Is There An Entrance Fee In Jiufen Old Street?

Is There An Entrance Fee In Jiufen Old Street?

No. Jiufen Old Street has no entrance fee, no ticket gate and no charge to walk any of its lanes, and there is no official source anywhere that says otherwise, because the street is a public residential lane in Ruifang District, New Taipei City, open around the clock like any other street in the town. What trips visitors up is not the entry, it is the layer of small charges that begins once you are inside: teahouse seat fees, museum admission in neighbouring Jinguashi, lantern experiences and food. Those are the numbers worth getting right before you go, because the English internet routinely prints either the wrong figure or no figure at all.

The distinction matters because "free to enter" and "free to visit" are not the same claim. The street itself costs nothing. A teahouse does not. The Gold Museum up the hill in Jinguashi does not. If your day stretches to Yehliu Geopark on the north coast, that has a real ticket too. None of that is an entrance fee for Jiufen Old Street, but all of it lands on the same day's budget, which is why this page builds the full cost picture from verified figures only. It is the approach Jiufen Tour takes across every guide on the site: print a number only when an official source or a verified listing stands behind it.

If you are planning to spend money in town, the three most useful things to pre-book are the small redeem-in-place tickets rather than anything boarded in Taipei:

Each of those is redeemed in Jiufen or Jinguashi itself, so they slot into a self-guided day as easily as a guided one. The cheapest thing on this entire site is the Gold Museum e-ticket at from $2.55 per person, which is a striking number when you consider what it covers. More on each of these further down.

There is also a practical reason the free-entry question comes up so often. Jiufen is a managed-access destination on weekends and holidays: a New Taipei City Government notice in force since 1 January 2025 controls vehicle traffic between 08:00 and 20:00 on weekends, national holidays and make-up working days, and coaches must apply in advance to Ruifang Police Precinct, with roughly 20 approved per half-day slot. That control plan restricts coaches, not pedestrians, and it charges nobody a fee. You can read the signed notice in the official traffic control plan PDF. Walking in costs nothing, on any day of the week.

What Actually Costs Money Once You Are In Jiufen?

Everything you consume, and almost nothing you look at. The verified charges are: Gold Museum admission at NT$80, a teahouse tea-water fee of NT$100 per person at A-Mei Tea House plus a cheapest pot of NT$500, and a range of pre-bookable in-town experiences from $2.55 to $24.29 per person. The street's views, lanes, staircases and lantern-hung exteriors are all free. That is the honest shape of a Jiufen budget: the setting costs nothing, and the sitting down is what you pay for.

Here is the full table of verified figures, and nothing outside it. Every number below comes from an official source or a verified listing, and nothing else on this page is priced.

Two things in that table deserve a flag. The first is the A-Mei arithmetic, which almost every English blog gets wrong by quoting only the NT$100 seat fee and stopping there. The full floor for two people is NT$100 plus NT$100 plus NT$500, which is NT$700 before a single bite of food. The second is the red lantern line: the Jiufen Red Lantern Blessing Experience Ticket is a blessing lantern in Jiufen itself, and it is not a Shifen sky lantern. No sky-lantern price belongs anywhere near it, and no official lantern price is published at all, so if you want a sky lantern the honest advice is to check the shop board in Shifen on the day.

The Gold Museum line also carries the single most useful practical fact about Jinguashi, and it is routinely missing from English pages: the museum is closed the first Monday of every month. If that Monday is a national holiday it opens instead and closes the following day. It is also closed on Lunar New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year. Check those against your itinerary before you build a Jinguashi leg into the day, because a first-Monday arrival meets a shut gate.

How Much Does The Gold Museum In Jinguashi Cost?

Admission is NT$80 per person, open Monday to Friday 09:30 to 17:00 and weekends and national holidays 09:30 to 18:00, closed the first Monday of every month, payable by cash, EasyCard or O'Pay, with a wide list of locals, seniors, students and certificate holders entering free with proof at the gate. Those figures come straight from the museum's own English admission page, and they are the only Gold Museum numbers this site prints. Registered New Taipei residents, nationals 65 and over and under 12, indigenous nationals 55+, enrolled students, disability certificate holders plus one companion, low-income certificate holders and volunteer honour card holders all enter free.

Jinguashi sits next to Jiufen in the same gold-mining landscape, and the museum is the main reason to add it. The pre-booked e-ticket option is the cheapest bookable thing on this entire site:

One refund detail worth knowing before you buy anything at the gate: unclipped tickets refund in full, with no handling fee, up to 30 minutes before closing, and EasyCard purchases are refunded in cash. Lost or unreadable tickets are not replaced. If you are the planning type, that refund window is generous enough that buying at the gate carries almost no risk, and the e-ticket simply removes the queue from the equation.

