El Badi Palace And The Saadian Tombs: What Is Free, What Costs Money

El Badi Palace and the Saadian Tombs are two of the handful of Marrakech monuments that almost every visitor has heard of, and they sit in the same Kasbah corner of the city, close enough that people usually pair them in one morning. Both charge the same official ticket price, both are run through the Ministry of Culture's ticketing, and both carry the same common misunderstanding about free Fridays. That misunderstanding trips up a lot of budgets, because the free Friday entry that circulates in travel forums applies to Moroccan nationals only, never to foreign visitors.

Part of the Free Things To Do In Marrakech guides, this page lays out what each monument costs, what genuinely costs nothing in the streets around them, and which of the 13 free walking tours on this site meet within reach of the Kasbah district.

Quick Facts

What Is El Badi Palace And The Saadian Tombs?

El Badi Palace is a ruined royal palace of vast sunken courtyards and stork-topped walls in the Kasbah district, and the Saadian Tombs are a walled burial ground of the Saadian dynasty a short distance away. Both are Ministry of Culture monuments, both reopened in October 2023 after the September 2023 earthquake, and restoration works continue at both, so scaffolding or restricted sections can appear on a visit. Neither is a free site for foreign visitors.

Both monuments belong to the same ticketing system, the Ministry of Culture's online platform, which went live on 3 April 2025 and sells one ticket per monument. There is no unified pass that bundles them together, so a visitor paying to see both pays two separate adult tickets of 100 MAD each. That platform detail matters because a cluster of lookalike reseller websites sell "official" tickets at marked-up prices, and the Ministry's own e-services site is the only place where the genuine 30 to 60 MAD Moroccan-rate tickets appear for its sites.

The two sites are usually described together in guidebooks, but they are different kinds of place. El Badi is an open-air ruin: walls, terraces, excavated pits and ramps rather than furnished rooms, visited mostly for its scale. The Saadian Tombs are compact, a small enclosed garden of decorated mausoleums that visitors move through in a short loop. People often ask how long the Bahia Palace takes when planning the same district, and the same planning logic applies here: the tombs are the shorter stop of this pair by their nature as sites, though no fixed visit duration is published for either.

One thing worth knowing before you stand at either gate: both monuments were damaged in the September 2023 earthquake and reopened in October 2023 after securing works. Restoration continues, and no completion date or restoration percentage should be trusted in casual sources, because the figures that circulate are estimates from state reporting rather than announcements. Scaffolding on parts of a monument is normal here, not a sign of closure.

The immediate surroundings are a different story from the monuments themselves. The Kasbah district around both sites is a living neighbourhood of ochre walls and narrow lanes, entirely free to walk, and the ramparts that enclose it, including the gate of Bab Agnaou, can be seen from the street at any hour with no ticket. Some stretches of the ramparts may carry scaffolding for the same restoration reasons. This split, ticketed monument inside and free historic streets outside, is the honest frame for the whole district, and it is the frame the rest of this guide uses.

What Is Free And What Costs Money?

The monuments themselves cost foreign adults 100 MAD each, children 7 to 13 pay 50 MAD, and Moroccan or resident adults 30 MAD with a document. Everything on the street between and around them, the Kasbah lanes, Bab Agnaou, the ramparts and the Mellah quarter, is free to walk. The Friday free-entry rule at these Ministry of Culture sites is for Moroccan nationals only, and no combined pass exists.

Start with the paid side, because it is simple and official. El Badi Palace and the Saadian Tombs carry identical Ministry of Culture pricing: 100 MAD for a foreign adult, 50 MAD for a foreign child aged 7 to 13, and 30 MAD for Moroccan or resident adults, with children at 10 MAD. The 30 MAD rate requires a Moroccan or residence document, so a foreign visitor without one cannot access it. The Ministry of Culture's own ticketing platform is where those rates are published and where online tickets are sold, one monument per transaction.

The free side is larger than most people expect. The walk between the two monuments runs through the Kasbah and past Bab Agnaou, one of the city's carved gates, and along rampart walls that are public at any hour. South and east of the Kasbah lies the Mellah, the historic Jewish quarter, whose streets and market lanes cost nothing to explore; the Lazama Synagogue and the Miaara Cemetery inside it are separate sites whose fees are not published here, so treat them as their own questions rather than as part of a free streets walk. The Mellah and Jewish quarter guide covers that district in detail.

