Paris New Year's Eve Countdown

Where to watch

The Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe host the main sound-and-light show and midnight fireworks, drawing hundreds of thousands; the Eiffel Tower and Trocadéro are also popular vantage points.

Ringing in the year

Crowds count down together on the avenue as projections and pyrotechnics light the Arc de Triomphe, followed by cries of 'Bonne année!' and Champagne toasts across the city.

How the Champs-Élysées show began

For decades Paris — unlike London or Sydney — held no official New Year's fireworks: revelers simply flooded the Champs-Élysées with Champagne and counted down on their own. That changed on December 31, 2014, when the city debuted a video-mapping spectacle projected onto the Arc de Triomphe to welcome 2015 — with a midnight fireworks display over the monument joining the show in later editions. The celebration has returned nearly every year since, and close to a million people packed the avenue to welcome 2026.

Planning your night on the avenue

The show is free and unticketed: the video-mapping on the Arc de Triomphe usually begins around 11:50 pm, with fireworks at the stroke of midnight. Arrive early — security checkpoints ring the avenue and the crowd swells after nightfall. In recent years public transport across Île-de-France has been free from the evening of December 31, with several metro lines running all night; if you would rather skip the crush, the show is broadcast live on French television.

Quick facts

• Sound-and-light show on the Arc de Triomphe
• Crowds gather along the Champs-Élysées
• Midnight fireworks in recent years
• Midnight Central European Time (CET)
• The Arc de Triomphe video-mapping show tradition began on New Year's Eve 2014
• Close to a million people welcomed 2026 on the Champs-Élysées