Málaga Cathedral in 2026 – the Rooftop Tour Is Closed Until 2027

If you came here to book the rooftop walk across the cathedral's cubiertas, stop: it is not running. The roof has been a building site since April 2024, the works are now forecast to finish in late 2027, and access to the roof has been suspended on safety grounds throughout. Third-party sites are still listing "cathedral plus rooftop" tickets for 2026, which is the reason this page opens the way it does.

Everything below the roof is open and working normally. Interior entry is €10 and includes the audio guide, a guided visit is €15, and there is a free half-hour first thing in the morning that comes with conditions worth understanding. Prices and hours were checked against the cathedral's own tariff page on 21 July 2026.

The rooftop tour is not running

The cubiertas visit was the cathedral's best ticket: a guided climb of roughly 200 steps up a narrow spiral staircase, out on to the vaulted roof, with the old town and the port laid out below. It is suspended while the roof itself is rebuilt.

The intervention began in April 2024 and passed its halfway point in January 2026. It is a full reconstruction: a new fire-resistant timber structure, comprehensive waterproofing, new lighting and fire-safety systems throughout. Reporting through late 2025 and into 2026 has pushed the completion date out to late 2027. Interior visits and services have continued the whole time; the roof has not.

For the elevated view you came for, the honest redirect is the hill on the other side of the old town: the free mirador below Gibralfaro castle, or one of the terraces around the centre. The viewpoints guide ranks them by what you actually see and what each one costs.

What you can book, and what it costs

Three official products, all covering the interior. The audio guide is included with the standard ticket rather than sold on top, which is unusual and is most of why €10 is fair.

Children under 13, visitors with a disability and Málaga residents enter free, though the free ticket covers the cathedral only and does not include the audio guide. Under-12s are free on the guided visit, and non-diocesan school groups under 12 pay €4. Note that the guided visit is exactly €5 above general entry, which is the cleanest way to think about whether a live guide is worth it to you.

Tickets are sold on the door and through the cathedral's own site under Visita cultural, on a ticketing platform run with a partner – there is no capacity cap and no reservation requirement, so walking up works outside the summer crush. Work down the list until a line fits.

1. If you came specifically for the rooftop

   It is closed, and nothing sold in 2026 can open it.

   The cubiertas have been suspended since the roof reconstruction started in April 2024, and the works now run to late 2027. Take the interior for €10 if you are here anyway, and get the height somewhere else.

   The free Gibralfaro viewpoint
2. If you want to see the interior and nothing more

   €10, and the audio guide comes with it.

   Eighteen points of commentary in several languages, included rather than upsold. Buy at the door or on the cathedral site. Allow 45 to 60 minutes if you use the guide as intended.

   Official cathedral tickets
3. If you would rather have a person than a handset

   The cathedral's own guided visit is €15.

   A €5 supplement over general entry for a live guide through the interior, run by the cathedral itself. Under-12s go free on this one. Departures are limited, so ask at the desk about the next slot before you commit.

4. If you want a guide in English and you want it fixed now

   The skip-the-line tour runs €24.

   1.5 hours with a local guide, the cathedral ticket included and the queue skipped, free cancellation up to 24 hours before, and step-free. The €9 over the cathedral's own guided visit buys a confirmed English departure you book today instead of asking at the desk.

   Check tour availability

Opening hours, and the half-hour nobody charges for

Tourist hours move three times a year, and Saturdays and Sundays are shorter than people expect:

Last access is 45 minutes before closing and the building is cleared 10 minutes before, so the final admission is tighter than the headline hour suggests. One inconsistency to know about: the cathedral's English page gives a simplified schedule opening at 10:00, while the Spanish tariff page gives the seasonal times above starting at 10:30. Turn up for 10:30 and you cannot be caught out.

There is a genuinely free window, but it is not a free tour. The cathedral opens for worship from 08:30 to 09:00 Monday to Saturday and 08:30 to 09:30 on Sunday, and entry during that slot is free. It is intended for people coming to pray: no audio guide, no wandering the chapels with a camera.

Go if you want to sit in the space at its quietest, and behave accordingly. Unlike the Alcazaba up the road, there is no weekly free sightseeing window here.

Two more things that close the doors on you. Tourist visits stop during services on Saturdays and Sundays, which is the usual reason people find themselves turned away mid-afternoon at a weekend. And over the holidays the cathedral shuts completely on 25 December and 1 January, with shortened hours on 24 and 31 December and 6 January.

What €10 actually buys inside

The interior is the argument for the ticket, and it is a much bigger, much richer building than the truncated facade prepares you for. Construction began in 1528 on the site of the city's main mosque and continued, expensively and intermittently, for over 250 years, which is why the nave reads as Renaissance with Baroque bolted on. That is exactly what it is.

The choir is the thing to give time to: three tiers of carved wooden stalls, dozens of figures, some of the finest work of its kind in southern Spain. This is where the included audio guide earns its keep, because the iconography is illegible without it.

Eighteen chapels run down the nave, each with its own altar and character, and the guide covers 18 points across the building – budget 45 to 60 minutes to do it properly rather than walking a loop in fifteen.

What stays with most people is not any single object but the light: high windows, enormous vaults, and the contrast between the clean columns and the density of the chapels. It is one of the few interiors in the city that rewards sitting down for ten minutes and doing nothing.

No, they are not finishing the tower

The south tower stopped at the roofline in 1782 and never went any further. The popular story is that the money went to support the American War of Independence; historians argue about how much of that is documented and how much is civic legend.

The north tower reached 84 metres, and the lopsided silhouette gave the building its nickname, La Manquita – the one-armed woman – which the city adopted with something closer to affection than embarrassment.

The current works have raised hopes locally that this is finally being fixed. It is not. Alongside the roof, the project includes building the pediment that closes the top of the main facade, a piece unbuilt for around 250 years and begun in 2026, plus the sculptural groups and the sacristy roof. None of it adds a second tower. La Manquita stays one-armed, and the city would probably riot if it did not.

Once you are done, the streets immediately around the building are the best part of the old town – Plaza del Obispo, the lanes behind the apse, Calle Larios two minutes away. The rest of the city's historic sites sit within a fifteen-minute walk. Dress for a working church: shoulders and knees covered, and a light scarf handles it in August.

FAQ – Málaga Cathedral in 2026