Two traps sit inside this section and deserve their own sentences. First, the free Fridays: Bahia Palace, El Badi Palace, the Saadian Tombs and the Almoravid Koubba let Moroccan nationals in free on Fridays and on the first day of national and religious holidays. That rule has never applied to foreign visitors, who pay the standard rate every day. Second, the tanneries near Bab Debbagh are sometimes listed as a free stop in this district: there is no tariff, but the usual viewing spot is a leather shop terrace where a tip or purchase is expected, and "it is closed today, I will guide you" is a known line, so never count the tanneries as simply free.

If the budget question is "which Marrakech monuments are actually free", the honest answer is that none of the ticketed palaces and tombs are, and the free experiences are the streets, squares, gates and gardens that never charged. The museums guide runs the same free-versus-paid split for the city's museums, where a couple of the same traps recur.

When Is The Best Time To Go?

The best time to go is late afternoon, when the free streets around the Kasbah are at their most active, though for the ticketed monuments you should simply buy or collect a ticket for whatever hour suits you, since no opening hours are published reliably beyond the Ministry's own ticketing pages. The surrounding lanes, Bab Agnaou and the ramparts are free at any hour, so the walk itself stays flexible.

The scheduling question people actually ask is whether to pair the two monuments in one block. Since both take the same ticket rate and sit in the same district, buying both tickets online through the Ministry platform in advance removes the queue variable at the gate, and the platform has sold tickets per monument since April 2025. There is no time-slot bundling between them, so the pairing is entirely your own to arrange. Everything else covered here is indexed on Free Things To Do In Marrakech.

Between the two monuments, the free part of the district fills the gaps. Jemaa el-Fnaa, the great square to the north, is open around the clock and costs nothing, though its performers, musicians and food stalls work for tips and sales, and photographs with performers, snake charmers or monkey handlers come with an ask for money. The Jemaa el-Fna entry and costs guide unpacks that square's economy. Evening is when the square's food stalls set up, and the night-time district has its own character, covered in the Marrakech at Night guide, which also lists the free night walks that meet after dark.

The season question is harder to answer with published data, and this site will not invent weather claims. Restoration works have continued at both monuments since they reopened in October 2023, so scaffolding can appear at any time of year, and a stretch of the ramparts may carry it too. If seeing the monuments unobstructed matters to you, the only reliable method is to check the Ministry platform when buying, since it is the operator of both sites and the source of any closure notices. The national museums foundation plays the same role for the museum sites in this district, such as Dar El Bacha.

One timing note that is pure fact rather than advice: the Moroccan free-entry days, Fridays and the first day of national and religious holidays, are the days when Moroccan visitor numbers at these monuments are highest by design of the policy. Nothing published says the monuments are busier or quieter overall on any day, and this site does not guess at crowd patterns. What can be said is that the free streets around them never close and never charge, so a walk through the Kasbah, past Bab Agnaou and into the Mellah is available at whatever hour suits you.

Where Do Free Walking Tours Meet Nearby?

The free, pay-what-you-want walks on this site gather at the Koutoubia and at Jemaa el-Fnaa, both north of the Kasbah district that holds El Badi Palace and the Saadian Tombs, so a guided walk fits naturally before or after a monument visit. Thirteen free walking tours are listed here, and several meeting points sit a short walk from the Kasbah.

The nearest cluster of meeting points sits at the Koutoubia, on the west side of the medina. Unveiling the Secrets of Marrakech, a free tour, meets at the white dome on Koutoubia square, runs 2 hours 15 minutes in English, and is rated 4.91 out of 5 across 1,171 GuruWalk reviews, with no extra costs flagged. Mustapha's walk, the Half Day Walking City Tour of Marrakech's Medina, meets at Koutoubia Mosque square, runs 2 hours, and carries 4.9 out of 5 across 987 GuruWalk reviews; it is free to join but the GuruWalk page flags possible extra costs such as entrance fees, so any monument entered along the way is your own ticket.

