAT TO DO IN PARIS ON NEW YEAR’S EVE?

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend parties in restaurants, boats on the Seine, cabarets or discotheques: they’re overpriced and unsuitable for children. However, you can do what many Parisians do: go to the theatre or the circus, and have dinner in a local restaurant.

Traditionally, a big crowd gathers on the Champs-Elysées to watch the festivities organised by the Mairie de Paris.

3 highlights for Year’s Eve 2023:

• From 10am, the first four arrondissements of Paris (Ier, IIe, IIIe and IVe) will be pedestrianised until midnight.
• 6pm: the Champs-Elysées are reserved for pedestrians
• From 10pm: a concert (or DJ set) which, according to Frédéric Hocquard, Paris City Council’s Deputy for Tourism and Nightlife, will “give pride of place to French artists”.
• A choral countdown to the stroke of midnight (a “countdown accompanied by pyrotechnic effects”)
• Midnight : “pyrotechnic show” fired from the Arc de Triomphe. Please note: this fireworks display is not comparable to the fireworks display fired from the Eiffel Tower on 14 July. It will last… just 8 minutes (broadcast live on BFM TV), whereas the Eiffel Tower fireworks will last almost half an hour…
• 4:00am: the Champs-Elysées reopened to traffic.

On 31 December 2022, almost 500,000 people were expected to descend on the Champs-Elysées, but in the end 1 million turned up. In other words, to see the show properly, you have to arrive well in advance and brave the cold, the light rain, the wind…
Note: the show is of course free.

What’s next? You kiss the cheek, get out a bottle of (plastic ;-)) champagne, talk with other people… but don’t wait too long, because either it’s raining or the atmosphere is getting a bit too boozy..

Finally, we’re going home, not by taxi – as you can imagine, taxis are rare – but by metro. The usual arrangements for New Year’s Eve: metro lines remain open all night (lines 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 and 14, with some stations closed), as do the night buses. The good news is that public transport is free from 5pm on 31 December 2023 to 12am on 1 January 2024.
– Free metro:

– Free suburbian train:

– Free bus: