Christmas markets in Berlin: 13 with 2026 dates, 3 without
Thirteen Christmas markets in Berlin have 2026 dates, three have none, two publish a price. Season runs 31 Oct to 10 Jan. For anyone planning ahead, Sept 2026.
The Christmas markets in Berlin start pouring Glühwein on 31 October, out by the tram tracks on Landsberger Allee, while the rest of the city is still handing out Halloween sweets.
Christmas markets in Berlin cluster on one opening date for a reason: 22 November 2026 is Totensonntag, and two of the four already open close for it. Six more open on Monday 23 November, the day after.
The short version
- Thirteen of the markets below have 2026 dates. Three have not announced one — Alexanderplatz, Potsdamer Platz and the Wintermünze.
- Some of the dates circulating online come from nobody official. Guides are filling the gaps with estimates, and several are simply last season’s dates with the year changed.
- Only two publish a price. Gendarmenmarkt is €2, free on weekday lunchtimes. Christmas Garden is a ticketed light trail from €16.90. Seven cost nothing, and seven have published no price at all.
- The Rotes Rathaus date exists — just not on the market’s own website, which still advertises 2025.
- Two official sources disagree by ten days on when the Gedächtniskirche market opens.
Every 2026 date we could confirm
Sixteen markets, checked on 11 September 2026. The last column is the one that took the work: who actually published the date.
| Market | District | 2026/27 dates | Entry | Date published by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weihnachts-Rummel, Landsberger Allee | Lichtenberg | 31 Oct – 27 Dec 2026 | Not stated | berlin.de |
| Historischer Weihnachtsmarkt, RAW-Gelände | Friedrichshain | 12 Nov – 22 Dec 2026 | Not stated | berlin.de |
| Christmas Garden, Botanischer Garten | Steglitz-Zehlendorf | 18 Nov 2026 – 10 Jan 2027 | From €16.90 | Operator |
| Wintermarkt am Humboldt Forum | Mitte | 18 Nov 2026 – 3 Jan 2027 | Free | berlin.de |
| WeihnachtsZauber Gendarmenmarkt | Mitte | 23 Nov – 31 Dec 2026 | €2 | Operator + berlin.de |
| Berliner Weihnachtszeit, Rotes Rathaus | Mitte | 23 Nov 2026 – 3 Jan 2027 | Free | Operator |
| Weihnachtsmarkt an der Gedächtniskirche | Charlottenburg | 23 Nov 2026 – 3 Jan 2027 (disputed) | Free | berlin.de |
| Spandauer Altstadt | Spandau | 23 Nov – 22 Dec 2026 | Free (no entry fee permitted) | Operator + berlin.de |
| Weihnachtsmarkt vor dem Schloss Charlottenburg | Charlottenburg | 23 Nov – 27 Dec 2026 | Free | Operator + berlin.de |
| Lucia Weihnachtsmarkt, KulturBrauerei | Prenzlauer Berg | 23 Nov – 22 Dec 2026 | Free | Operator + berlin.de |
| Umwelt- und Weihnachtsmarkt, Sophienstraße | Mitte | Advent weekends: 28–29 Nov, 5–6, 12–13, 19–20 Dec* | Free | berlin.de (*last date corrected — see “How we checked”) |
| Adventsmarkt, Domäne Dahlem | Steglitz-Zehlendorf | Advent weekends: 28–29 Nov, 5–6, 12–13, 19–20 Dec | Not stated for 2026 | berlin.de |
| Weihnachtsmarkt am Alexanderplatz | Mitte | Not published | — | — |
| Winterwelt am Potsdamer Platz | Mitte | Not published | — | — |
| Christmas Avenue | Schöneberg | From 24 Nov 2026 (berlin.de) or 4 Nov – 23 Dec 2026 (operator) — disputed | Not stated | The two disagree |
| Wintermünze, Alte Münze | Mitte | Not published | — | — |
The Sunday in November that catches everyone out
Sunday 22 November 2026 is Totensonntag — the German day of remembrance for the dead, and the last Sunday before Advent. Most of the English-language guides we checked print the dates without it. Of the four markets already running by then — five, if Christmas Avenue’s disputed 4 November start is the right one — berlin.de publishes a closure on exactly that date for two: the RAW-Gelände market and the Wintermarkt at the Humboldt Forum.
Not everything stops. Christmas Garden stays open on the 22nd — its closed dates that week are the 23rd and 24th — and it is a ticketed light trail rather than a market, which is probably the difference. The Weihnachts-Rummel has not published hours at all, so nobody can say. If the 22nd was the evening you had free, make it a board game café night instead.
It also explains the pile-up in the table. Six markets open on Monday 23 November — Gendarmenmarkt, the Rotes Rathaus, Spandau, Schloss Charlottenburg, Lucia and, if berlin.de is right, the Gedächtniskirche. Spandau’s own district office puts it plainly in its 2025–2028 call for market operators: on the Altstadt pedestrian streets a Christmas market may trade at the earliest from the Monday after Totensonntag, and nothing may be built on the day itself.
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Gendarmenmarkt, and how to get in free
The WeihnachtsZauber runs 23 November to 31 December 2026, on the Gendarmenmarkt itself. Hours are Sunday to Thursday 11:00–22:00 and Friday to Saturday 11:00–23:00; on Christmas Eve it closes at 18:00, and on New Year’s Eve it runs to midnight.
Entry is €2 — and free every weekday between 11:00 and 14:00, except on 24, 25, 26 and 31 December. Children under 12 are free throughout.
One warning, because it cost us an hour. The operator’s own homepage still carries a banner reading 24.11.–31.12.2025, while the footer of the same page gives the 2026 dates. berlin.de independently confirms 23 November to 31 December 2026, which is why we trust the footer. U2 Hausvogteiplatz or U6 Stadtmitte; dogs are not allowed in, guide dogs excepted.
The Rotes Rathaus date nobody can find
The Berliner Weihnachtszeit — the big one by the Neptunbrunnen with the ice rink and the Ferris wheel — is a small detective story.
Its own website still shows 24.11.2025 bis 30.12.2025 and a banner announcing that the 2025 edition will go ahead. berlin.de’s Mitte listing says flatly “Termin noch nicht bekannt” — date not yet known. But the market is run by Laubinger Event GmbH, and Laubinger’s own events page lists it as the 19th Berliner Weihnachtszeit, running 23.11.2026 to 3.01.2027, admission Kostenlos. The operator has published its date. Just not where you would look.
Which matters, because guides are filling the gap with estimates. One states “likely 24 November to 30 December 2026”; another prints 23 November to 30 December. No operator or city page publishes either, and the first is simply the 2025 dates with the year changed — wrong at both ends, by a day at the start and by four days at the finish. This market runs past New Year, and if you are still in Berlin on 2 January with nothing to do, that is worth knowing.
Skating round the Neptunbrunnen was €5.00 last season, with skate hire at €3.00. Those are last season’s prices and the operator has not republished them. S-Bahn Alexanderplatz, or U2 Klosterstraße.
Finding the date took three websites. Finding someone to go with should not. On MITRA you post the place and the time — “Rotes Rathaus, Tuesday, 7pm” — and someone joins. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store
The free ones, and the two that publish a price
Lucia, KulturBrauerei — 23 November to 22 December, free, Monday to Friday 15:00–22:00 and weekends 13:00–22:00. Nordic-themed and set in the KulturBrauerei’s brick courtyards, with a nostalgic chain carousel and a crossbow stall, and no Ferris wheel — the fifty-metre one is over at the Rotes Rathaus. U2 Eberswalder Straße.
Schloss Charlottenburg — 23 November to 27 December, free, Monday to Thursday 13:00–22:00 and Friday to Sunday 12:00–22:00, closed on 24 December. The lit palace behind the stalls does most of the work.
Spandauer Altstadt — 23 November to 22 December, Sunday to Thursday 11:00–20:00 and Friday to Saturday 11:00–22:00. It spreads across the Marktplatz, Reformationsplatz, Carl-Schurz-Straße and the town hall forecourt; the district office calls it one of the largest in Europe. Nobody publishes an entry price because nobody may charge one — the district’s own conditions for the site say the ground cannot be fenced off and entry fees are excluded. Those hours come from the operator’s trader rules; berlin.de still lists its opening times as not yet known.
Wintermarkt am Humboldt Forum — 18 November to 3 January, free, 11:00–22:00 daily, closed 22 November and 24 December. Part of it sits in the Schlüterhof courtyard, which at least puts walls on two sides. If the forecast is properly bad, there are better indoor options here.
Only two of the sixteen publish a price. Gendarmenmarkt’s €2 is covered above. The other is Christmas Garden, which is not really a Christmas market at all — it is a ticketed illuminated trail through the Botanical Garden, 18 November 2026 to 10 January 2027, on timed 20-minute entry slots from 16:20. Adults are €16.90 to €27.90 online depending on the date, and €29.90 at the gate. Children 6–14 are €12.90–€23.90; under-6s free. It is closed on eight dates, including 24 and 31 December. S1 to Botanischer Garten.
Book ahead and you save up to €13 against the gate price on the cheapest dates — though on the dearest dates the gap is only €2. The Domäne Dahlem market is ticketed too — it charged €4.50 last season with museum entry included — but berlin.de lists its 2026 entry as not yet known, so treat that figure as historical.
Where two official sources disagree
The market at the Gedächtniskirche on Breitscheidplatz has two primary sources and they do not match. berlin.de’s fact box says 23 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, free, opening hours “noch nicht bekannt”. The operator, the Schaustellerverband Berlin, publishes a 2026 trader registration form giving the run as 13.11.2026 to 01.01.2027. Ten days apart at the start, two at the end.
We cannot resolve it and will not pretend otherwise. The operator’s own visitor page is no help — it is still advertising the 2025 market. A trader form is a booking document drawn up months ahead, and 23 November matches most of the traditional markets in the city for the Totensonntag reason above. If you are planning around mid-November, check again nearer the time. Kurfürstendamm 237, free, U1 and U9 Kurfürstendamm.
What is not confirmed for 2026
As of 11 September 2026, these three have not announced a 2026 date you can plan around — and a fourth has two conflicting ones and a blank fact box.
- Weihnachtsmarkt am Alexanderplatz — berlin.de: “Termin noch nicht bekannt”. Dates are circulating anyway; we could not trace any of them to an operator or the city.
- Winterwelt am Potsdamer Platz — the operator’s page still describes the 31 October to 31 December 2025 run.
- Wintermünze at the Alte Münze — “Termin noch nicht bekannt”.
The fourth is Christmas Avenue, the queer market at Nollendorfplatz, and it is its own small mess. berlin.de’s fact box for it reads “Termin noch nicht bekannt” — while the prose on that same 2026 page says the LGBTQIA* Winterdays run 4 to 22 November and Christmas Avenue takes over on 24 November. The operator publishes a combined window of 4 November to 23 December 2026, in a call for stallholders and in its own social profile, but not in the opening-hours panel on its website, which still shows 2025. We have tabled both and marked it disputed. Admission is from age 16.
And one that is not coming back: Wintertraum am Alexa, between Jannowitzbrücke and Alexanderplatz, which berlin.de marks “Findet nicht mehr statt” — no longer takes place — after what the same page describes as more than fifty years on the spot.
There is a structural reason so much looks missing, and it is mildly absurd. berlin.de’s public Christmas pages are fully updated for 2026, but the list those pages point to for market organisers — the Senate economics department’s own register of Berlin and Brandenburg markets — still tells you it covers 2025.
Pick one row off that table, pick a date, post it. It takes about forty seconds, and it is a much smaller decision than deciding to “go out more”. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store
How we chose these Christmas markets in Berlin
Berlin runs over a hundred Christmas markets in a normal year, by berlin.de’s own count, and this is not all of them. We took the large central ones, the ones an English-speaking reader is likely to be sent to, and every market whose 2026 date turned out to be disputed, unpublished, or published somewhere nobody looks.
