Empire State Building & NYC Bus Tours: What's Actually Included

The Empire State Building sits squarely on the corridor every major downtown loop runs through, and it shows up by name in more of our own guides than almost any other landmark — it's part of the standard Midtown stretch alongside Times Square and the Flatiron district. That visibility creates a genuine, common point of confusion: if the bus stops right there, does the ticket get you inside?

It doesn't, and this isn't a New York quirk — no sightseeing bus ticket anywhere includes admission to an attraction it merely passes. What the bus gets you is the option to hop off at a nearby stop, look up at the building from the street or the open deck, and walk the short distance to the entrance on your own schedule. The building itself, its lobby, and its two observation decks are a separate business with a separate ticket.

We checked the Empire State Building's own ticketing page directly rather than repeating a number from a third-party blog, because observatory pricing — like bus tour pricing — moves with season and demand. As of our September 2026 check: standard 86th-floor Main Deck admission is listed from $44 per adult, plus a flat $5 booking fee added per transaction, not per ticket. A combo ticket adding the 102nd-floor Top Deck is listed from $79. An Express Pass, which lets you skip the general-admission queue for the 86th floor, is listed from $85.

Treat every one of those numbers as a starting point, not a locked price — exactly the same caution we give on our own bus pricing guide. Observatory tickets are typically date- and time-slot priced, so the number you actually see at checkout depends on the day and hour you pick. The building's site listed hours as 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on the day we checked, with a note that hours vary seasonally — confirm the hours for your actual travel date before planning your afternoon around a closing time.

The 86th-floor Main Deck, at about 1,050 feet, is the classic Empire State Building experience — open to the air on all four sides, with radiant heaters that make it usable even in winter, and unobstructed views that on a clear day reportedly reach into neighboring states. It's included in every standard admission ticket and is genuinely the deck most first-time visitors are picturing when they buy a ticket.

The 102nd-floor Top Deck sits roughly 200 feet higher, at about 1,250 feet, and is a fully enclosed room with floor-to-ceiling windows rather than an open-air platform — a different experience, not simply a taller version of the same one. It's a paid upgrade on top of 86th-floor admission, not a standalone option, and it tends to run its own timed-entry slot separate from the Main Deck's. If you only have time or budget for one, the 86th floor is the deck that matches what most bus tour riders are actually picturing when they hop off to 'go up' the building; the 102nd floor is worth the upgrade mainly for travelers who specifically want the higher enclosed vantage point or a clearer, haze-free photo on a good-visibility day.

First-timers consistently underestimate how long an Empire State Building visit actually takes, and it's one of the most common ways an otherwise well-planned bus tour day runs late. Between airport-style security, elevator queues (even with a timed ticket), the deck itself, and the walk back to a bus stop, 1.5 to 2 hours is a realistic minimum — closer to the higher end during midday in busy season. Treat it the same way our one-day itinerary guide treats any hop-off: as one of your two or three chosen stops for the day, not a quick five-minute detour squeezed between others.

An Express Pass — the queue-skip option the building sells directly — is worth weighing seriously if your bus tour day is already tight, since the general-admission line is the single biggest variable in how long the visit actually takes. It costs more than standard admission, but for a traveler juggling a fixed dinner reservation or a second attraction the same afternoon, buying back that uncertainty can be worth more than the price difference.

Timing also matters for the view itself, separate from the crowd question. Sunset and the hour after are consistently the most requested — and most crowded and expensive — slots, because you get daylight views transitioning into the lit skyline in one visit. A late-morning or non-peak weekday slot trades that transition for a shorter line and often a lower price.

This is where it's worth being precise, because 'combo ticket' gets used loosely. Our combo-tickets guide covers hop-on hop-off bundles that pair the bus with one specific add-on — sometimes that add-on is Empire State Building admission, sold as an explicit paired product, not folded silently into a standard fare. If you buy a combo that names the Empire State Building on the product page, you're covered; if you bought a plain hop-on hop-off ticket, you are not, no matter how many times the bus passes the building.

Separately, our comparison of New York CityPASS and New York Pass covers a different category entirely: multi-attraction city passes rather than bus-specific combos. CityPASS's published attraction list has included the Empire State Building as one of its selectable picks. Whether a hop-on hop-off bus tour and Empire State Building admission end up on the same pass together depends entirely on which pass you buy and which attractions you select from it — read the current eligible-attraction list on the specific pass's own page before assuming any bundling, since these lists change.