The Palace Museum's ticket pre-sale system goes live every day at 20:00. Tickets are manually released in timed intervals and batches.

It has been reported that to ensure a comfortable visiting experience, the Palace Museum has implemented a daily visitor reservation limit of 40,000 people. To deal with peak crowds, the museum has increased the number of tickets available by approximately 25 percent daily for summer. In the future, similar dynamic adjustments will be implemented during peak periods such as the "Golden Weeks" (China's national holidays spanning seven to eight days) and summer holidays.

Additionally, the Palace Museum offers free admission to certain groups, including minors, persons with disabilities, active-duty military personnel, and firefighters. In response to the significant growth in the number of minor visitors this summer, the museum has introduced an "Online Express Reservation Channel for Minors", providing services such as online reservation processing and expedited on-site security checks and ticket inspections.

Since January 2024, there has been a marked increase in the number of foreign visitors to the Palace Museum. The museum has continuously optimized its ticket reservation policies for these visitors, offering multiple purchasing channels. For instance, travel agencies can book group tickets through the Palace Museum's official website, and both travel agencies and individual tourists can make reservations through the museum's multilingual website or the WeChat mini-program "Palace Museum" (故宫博物院). For inbound individual tourists facing difficulties in online reservations and payments, the museum provides same-day replacement tickets at the ticketing offices.

The Palace Museum combats automated ticket scalping by integrating technological defences with human oversight.

Every evening at 20:00, when the Palace Museum begins its ticket release, the tickets are gradually made available through a manual process. Many visitors have noted that the success rate of securing tickets is relatively higher around 20:40. Throughout the ticket release period, the museum employs pop-up reminders and displays of remaining ticket counts to inform visitors of the current ticket availability.

(Source: Official WeChat account of Beijing Daily)