At the same square, the foot of the Koutoubia minaret, Jalil's Local Experience in Marrakech Medina meets for a 2 hour 30 minute English walk rated 4.59 out of 5 across 301 GuruWalk reviews, also with possible extra costs flagged. Jamal's Guided Tours of the City of Marrakech, the longest at 4 hours, meets at Koutoubia Mosque next to the Kubba Fatima Zohra and is rated 4.63 out of 5 across 275 GuruWalk reviews, with extra costs flagged. Each walk's route is described on its own GuruWalk or freetour.com page as the guide or operator gives it, and the order on the day can change. Treat the meeting point as the fixed fact and the walk's own page as the place where its content is described.

The Jemaa el-Fnaa cluster is the other natural fit. The Free Tour Marrakech: Old City Secrets walk, listed on freetour.com, meets at Cafe Restaurant Le Samovar and runs 2 hours 45 minutes, rated 9.6 out of 10 across 938 freetour.com reviews. The Medina Walk From Jemaa El-Fnaa meets at the main square itself, 2 hours 30 minutes, rated 4.85 out of 5 across 235 GuruWalk reviews. Youssef's Marrakech essential City Guide, the walk with the largest review pool on the GuruWalk side, meets at the white shrine near the Koutoubia and is rated 4.78 out of 5 across 1,173 GuruWalk reviews over 2 hours 30 minutes.

Every one of these walks is free, pay what you want, reserved on its platform, and run by an independent local guide; this site operates nothing and is not affiliated with GuruWalk or freetour.com. Four of the English walks, including Mustapha's and Jalil's above, carry a flag on their GuruWalk pages that extras such as entrance fees may cost money, and where that flag exists it is stated beside the walk, never an amount. If pairing a walk with the Kasbah monuments, that flag is the fact that matters: a free walk and a 100 MAD palace ticket are separate things, and a walk that enters monuments passes its own gate prices to you.

Mistakes That Trip People Up At El Badi Palace And The Saadian Tombs

The four common mistakes are believing free Fridays apply to foreign visitors, buying tickets from lookalike reseller websites, counting the tanneries as a free stop, and assuming the monuments are fully restored. Free entry on Fridays and holidays is a Moroccan-national policy, reseller domains sell marked-up tickets, the tanneries carry a tip expectation, and restoration has continued since October 2023 with no completion date published.

The Friday mistake is the most expensive. The rule at Bahia, El Badi, the Saadian Tombs and the Almoravid Koubba is that Moroccan nationals enter free on Fridays and the first day of national and religious holidays. Foreign visitors pay 100 MAD on those days exactly as on every other day, and the 30 MAD rate needs a Moroccan or residence document. Anyone who tells a foreign visitor otherwise at the gate is mistaken or selling something.

The reseller mistake follows directly from the first. Sites with official-looking domain names sell tickets to these monuments at prices above the Ministry's rates, and they appear high in search results precisely because the genuine platform is a government e-services page. The Ministry of Culture's own site is the source of the 30 to 60 MAD rates across Moroccan sites and the only place those appear for these monuments. A foreign adult ticket bought anywhere else costs more than the 100 MAD gate rate it claims to save you from.

The third mistake is the tanneries. Near Bab Debbagh, in this same district, the tanneries are described in many blog posts as a free attraction. There is no tariff, but the pits are a working area normally viewed from a leather shop terrace where staff expect a tip or a purchase, and the "it is closed today, I will guide you" line is the known scam pattern. Counting the tanneries in a free Marrakech itinerary without those conditions is how people end up paying without planning to. The scams and fake guides guide covers the wider pattern.

The fourth mistake is expecting finished monuments. Both sites reopened in October 2023 after the September 2023 earthquake, and securing works came first, restoration after. Scaffolding and restricted sections are part of the current reality of these sites and of some rampart stretches, and no source publishes a completion date. Anyone selling a "fully restored" experience is ahead of the facts. Plan for the free streets as the reliable half of the day and the monuments as the ticketed, still-working half, and the district delivers exactly what it promises.

Common Questions About El Badi Palace And The Saadian Tombs