A Guide to 9 Christmas Markets in Paris You’ll Want to Visit Broken Down by Arrondissement

Paris is wonderful at any time of year, but at Christmas it’s simply magical. From the sparkling lights hanging above the streets and the displays in the shop windows, to skating under the stars on a rooftop ice rink, there’s no place like the City of Lights during the festive season. And you’ll find plenty of markets to enjoy as well.

The Paris Christmas markets pop up across the city from late November, turning squares and gardens into clusters of lit-up stalls selling everything from Alsatian gingerbread to handmade jewelry. It’s mulled wine in one hand, and a paper cone of hot chestnuts in the other.

From the grand spectacle at the Tuileries to the smaller market in the hills of Montmartre, there are some worth visiting and some that really aren’t. So, how do you plan your Paris Christmas visit to include the best markets?

3 Fun Paris Christmas Tours

9 Christmas Markets in Paris

Here’s your guide to the Christmas markets in Paris, organized by arrondissement, so you know exactly which ones deserve your time and which ones to skip.

1st Arrondissement: Tuileries Christmas Market

This is the big one. I went there two years ago with my daughter, and it was busy. The Tuileries Christmas Market stretches almost half a mile along the north side of the garden, from Place de la Concorde down toward the Louvre. You’ll see the giant Ferris wheel from blocks away.

It opened in 2018, when the market moved from the Champs-Élysées to the Tuileries Garden. 

The garden itself dates back to 1564, when Catherine de Medici built it as part of her new palace after her husband, Henry II, died. 

She wanted something that reminded her of Florence, so she hired an Italian architect to create an Italian Renaissance garden complete with fountains and a labyrinth. A century later, Louis XIV hated the Italian look and had André Le Nôtre redesign the whole thing into the formal French garden you see today.

There are around 80 wooden chalets selling French handicrafts, jewelry, and Christmas decorations. You’ll find raclette stands, crêpe stalls, and enough vin chaud to warm half of Paris. The food focus this year means new vendors and specialty items you won’t find at the smaller markets.

There’s a 250-square-meter ice skating rink, dozens of carnival rides, including bumper cars and a haunted house, and that enormous Ferris wheel giving you views across Paris. Kids can meet Santa in his grotto. We enjoyed sipping a glass of bubbly at the Pommery Champagne bar set up specifically for the market.

It gets packed on weekends, especially between 2 pm and 5 pm. Go early if you can stand the crowds, or show up around 6 pm when the lights come on. The market runs from November 15, 2025, to January 4, 2026.

How to get there: Metro Tuileries (Line 1) or Concorde (Lines 1, 8, 12)

1st Arrondissement: Les Halles Christmas Market

The Les Halles market is in the Forum des Halles shopping center under the glass canopy. You’ll find around 10 wooden chalets on street level, plus a 20-meter Christmas tree that stands in the center of the complex.

Les Halles has been Paris’s market hub since 1135, when Louis VI decided the city needed a proper food market. For 800 years, this was where Paris bought its meat, fish, and vegetables. The famous glass and iron pavilions went up in the 1850s, designed by Victor Baltard. 

In 1969, the whole operation moved out to Rungis, and the city tore down Baltard’s structures despite protests. They built an underground shopping center that everyone hated, then rebuilt it again in 2016 with La Canopée, the undulating glass roof you see today.

The Saint Eustache church towers over the market square. It dates back to 1532, though a chapel has stood on this spot since 1213. The church was built for the market workers and merchants of Les Halles. Louis XIV made his first communion here. Molière and Richelieu were baptized here. It has the largest pipe organ in France with 8,000 pipes.

The Christmas market here is smaller than most, but it’s convenient if you’re already shopping at the Forum or visiting Saint Eustache. There’s also an ice rink set up inside the Forum during December. It typically runs from mid-November through late December.

How to get there: Metro Les Halles (Line 4), or RER A, B, D at Châtelet-Les Halles

4th Arrondissement: Hôtel de Ville Christmas Market

The square in front of the Hôtel de Ville fills with fir trees every December, turning the plaza into a forest of lights. The market opened here in past years with wooden chalets selling Made in Paris gifts, a vintage carousel for kids, and the occasional rock climbing wall.

