Canton Tower Tickets

Short answer: Canton Tower sells six tickets, not one, and none of them is called an observation deck ticket. The indoor decks cost 150 yuan, the 450 m outdoor platform 228, the Ferris wheel 298, the drop ride 268, the 488 m top deck 328, and the product that carries both rides plus the top deck 398. If you want the view and nothing else, 328 is the cheapest way to stand on the highest deck. If you want a ride as well, 398 is 228 cheaper than the two tickets bought apart. All six prices were read from the operator’s own online mall on 2 November 2026, and the rules below from the visitor notice the operator attaches to every one of those six products.

Two things separate this page from the ticket resellers that fill the first page of Google for this search. The prices are the operator’s own, not a reseller markup. And the rules come from a notice published as an image, which is why almost nobody quotes it. That notice is where the useful part of this page lives: the Monday hours, the counter rule, and the fog clause.

The six products, in one table

The ladder is cumulative, and that is the most useful thing on this page. Every product above 150 includes the two indoor halls. Every product above 228 includes the outdoor platform. The two ride tickets sit side by side rather than in a line: the wheel at 298 and the drop ride at 268 both stop at the 450 m platform, and neither one reaches the 488 m deck. That is why the top of the ladder is not a ride ticket with an add-on. It is a third product.

Run the arithmetic and 398 stops looking expensive. The wheel ticket at 298 plus the top deck at 328 comes to 626. The 398 product carries both rides and the deck, so the difference against buying them separately is 228. That is subtraction on published prices, not a discount the tower advertises anywhere.

Can you buy the observation deck on its own?

Yes, and this is where most listings go wrong, because the word deck covers two products at two prices. The 150 yuan ticket is indoor only: the 428 m Baiyun hall, the 433 m Star hall, and the glass floor walkway between them. It does not open a door to the outside. The first product that puts you in open air is the 450 m platform at 228, and it still includes both indoor halls, so stepping outside costs 78 on top of the indoor ticket.

The 488 m deck is a separate step again, and only two products reach it: 328 for the deck alone, 398 for the deck with both rides. There is no ticket that sells the 488 m deck as an upgrade to a 150 or a 228 ticket, and the mall does not list one. If a reseller offers you a cheap base ticket and an upgrade at the door, that combination is not in the operator’s product list.

Which one to buy

• The view is the whole point, and you have an hour: 150. You are indoors behind glass, looking at the same skyline the outdoor platform looks at, 17 m lower.
• You want to be outside at height: 228. Cheapest product that opens a door.
• The wheel is why you came: 298. It includes the 450 m platform, so you are not trading the ride against the view.
• You want the top deck: 328, unless you also want a ride, in which case 398 beats 298 plus 328 by 228.
• The drop ride is the reason: 268, which is 30 less than the wheel ticket and stops at the same platform.

What I would not do is buy 398 for a Monday morning. That is the next section, and it is the one thing on this page that can waste a ticket you have already paid for.

Monday is a different tower

The notice carries a second column of opening times that most listings drop entirely. The tower and the indoor halls open at 09:30 every day of the week. The outdoor platforms and the two rides do not.

So a 09:30 Monday entry with a ride ticket buys you two and a half hours of indoor halls and a wheel you cannot board until 15:00. Entry is once per ticket, so you cannot leave for lunch and come back when the wheel opens. On the last Monday of the month the outdoor platforms and the wheel both wait until 17:00, which turns the 398 product into an evening ticket sold at the same price.

The notice adds that public holidays and special event days follow whatever the ticket hall posts that day, so the table is the normal case rather than a promise. If your date is a Monday and the rides matter, the cheap fix is the 150 or 228 ticket in the morning and a second visit later, not a bundle you cannot use.

Counter or online, and the rule that decides it

Entry runs in six fixed slots, two hours each except the first, which runs two and a half. The slot is not a suggestion: each one has a hard last entry time and the notice puts the loss on the visitor who misses it.

Here is the line that answers the counter or online question, and it is not the one people expect. The ticket hall only sells the slot you are standing in. Every other slot is sold online only. So you cannot walk up at 11:00, buy the 18:00 slot for the sunset, and come back. If a specific slot is the reason for the visit, you buy it before you leave the hotel, because the hall will not sell it to you in advance.