For the full picture of the mining landscape around the museum, including the Golden Waterfall and the Thirteen-Level Ruins, the companion guide Jinguashi and the Golden Waterfall covers what is there and how the pieces fit together on a day from Jiufen.

How Much Does A Teahouse Visit Really Cost?

At A-Mei Tea House, the only Jiufen teahouse whose prices are verified from its own menu, two people sharing the cheapest pot pay NT$700 before any food: a NT$100 tea-water fee each plus a NT$500 pot of leaves. That is the honest floor, and it is simple arithmetic on the venue's own published menu. The tea-water fee is charged per person before you have ordered anything. Parties of six or more must order two portions of leaves, which scales the same arithmetic upward for groups.

The menu runs from that NT$500 floor, for the Tsui Yu jade oolong or the aged puerh, up to NT$1,000 for Lishan oolong. A tea-and-snack set is NT$350 per person and includes black sugar mochi, mung bean cake, sesame slices, a milk plum and a hot or iced tea, with the iced version summer only. Set meals run NT$300 to NT$350 and are served only between 10:30 and 13:30, with three side dishes and 20% off a drink. The house is open 09:00 to 21:30, seven days.

No other teahouse in Jiufen has verified prices, and this site does not print unverified ones. If a blog quotes you a price for any teahouse other than A-Mei, treat it as a guess. What can be said honestly is that the tea experience booked through a listing, from $16.85 per person, is a different animal from a full teahouse sitting: it is a short experience redeemed on the old street itself, it includes an indigenous clothing experience alongside the tea, and it is rated 4.6 across 135 reviews. For a deeper look at the town's tea culture, see Jiufen tea houses.

What Do The Redeem-In-Place Tickets In Jiufen Cost?

The bookable in-town experiences run from $2.55 to $24.29 per person: the Gold Museum e-ticket at from $2.55, the red lantern blessing at from $7.89, the tea experience at from $16.85, the Qipao costume experience at from $20.25, and teahouse vouchers at from $15.79 and $24.29. None of these is a coach tour and none is boarded in Taipei. Each is redeemed in place, in Jiufen or Jinguashi, which makes them the natural add-ons to a self-guided arrival by train.

Two notes on that table. The Jioufen Teahouse listing spells the town's name with an older romanisation, "Jioufen"; it is the same place. And the red lantern blessing is, again, a Jiufen blessing lantern on a ticket, not a Shifen sky lantern, and it must never be priced or described as one.

The tea experience is the one that most often earns its cost, because it bundles two things visitors otherwise piece together awkwardly:

For anyone weighing the guided-versus-self-guided question, the honest framing is that these tickets cover experiences, not transport. If you want a coach to handle the driving, the site's day tours are separate products with their own prices; the cheapest full-day circuit that includes Jiufen starts from $20.29 per person. The in-town tickets are for people who have already solved getting there.

Does A Day Trip From Taipei That Includes Jiufen Cost More?

It can, and the biggest single add-on is Yehliu Geopark at NT$120 for an adult and NT$60 for a concession, with group tickets at NT$96 for 30 or more visitors, hours of 08:00 to 17:00 year-round extended to 18:00 in summer, and last entry at the closing hour itself rather than some earlier cutoff. Those are the park's own figures from its official ticket page. Under-6s enter free, as do Wanli District residents, disability certificate holders plus a companion, licensed guides and volunteer honour card holders.

Many north-coast day tours bundle Yehliu, Jiufen and Shifen into one circuit, and the price spread on those is wider than most visitors expect. The site hero tour, which covers Yehliu Geopark, Jiufen Old Street, Shifen Old Street and the Golden Waterfall, runs from $20.29 per person and is rated 4.9 across 47,355 reviews, which makes it the strongest-proven product on the roster. A version with a sky lantern release built into the price runs from $82 per person. A private full-day version with hotel pickup runs from $120 per person. The circuit's entry charges, where they exist, are separate from the tour price unless a listing says otherwise, so check what the listing includes rather than assuming.

One caution that belongs in any cost discussion of the north-coast circuit: a tour whose title names Shifen does not always go there. One roster listing departing from Ximen names Shifen in its official title, and its own itinerary excludes it, reaching Tiaoshi Coast, the Yin Yang Sea, the Golden Waterfall and Jiufen instead. Read the stop list, not the headline. The same discipline applies in reverse: several titles say "Pingxi" and what they actually reach is Shifen, which sits inside Pingxi District. Never let a sentence read as though Shifen and Pingxi are two stops on the same day.