The Christmas market here is named La Forêt Enchantée, the Enchanted Forest. Blue and white lights project across the ornate facade after dark. There are free activities for kids, food stalls selling crêpes and tartiflette, and gifts starting around ten euros. 

It’s smaller than the Tuileries market but prettier, especially in the evenings when the building lights up. The market runs from December 5, 2025, to January 4, 2026.

The Story Behind Hôtel de Ville Christmas Market

The site has been Paris’s government headquarters since 1357. King Francis I commissioned the Renaissance building you see today in 1533, and it took until 1628 to finish. The Paris Commune burned it to the ground in 1871, taking all the city archives with it. They rebuilt it between 1874 and 1882, keeping the original Renaissance design on the outside but modernizing everything inside.

The plaza in front was called Place de Grève, meaning “strand” or “riverbank,” because this was Paris’s main port. It was also the execution site. The first guillotine went up here in 1792. Louis XVI appeared on the balcony in July 1789 wearing a revolutionary tricolor cockade. Robespierre was arrested here in 1794. Charles de Gaulle gave his liberation speech from a window in 1944.

How to get there: Metro Hôtel de Ville (Lines 1, 11)

5th Arrondissement: Notre Dame Christmas Market

The market is in Square René Viviani with around 40 white-tented stalls forming a circle around the central bronze fountain. You can see Notre Dame’s towers rising behind the chalets.

The market focuses on Made in France products. The L’Art et la Seine association runs it and selects every vendor, so no two stalls sell the same thing. You’ll find handmade jewelry, ceramics, textiles, regional foods like foie gras and macarons, and plenty of vin chaud. Santa shows up daily for photos. There are free drawing workshops for kids, and musicians perform throughout the day.

It runs from November 28 to December 25, 2025. It opens at 10 am and closes at 8 pm, staying open until 9 pm on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

The Story Behind the Notre Dame Christmas Market

The square opened to the public in 1928 on what was originally a Merovingian cemetery. The church next door dates back to 1170, built on the ruins of a 6th-century church destroyed by the Normans in 886. It’s one of the oldest churches in Paris.Shakespeare and Company bookshop, my favorite Paris bookshop,sits just around the corner on Rue de la Bûcherie.

The oldest tree in Paris stands in this square. Jean Robin, botanist to King Henry IV, planted the black locust tree in 1601 from a seed brought back from the Appalachian Mountains. The tree is 15 meters tall now, held up by concrete supports after it was damaged by a shell in World War I. It blooms every spring and has been standing here for over 400 years.

How to get there: Metro Saint Michel (Line 4), or RER B and C at Saint Michel Notre Dame

6th Arrondissement: Saint-Germain-des-Prés Christmas Market

Around 40 wooden chalets line Boulevard Saint Germain right next to the Église Saint Germain des Prés. The market has been here for over 20 years, running straight along the sidewalk without any enclosure or separate entrance.

This market focuses on luxury items and gourmet products. You’ll find fine leather bags, handcrafted jewelry, caviar, truffles, foie gras, and artisanal chocolates. The prices are actually reasonable despite the high quality. Vendors sell scented candles, glass Christmas ornaments, leather notebooks, and specialty items like marrons glacés from Southern France.

The stalls mainly sit along the north side of the boulevard. There’s vin chaud and roasted chestnuts like everywhere else, but also tartiflette, golden pretzels, and other winter foods. The whole thing lights up at night when the chalets glow against the dark stone of the church.

The market runs from November 25, 2025, to January 1, 2026.

The Story Behind the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Christmas Market

The church behind the market is the oldest in Paris, consecrated in 543. It started as an abbey church in the 6th century, then became the parish church after the Revolution. The neighborhood got its name from this church. 

In the 20th century, the cafés around here became headquarters for existentialist philosophers and writers. Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ernest Hemingway sat in Les Deux Magots and Café de Flore, just across the street from where the market sets up now.

How to get there: Metro Saint Germain des Prés (Line 4)

10th Arrondissement: Alsace Christmas Market at Gare de l’Est

From November 28 to December 14, 2025, about 15 Alsatian producers and artisans arrive from the Vosges mountains and the Rhine valley to fill the station forecourt with wooden chalets under a big tent. 