Two more lines from the same notice. Entry is real name: the hall asks for the second generation resident ID card, and a visitor without one registers at the self service device in the hall and buys against the printed receipt. The notice describes no separate passport lane, so a foreign visitor should carry the passport and expect the counter to register it by hand. I am reporting the notice’s wording, not a process I could confirm at the desk. And it is one ticket per person with no second entry, so the building is a single continuous visit.

Children, seniors, students: what the discount covers

Four groups pay less, and the notice names the product they apply to. It is the Baiyun and Star observation ticket, the 150 yuan one. That detail is the part resellers leave out, and it changes the answer for anyone planning to go higher.

• Free on the 150 ticket: visitors aged 75 and over, serving military personnel and retired military cadres, firefighters and rescue workers, disabled visitors, and households registered for minimum living support.
• Half price on the 150 ticket: visitors aged 60 to 74, visitors whose birthday falls on the day of the visit, one companion of a visitor with a severe disability, and students aged 6 to 18 or in full time study up to bachelor level.
• Children: free at 1.2 m and under, or aged 6 and under, with a limit of two free children per paying adult. Half price from above 1.2 m up to 1.5 m.
• Veterans and families of martyrs or of soldiers who died on duty: 19 percent off the 150 ticket with a certificate, which the notice writes as 8.1 of the price.

On the published 150 yuan price, half is 75 and 19 percent off is about 122. Both are arithmetic on the notice’s own numbers. What the notice does not publish is what a discounted visitor pays to add the outdoor platform or a ride, because the discount is written against the indoor ticket only. A 75 year old who wants to stand outside at 450 m has no published price to plan against, and I am not going to invent one. Ask at the hall.

One ticket per document, for that person only. You cannot buy a family of four at the discount rate against one ID.

Refunds, and the fog clause

Three rules, all from the same notice. A single order cannot be partly refunded and cannot be moved to another date, so if your group might shrink or your date might shift, book separate orders rather than one order for four. An online ticket that has not been collected can be refunded with no fee. Once you are inside, if bad weather or maintenance stops a ride, you can claim a refund on the part you did not use or postpone the visit, and the postponed ticket has to be used within 30 days by the same person.

Then the line worth reading twice: while the rides are running, visibility and rain or mist are not grounds for a refund. A grey day on the 488 m deck is a grey day you paid for. If the view is the reason for the ticket, that is an argument for buying the 150 indoor ticket on a doubtful morning and going up twice on a clear one, rather than buying 398 and asking for the money back at the desk.

The notice also says to buy only through the tower’s own or authorised channels, and that tickets cannot be transferred or resold and must be used by the same person throughout. A reseller ticket carrying someone else’s name is the one saving that can cost you the whole visit.

Getting there

The operator’s own directions name the exit, which is more than most listings do: metro Line 3 to Canton Tower station, Exit B, comes out at the tower, and the APM line’s Canton Tower station also lands there. Exit B is the one to remember, because the station has more than one and the wrong one is a long walk around a very large building.

If you are weighing metro against taxi for the whole trip rather than for this one stop, that comparison is on the Guangzhou metro page. The tower’s opening hours and its daily visitor cap sit on the Guangzhou guide, which covers the rest of the city around it. And if the tower is one block in a longer plan, the five Guangzhou day trips are the other half of that decision.

What I could not check

• The tower’s own website refused every request from this machine, including from a normal browser window, with a 405 from a Chinese Telecom security gateway. Every rule here therefore comes from the visitor notice image attached to the six products on the operator’s mall, uploaded 24 September 2026, and I could not compare it line by line with the website version.
• Whether a foreign passport holder can complete the real name step at the counter without a Chinese ID. The notice names only the resident ID card and the self service device.
• The price a discounted visitor pays to add the outdoor platform or a ride. Not published.
• How many places are left in each of the six slots. The product feed returns no stock figure.

Sources

The six ticket names, the six prices and what each ticket includes: the operator’s own online mall, mallpc.cantontower.com, product list read 2 November 2026.

Opening hours, the Monday and last Monday times, the six entry slots, the counter rule, the real name rule, the one ticket per person rule, the discount ladder, the 8.1 discount, the refund rules and the fog clause: the Canton Tower visitor notice published with those products, the version the operator serves now, uploaded 24 September 2026, read 2 November 2026.

Metro Line 3 Exit B and the APM station: the operator’s own transport note on the same mall listing, read 2 November 2026.