Is The Red Lantern Blessing The Same As A Shifen Sky Lantern?

No. The Jiufen Red Lantern Blessing Experience is a blessing lantern in Jiufen itself, from $7.89 per person, and it is not a Shifen sky lantern; no sky-lantern price may be attached to it, and no official sky-lantern price is published at all. The two get conflated constantly because both involve lanterns and both appear in Jiufen-adjacent itineraries, but they are different objects in different towns under different rules.

The rules part is worth knowing, because it is the real story. Under the New Taipei City sky lantern release measures in force since 2011, releasing a sky lantern is banned everywhere in New Taipei City except one marked stretch of Pingxi: from the Shifen Visitor Center to Shigong Bridge, within 200 metres of the Keelung River along County Road 106, plus any area the city separately announces. Releases are prohibited between 22:00 and 06:00 except at announced festivals. Every lantern sold must be labelled with the seller's name and address, and shops must display the safety notice. You can read the full statutory text on the city's laws database.

What that means for your budget is simple. In Jiufen, the lantern experience on a ticket is a blessing lantern at from $7.89, redeemed in town. In Shifen, the sky lantern is bought at a shop, no official price is published, so check the shop board on the day. Anyone who quotes you a firm sky-lantern price in advance is quoting something no official source confirms. The full story of the release tradition and the law around it is in Shifen Old Street and sky lanterns.

What Does A Full Jiufen Day Cost, All In?

A self-guided day can be close to free beyond lunch: the street costs nothing, the Gold Museum adds NT$80, a teahouse sitting adds NT$700 for two before food, and the in-town tickets run $2.55 to $24.29 each. A guided day tour from Taipei adds its own price, from $20.29 per person for the strongest-proven circuit. The honest total depends almost entirely on how much of the town you consume rather than how much of it you see, because the seeing is free.

The cheapest defensible plan for a couple arriving by train: walk the street, buy street food as lunch, add the Gold Museum at NT$80 each if Jinguashi is on the route, and finish with either a teahouse sitting at NT$700 for two or the short tea experience at from $16.85 each. The most expensive defensible plan adds a private driver-guide day at from $120 per person and a full teahouse sitting with set meals. Both plans see the same street, the same sea view and the same lanterns, because none of that is behind a gate.

That asymmetry is the real answer to this page's question, and it is why the free-entry fact is worth stating precisely rather than breezily. Jiufen is free to enter and expensive to sit down in, and knowing which parts of the day carry charges is the difference between a budget you planned and one that happened to you. For the food side of that budget, what to eat in Jiufen covers the street's specialities, and for the timing that keeps costs and crowds both low, the best time to visit Jiufen is the companion read.

If you would rather lock in the pieces that carry a price before you travel, these are the three that fit a free-to-enter day best:

The short answers, in one place: Jiufen Old Street itself is free to enter, the Gold Museum in Jinguashi charges NT$80, A-Mei Tea House works out to NT$700 for two before food, and Yehliu Geopark adds NT$120 if your day stretches that far. The questions below cover each of those in detail, with the same verified figures used throughout this page and nothing priced beyond them.

Common Questions About Jiufen Old Street Costs

Is There An Entrance Fee In Jiufen Old Street?

No. Jiufen Old Street is a public lane with no ticket gate and no charge to walk it, on any day of the week. The charges begin inside: teahouses, food, and experiences such as the Gold Museum in neighbouring Jinguashi.

How much is the Gold Museum in Jinguashi?

Admission is NT$80 per person. It is open Monday to Friday 09:30 to 17:00 and weekends and national holidays 09:30 to 18:00, and it is closed the first Monday of every month. Payment is by cash, EasyCard or O'Pay.

How much does a teahouse in Jiufen cost?

At A-Mei Tea House, the only one with verified prices, two people sharing the cheapest pot pay NT$700 before food: a NT$100 tea-water fee each plus a NT$500 pot of leaves. No other Jiufen teahouse has verified prices.

Does Yehliu Geopark cost money?

Yes, if your day includes it. An adult ticket is NT$120, a concession is NT$60, and groups of 30 or more pay NT$96 each. Hours are 08:00 to 17:00 year-round, extended to 18:00 in summer, with last entry at the closing hour.

Is the red lantern blessing in Jiufen the same as a Shifen sky lantern?

No. The Jiufen Red Lantern Blessing Experience is a blessing lantern in Jiufen, from $7.89 per person. A Shifen sky lantern is a different object bought at a shop in Shifen, and no official price for one is published, so check the shop board on the day.