Inclusion had one test: a primary source — the operator’s own site, or berlin.de — either for the 2026 date, or for the absence of one. Nothing here comes from a listings aggregator, because cross-checking them is what turned up the year-swapping in the first place. Where a price or an opening time was not published, the table says “not stated” instead of importing last year’s figure.
If this is your first winter here, doing things alone is a normal Berlin skill and nothing to fix. A market is just one of the few where the second person changes the evening.
Questions people actually ask
When do Berlin Christmas markets open in 2026?
The first opens on 31 October 2026 — the Weihnachts-Rummel on Landsberger Allee in Lichtenberg. The RAW-Gelände market follows on 12 November, and both Christmas Garden and the Humboldt Forum Wintermarkt open on 18 November. The main cluster opens on Monday 23 November 2026: Gendarmenmarkt, the Rotes Rathaus, Spandau, Schloss Charlottenburg, Lucia and, according to berlin.de, the Gedächtniskirche.
Are Berlin Christmas markets free?
Mostly. Of the sixteen markets covered here, only two publish a 2026 price: WeihnachtsZauber Gendarmenmarkt at €2, and Christmas Garden from €16.90 online. Six publish free entry outright, and Spandau’s district conditions exclude entry fees altogether, so seven of the sixteen cost nothing. The remaining seven have published no price at all: four that list nothing, and the three that have not announced 2026 dates yet. Gendarmenmarkt is free on weekdays between 11:00 and 14:00, except on 24, 25, 26 and 31 December, and for children under 12 at any time.
Which Berlin Christmas markets are closed on 22 November 2026?
22 November 2026 is Totensonntag, the German day of remembrance for the dead and the last Sunday before Advent. berlin.de lists a closure on that exact date for two of the four markets with published dates that are already running: the RAW-Gelände market and the Humboldt Forum Wintermarkt. Christmas Garden, a ticketed light trail rather than a market, stays open. The Weihnachts-Rummel is also running by then but has published no hours at all, so its status for the day is unknown. Everything else with a published date has not opened yet — six markets open the following day, on 23 November.
Are Berlin Christmas markets open on Christmas Eve?
Some are, some are not. WeihnachtsZauber Gendarmenmarkt opens on 24 December but closes early, at 18:00. The Wintermarkt at the Humboldt Forum, the market at Schloss Charlottenburg and Christmas Garden are all closed that day. Spandau and Lucia have already finished — both end on 22 December.
Which Berlin Christmas markets are open after Christmas?
Seven of the sixteen here. The Weihnachts-Rummel on Landsberger Allee and the market at Schloss Charlottenburg both run to 27 December, WeihnachtsZauber Gendarmenmarkt to 31 December, the Humboldt Forum Wintermarkt and the Berliner Weihnachtszeit at the Rotes Rathaus to 3 January 2027, and Christmas Garden to 10 January 2027. The Gedächtniskirche market is the seventh — berlin.de lists it to 3 January 2027, and even its disputed operator date runs to 1 January.
What are the 2026 dates for the Alexanderplatz Christmas market?
They have not been published. berlin.de’s Mitte listing records the Alexanderplatz market as “Termin noch nicht bekannt” — date not yet known — as of 11 September 2026. Dates do appear on some listing sites, but they match no operator or city source we could find, so we have left the market in the table with no date rather than repeat them.
Want to keep reading?
- Berlin in October: what is on before the markets start
- Street food markets in Berlin, the rest of the year
- Best saunas in Berlin, the other way to survive winter
- Free things to do in Berlin
- Things to do in Berlin on a Sunday
Berlin’s Christmas season is longer and stranger than the postcard version. It opens on Halloween, two of the four markets already running shut for one Sunday in November, and three of the sixteen names here have still not announced a date. Take a date off the table, put it in the calendar, and check back in October for the three that have not.
