Champs-Élysées Christmas Market 2026: the avenue gets its chalets back after ten years

The Champs-Élysées Christmas market returns from 22 November 2026 to 4 January 2027, on the lower part of the avenue, towards Place de la Concorde, in Paris's 8th arrondissement. The chalets return beneath the illuminations almost ten years after the last edition. Opening hours, number of stalls, list of exhibitors: none of this has been made official yet.

Champs-Élysées Christmas Market 2026: dates, location and access

The site is confirmed at the lower end of the avenue, a short walk from Place de la Concorde. As with any market set up on Paris's public land, access will be free, with no ticket or booking required. Until the City publishes opening hours, the announced period remains the only solid piece of information to plan around. For transport, the Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau station (lines 1 and 13) and Concorde are the closest; Franklin D. Roosevelt lets you walk up the avenue as night falls.

This winter, three events overlap in the Paris region:

The first two face each other, separated only by the square: the same afternoon is enough to visit both. To get a sense of what a large row of chalets means in terms of walking distance and number of stalls, our look at La Défense Christmas market and its 300 chalets gives a useful scale.

Why the avenue had lost its chalets

The last edition on the Champs-Élysées dates back to 2016. In 2018, after the City of Paris declined to renew the permit, the roughly 200 chalets of the time, a figure reported by franceinfo at the time of the move, relocated to the Tuileries Garden, where the market has remained ever since. The avenue then went without chalets for almost a decade, despite illuminations that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors every winter.

The project was reopened in summer 2026, with the city launching a call for expressions of interest to appoint an operator. Hence the remaining grey areas: number of chalets, opening hours, selected exhibitors, entertainment programme, operating conditions. None of this has been announced so far, which makes any promise about content hard to assess before opening.

Craft and designers: what to expect among the stalls

The project highlights craftsmanship, designers from the Paris region and local produce, moving away from the street-fair format that gave the former version a mixed reputation. My instinct remains cautious: until the list of exhibitors is published, "craft and designers" is a line in a specification sheet, not a guarantee. The difference between a hand-thrown ceramic piece and a mass-imported item is something you check stall by stall, by asking who makes it and where.

In this type of market, the offering usually revolves around handmade jewellery, small-batch leather goods, wooden toys, soaps, fine food and seasonal preserves. No pricing has been announced, and gaps between designers can be considerable: set your limit before you arrive, a lit-up avenue is a poor adviser. Photograph the price tag along with the stall name, then add your finds to your shared Christmas list that same evening. If nothing caught your eye, our Christmas gift ideas can take it from there.

When to go without fighting the crowds

The lower Champs-Élysées already draws, market aside, the crowds who come for the illuminations and the shops open in December. Add chalets to the pavement between Concorde and Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées, and Saturday afternoons become an obstacle course with a pushchair. Weekday evenings remain the only time a craftsperson will have three minutes to tell you about their work.

Watch out near the end of the opening period: every 31 December, the avenue hosts New Year's Eve celebrations, with a security perimeter, bag checks and metro station closures decided on a case-by-case basis. Check the traffic order published by the Préfecture de police before planning a visit that evening. And if several family members head down the same avenue the same weekend, the no-duplicates method will save you from two identical scarves under the tree.

Mark the dates in your diary, leave the rest for later: opening hours and exhibitor details should be confirmed by autumn 2026.