Everything here comes straight from Alsace. You’ll find charcuterie from Geismar in Turckheim, Munster cheese from Christlesgut farm in Breitenbach, and pretzels from Maison Alsacienne du Biscuit. There’s kougelhopf (the region’s signature bundt cake), bredele cookies, gingerbread from Fortwenger, and fresh pasta and spätzle. 

The Lucien Doriath stand packages duck foie gras in elegant boxes, while Les Jardins d’Alsace sells terrines, jams, and pâtés. For drinks, you’re looking at Alsatian wines (Grands Crus, crémant, riesling, gewurztraminer, pinot noir), plus eaux-de-vie and even Alsatian whisky.

Free tastings happen daily, with a different specialty featured each day. The market runs from November 28 to December 14, 2025

The Story Behind the Christmas Markets at Gare de l’Est

The Gare de l’Est opened in 1849 as the Embarcadère de Strasbourg. Napoleon III himself inaugurated the station in 1850, and its whole purpose was to connect Paris with Strasbourg and the Alsace region. 

The architect François Duquesnay designed the original building, which was expanded by 1854 when service reached Mulhouse. By 1931, the station had doubled in size to handle all the trains heading east.

On October 4, 1883, the very first Orient Express departed from this station, bound for Istanbul. During World War I, thousands of French soldiers left from here for the battlefields at Verdun. Today, if you look up at the west facade, you’ll see a statue representing Strasbourg, while the east end has one for Verdun. Both cities shaped the station’s identity.

So it makes perfect sense that Paris’s oldest Alsatian Christmas market has been setting up here for 43 years running.

How to get there: Metro Gare de l’Est (Lines 4, 5, 7)

18th Arrondissement: Montmartre Christmas Market

This is my favorite of all the Paris Christmas markets, as to me Montmartre is simply magical, and Christmas just takes it up another notch. From November 21, 2025, to January 4, 2026, about 20 wooden chalets fill the square for the Montmartre Christmas Market. 

This one’s different from the big commercial markets. Everything here is 100% Made in France, sold by local artisans and producers. You’ll find jewelry, pottery, hand-knit scarves, Christmas decorations, and artisanal products that aren’t mass produced.

The food stalls focus on regional French specialties. There’s honey from Paris, foie gras from Périgord, pretzels from Alsace, raclette and tartiflette from Savoie, tapenades from Provence, and French cheeses. Plus the usual mulled wine and roasted chestnuts. A vintage carousel spins for kids, and Santa shows up on weekends.

It’s small and has that bohemian neighborhood feel you’d expect from Montmartre. After you’re done at the market, the Sacré Coeur is just a few blocks uphill, and the Wall of Love in Square Jehan Rictus is right next to the square.

The Story Behind the Montmartre Christmas Market

Place des Abbesses takes its name from the 46 abbesses who ran the Abbey of the Dames de Montmartre between the 12th and 18th centuries. 

King Louis VI and Queen Adélaïde of Savoy founded the abbey in 1130. The Benedictine nuns held significant religious and cultural power in the area for over 600 years until the Revolution came along. In 1792, the Revolutionary government sold the abbey buildings as national property, and they were demolished shortly after.

The square today sits at the foot of the Montmartre hill, with that famous Art Nouveau metro entrance. Hector Guimard designed it in 1900, though it started life at Hôtel de Ville station before being moved here in 1974. It’s one of only three remaining glass canopied metro entrances in Paris. 

The station itself opened in 1913 and goes down 36 meters underground, making it the deepest metro stationin the city. You can take the elevator or climb 176 steps up a spiral staircase painted with murals of Montmartre scenes.

How to get there: Metro Abbesses (Line 12)

19th Arrondissement: La Villette Christmas Market

From November 20 to December 28, 2025, a Swiss Christmas Village takes over the Place de la Fontaine-aux-Lions in the park, La Villette Christmas Market. This is its first year in Paris after seven successful editions in Switzerland.

More than 100 wooden chalets sell artisan crafts, gourmet treats, and Swiss-made products, arranged along pathways rather than in straight rows, giving it an actual village feel.

There’s a traditional Swiss fondue chalet with a fireplace where you can sit down for classic or vegan fondue with wine and digestifs. The chalet seats 120 people. Other food includes raclette, mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, and regional specialties. 

