Every year, CERN welcomes almost 100 000 visitors from all over the world, who come to learn about its installations from our official guides. 40% of these visitors are school pupils. Guided tours of CERN are free of charge.
For safety reasons, most of our visit point are not open to pupils younger than 12 years old. Certain sites are open to primary-school pupils from the age of 8; please contact us for information if you are a local primary school teacher. The group must include at least one accompanying adult for every 12 minor pupils.
A school tour lasts three hours and consists of an introductory talk about CERN and a visit to two operational sites. These may be accelerators, control rooms, technical facilities or high-technology workshops.
In addition to your guided tour, you can discover the two permanent exhibitions at your leisure: Microcosm, next to CERN Reception, and the Universe of Particles, on the ground floor of the Globe of Science and Innovation. You can also subscribe to one of the S'Cool LAB workshop (14 years old and upwards).
Please note that the visits to the underground installations are extremely limited and that some site, underground in particular, are not accessible to visitors below 16.
Additional information can be found on the Visits Service website.
- For non-school groups of 8 people or more, please see the Guided tours for groups page.
- For individuals or smaller groups of up to 7 people, please see the Guided tours for individuals page.
The meeting point for tours, once confirmed, is the CERN Reception
How to get to CERN
Reservations of tours for schools and students open 9 months in advance. It is advisable to book tours as early as possible.
More information and registration.