So: install MITRA, post one of these as a plan, and see if someone joins. It is built around one plan at a time — if what you want is a standing weekly club with a fixed roster, it is the wrong tool. Berlin first, with Bucharest and more EU cities on the roadmap. Get MITRA on Google Play · Download on the App Store
How we checked
Every date, price and opening time for these Christmas markets in Berlin comes from the market operator’s own website or from berlin.de, the city’s official portal, read on 11 September 2026. Where an operator and berlin.de disagree, we give you both rather than picking the one that reads better — which is what happened with the Gedächtniskirche, and very nearly happened with Gendarmenmarkt.
One judgement call, since the table’s whole point is sourcing. berlin.de’s Sophienstraße entry prints its last Advent date as “21. Dezember”. 21 December 2026 is a Monday, the same page lists Saturday and Sunday hours only, and its own heading says “all Advent weekends” — so we have read it as a typo for Sunday 20 December, which is what the identically formatted Domäne Dahlem page prints.
Several sites publishing confident 2026 date lists for Berlin are quoting numbers no operator and no city page has published. We have left those out and told you which markets genuinely have not announced yet. Everything here expires: recheck in October, when the three blanks should fill in.
Sources
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/mitte/
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/5741424-3496862-weihnachtsrummel-winterzauber.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/5983209-3496862-historischer-weihnachtsmarkt-auf-dem-raw.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/8360550-3496862-weihnachtsmarkt-am-humboldt-forum.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3240274-3496862-weihnachtsmarkt-an-der-gedaechtniskirche.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3659027-3496862-umwelt-und-weihnachtsmarkt-in-der-sophie.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3250138-3496862-adventsmarkt-auf-der-domaene-dahlem.html
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/7897335-3496862-wintermuenze.html
- https://www.berlin.de/sen/web/service/maerkte-feste/weihnachtsmaerkte/
- https://www.weihnachtsmarkt-berlin.de/en/
- https://www.laubinger.de/event/berliner-weihnachtszeit/
- https://www.berlinerweihnachtszeit.de/oeffnungszeiten/
- https://www.berlinerweihnachtszeit.de/uebersicht/
- https://www.schaustellerverband-berlin.de/form_WManmeld_2026.html
- https://www.schaustellerverband-berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt-berlin.html
- https://partner-fuer-spandau.de/veranstaltungen/spandauer-weihnachtsmarkt-2026/287
- https://partner-fuer-spandau.de/haendler/marktordnungvertragsbedingungenagbs/113
- https://www.berlin.de/ba-spandau/ueber-den-bezirk/tourismus/sehenswertes/artikel.288600.php
- https://www.berlin.de/ba-spandau/politik-und-verwaltung/aemter/strassen-und-gruenflaechenamt/allgemeine-verwaltung/interessenbekundungsverfahren-spandauer-weihnachtsmarkt-2025-bis-2028-1482160.php
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3249571-3496862-spandauer-weihnachtsmarkt-in-der-altstad.html
- https://www.schloss-weihnachtsmarkt.de/
- https://www.spsg.de/en/news/events-single/weihnachtsmarkt-am-schloss-charlottenburg
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3240314-3496862-weihnachtsmarkt-am-schloss-charlottenbur.html
- https://www.lucia-weihnachtsmarkt.de/
- https://www.lucia-weihnachtsmarkt.de/visit/
- https://www.christmas-garden.de/berlin/tickets/
- https://www.christmas-garden.de/berlin/besuch/
- https://www.potsdamerplatz.de/de/events/winter-world/
- https://christmas-avenue.berlin/lgbtiq-winterdays/
- https://christmas-avenue.berlin/
- https://www.berlin.de/en/christmas-markets/5948422-3230598-christmas-avenue.en.html
- https://www.berlinerweihnachtszeit.de/
- https://www.lucia-weihnachtsmarkt.de/staende/
- https://www.berlin.de/weihnachtsmarkt/3240367-3496862-lucia-weihnachtsmarkt-in-der-kulturbraue.html
- https://www.domaene-dahlem.de/adventsmarkt/