A 2,100-square-foot ice skating rink, curling track, ski simulator, and climbing wall cover the winter sports side. Kids get creative workshops for Christmas cards and decorations, face painting, balloon sculpting, and visits from Santa. There’s a Ferris wheel, carousel, and concerts.

The organizers behind this market also run Zurich’s Wienachtsdorf at Bellevue, and Geneva’s Noël au Quai, both ranked among Europe’s most popular Christmas markets

The Story Behind La Villette Christmas Market

In 1865, Baron Haussmann decided that Paris needed to consolidate its scattered slaughterhouses into a single location. He chose La Villette in the 19th arrondissement, where Napoleon III had the massive complex built on 39 hectares alongside the Canal de l’Ourcq. Architect Jules de Mérindol designed the Grande Halle aux Boeufs, a cast iron and glass structure that covered 20,000 square meters. It opened in 1867.

At its peak around 1900, the slaughterhouse processed 23,000 sheep and 5,000 cattle daily. Up to 4 million animals passed through every year. Butchers nicknamed the area “the City of Blood.” Two train stations on the Petite Ceinture railway line supplied the complex with livestock. The Fontaine aux Lions, which now sits in the plaza, originally served as a drinking trough for the cattle.

By the 1950s, refrigeration made it cheaper to slaughter animals at breeding farms rather than transporting them into Paris. Operations dwindled through the 1960s, and on March 15, 1974, the last cow went through the slaughterhouse. The government shut it down for good.

In 1979, they created a public institution to transform the 55-hectare site into a cultural park. Bernard Tschumi won an international design competition in 1983 and built the park between 1984 and 1987. The Grande Halle was restored and reopened in 1985 as an exhibition and concert venue.

The Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, now the largest science museum in Europe, opened in 1986. The Zénith concert hall seats 6,000 people. The park added the Philharmonie de Paris in 2015.

How to get there: Metro Porte de Pantin (Line 5), Porte de la Villette (Line 7)

La Défense Christmas Market

From November 13 to December 28, 2025, the esplanade in front of the Grande Arche turns into the largest Christmas market in the Paris region, La Défense. This is the 30th year they’ve done it, and it pulls in about 1.5 million visitors. 

More than 300 wooden chalets spread across the plaza, selling everything from handmade jewelry and ceramics to regional French foods and international specialties. There’s a 1,000-square-meter gift shop if you need to knock out your whole Christmas list in one go.

The food here is supposedly better than at most Paris Christmas markets. You’ll find Alsatian wursts and tarte flambée, tartiflette and raclette from Savoie, soups, regional cheeses, foie gras, and specialties from Quebec (they feature a guest region each year). Six food tents serve sit-down meals if you want something more substantial than street food.

There’s a 540-square-meter ice skating rink, carnival rides, DJ sets on Friday evenings, creative workshops for families, and Santa shows up daily. On December 10, the Paw Patrol characters make an appearance. The market also runs sustainably with LED lighting, unheated chalets, and reusable cups.

The Story Behind La Défense Christmas Market

La Défense isn’t technically in Paris. It sits just west of the city limits in Puteaux, but it’s on Metro Line 1, so you can get there in about eight minutes from the Arc de Triomphe. The business district began to develop in the 1960s as a cluster of high-rise office towers for major corporations. 

By the 1980s, President François Mitterrand wanted something iconic to anchor the western end of Paris’s historic axis. This line runs from the Louvre through the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe.

In 1982, Mitterrand launched an international competition called Tête Défense. Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen won with his design for a giant hollow cube, a modern arch to complement the Arc de Triomphe and the Arc de Carrousel near the Louvre. 

Construction started in 1985. Spreckelsen resigned a year later due to the technical difficulties of building something that massive, and he died in 1987 before it was finished. French architect Paul Andreu took over and completed it.

The Grande Arche opened on July 14, 1989, for the bicentennial of the French Revolution. It stands 110 meters tall and could fit Notre Dame inside its opening. The arch sits at a 6.33-degree angle off the historic axis because there’s a metro station, an RER station, and a motorway running directly underneath it. The foundations had to work around all that underground infrastructure.

How to get there: Metro La Défense – Grande Arche (Line 1), RER A, Tram T2