What time do Eiffel lights turn off?

11:45 pm on a standard night. After the Tower closes at 11:45 pm, the golden lighting and the beacon cut out together. In late June, July, August, and the first week of September, closing slips to 12:45 am. Lights stay on until 1 am, and one last sparkle marks the cutoff.

Before September 2022, lights ran until 1 am year-round. Paris brought in an energy-sobriety plan that month and pulled the cutoff forward. Three patterns describe a year now:

Watch the last sparkle. 20,000 small bulbs flash in random bursts across the four sides of the structure for five minutes. On a standard night, the final sparkle occurs at 11:00 pm. Four motorized xenon floodlights at the spire form the beacon. They cut at the same instant as the golden glow at 11:45 pm.

What does "off" actually look like? Steady amber disappears. Xenon lamps in the beacon hold a faint afterglow for under a minute as they cool. By 11:46 pm on a standard night, only ambient streetlight remains around the structure.

Three reasons keep the sparkle from running until dawn.

Closing time controls everything. The hourly five-minute display lasts only while the Tower is open to visitors. Since the monument currently closes at 11:45 pm on standard nights, the final sparkle takes place at 11:00 pm. Once the building closes, lighting controls cut the golden glow within minutes. Without the sparkle, only the steady amber of the structural lighting remains until the final cutoff.

The sparkle was never built as a continuous show. At the start of every hour after nightfall, 20,000 small bulbs activate in random short bursts that last exactly five minutes. Pierre Bideau designed the golden lighting in 1985 and led the sparkle installation that was unveiled at the close of 1999. Hourly bursts limit operating time on the small lamps. They also produce a defined event each hour rather than a steady backdrop.

September 2022 changed the schedule. The City of Paris energy-sobriety plan rolled in that month, framed as a response to the European energy crisis of that year, and it stayed in place after the immediate crisis eased. Tower lighting represents only a small share of the monument's annual energy use. The earlier shutdown is a visible part of the policy.

For visitors arriving after the cutoff, the structure is still recognizable from Trocadéro and from Champ de Mars, but the show is over. Next chance to see it sparkle: the following nightfall, on the first full hour after dark.