🏛️ US Capitol

The Capitol is open for tours Monday through Saturday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, with groups departing every few minutes. It is closed on Sundays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, and Inauguration Day.

• Book ahead. Reserve free timed tour passes online through the Capitol Visitor Center, especially from March through July when school groups fill the calendar. A limited number of same-day passes are released at the Visitor Center each morning, but they vanish fast in peak season.
• Arrive early. The 8:30–9:00 AM tours have the smallest groups and the shortest security lines; by late morning the queue at the underground entrance can stretch outdoors.
• Budget for security. Everyone passes through airport-style screening, and there is no bag storage, so travel light — oversized bags, food, and liquids are turned away at the door.
• To watch a floor debate, request separate gallery passes from your U.S. representative's or senator's office; these admit you to the public galleries above the chambers only when Congress is in session.

Allow at least 90 minutes for the film, the Exhibition Hall, and the guided walk through the historic core, and more if you plan to add the Library of Congress or the galleries.

The Capitol itself costs nothing to visit:

• Guided Capitol tour: completely free, including the Visitor Center's Exhibition Hall and the orientation film.
• Gallery passes: free, obtained through your member of Congress's office.
• Library of Congress: free entry and free tours of the world's largest library, just across the plaza.
• Supreme Court: free; you can hear courtroom lectures when the Court is not sitting.

Where money enters is with private, licensed guiding on Capitol Hill:

• Group Capitol Hill tours: $30–50 per person for 2-hour walks covering the Capitol exterior, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress.
• Private Capitol Hill guide: $250–450 for a half-day experience linking all three buildings, often paired with the eastern end of the National Mall.

Because the admission fees are zero, a guide's fee buys interpretation and access logistics rather than entry — value that rises sharply once you understand how little the free tour's script explains.

The Capitol's free tour is genuinely good, but it is deliberately broad: a 50-minute loop through the Crypt, Rotunda, and Statuary Hall that must serve everyone from first-graders to foreign heads of state. A specialist guide fills in what that script cannot, and handles the logistics that trip up independent visitors.

• The parts the free tour skips. The Old Senate Chamber, the Old Supreme Court Chamber, and the Brumidi Corridors are not on the standard route; a guide who knows the building's rhythm can time your visit to catch the ones open that day.
• How a bill actually moves. Guides with a policy background trace the path from committee markup to floor vote to conference, pointing out the very rooms and lobbies where the work happens.
• Reading the art. The Apotheosis of Washington, the eight Rotunda history paintings, and the Statuary Hall figures are dense with symbolism most visitors photograph without decoding.
• The whispering-gallery trick. In Statuary Hall a guide positions you on the exact spot where a whisper carries clear across the room, a quirk of the old House chamber's curved ceiling.
• Stitching the Hill together. A good guide sequences the Capitol, Library of Congress, and Supreme Court into one efficient morning, and connects them to the Smithsonian Museums and monuments along the National Mall.

What to see inside:

• The Rotunda — the 96-foot-wide, 180-foot-high ceremonial heart of the building, capped by Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington and ringed by eight monumental history paintings; four are by John Trumbull, including the Declaration of Independence reproduced on the back of the $2 bill.
• National Statuary Hall — the semicircular former House chamber, now holding a rotating selection from the collection of 100 state statues, two per state.
• The Brumidi Corridors — Senate-side hallways frescoed in Renaissance style by Constantino Brumidi over roughly 25 years, until his death in 1880.
• The Crypt — the circular room of 40 Doric columns beneath the Rotunda, built to hold George Washington's tomb (he chose to rest at Mount Vernon instead) and now displaying the compass stone that marks the city's four quadrants.

Best photo opportunities:

• The west front across the National Mall at golden hour, with the dome catching the last light — the classic Capitol shot.
• The east front plaza, where the broad steps and columned portico frame the Statue of Freedom directly overhead.
• Straight up into the oculus of the dome from the center of the Rotunda floor, aligning the fresco within the coffered rings.
• The reflecting pool on the west side at dawn, mirroring the dome before the wind stirs the water.

Nearby, all free: the Library of Congress — the world's largest library, holding more than 170 million items in a breathtaking Beaux-Arts building linked to the Capitol by tunnel — and the Supreme Court's marble temple of justice across First Street. Frederick Law Olmsted landscaped the surrounding Capitol Grounds in the 1870s with more than 100 varieties of trees and his hidden brick Summerhouse, a shaded spot most visitors walk right past. Metro riders should use Capitol South (Blue/Orange/Silver) or Union Station (Red) rather than driving, as public parking on the Hill is scarce.