Une année forte pour Musea Brugge avec 860.000 visiteurs

With a slight increase of 0.8%, Musea Brugge can look back on another strong museum year, despite 2025 being a year without any major exhibitions. The figures show that Musea Brugge's unique historical sites and strong art collections remain real attractions for domestic and foreign

Belfry and Church of Our Lady Museum at the top

The Church of Our Lady Museum, with Michelangelo's popular sculpture “Madonna and Child” and the tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy, welcomed 1.3% more visitors last year, mainly from abroad. With 201,000 visitors, the church ranks second, just behind the Belfry, which, with almost 215,000 visitors, can once again be crowned the most popular location of Musea Brugge.

Just like last year, the Groeninge Museum rounds off the top three. The museum of fine arts remained popular with visitors from home and abroad in 2025. The combination of the strong permanent collection with masterpieces from six centuries of art history and the varied collection presentations, including Ensor and “Pride and Solace”, attracted 114,000 art lovers last year.

Visitor numbers at other locations such as the Museum Sint-Janshospitaal (82,000), Gruuthusemuseum (52,000), the Farmacy of the St John’s Hospital (63,000), the City Hall (50,000) and the Liberty of Bruges (11,000) remained stable. Noteworthy: after a busy summer, the Sint-Janshuismolen saw an increase of almost 11% compared to last year, accounting for 12,000 visitors.

Renovated Folklore Museum sees biggest increase

The biggest increase in visitor numbers came from the Folklore Museum. Following a complete renovation in autumn 2024 (ground floor) and spring 2025 (museum attic), the Folklore Museum welcomed 24,000 visitors last year, an increase of 23%.

Alderman for Culture Nico Blontrock: ‘During the renovation of the Folklore Museum, we paid extra attention to our youngest visitors. This was clearly appreciated. The fact that the Folklore Museum is called the “most family-friendly museum” in Bruges is also reflected in the figures: 26% of visitors to the beloved museum in Balstraat are under the age of 13. That makes me very happy.’

Growing numbers of visitors from the US and Japan

Musea Brugge has a strong international appeal. No less than 70% of visitors to Musea Brugge come from abroad, mainly from neighbouring countries. France remains the frontrunner with 160,000 visitors (an increase of 15.5%), followed by the Netherlands (80,000) and Germany (70,000).

Noteworthy: art and heritage enthusiasts from Great Britain (89,000) and Italy (26,000) found their way to the rich art collections and historical locations of Musea Brugge more often last year, representing an increase of 21% and 22% respectively.

Outside Europe, there is a growing number of visitors from the US (74,000), representing an increase of 6% compared to 2024 and as much as 30% compared to 2023. With an increase of 30%, Japanese visitors (7,000) are also becoming an increasingly important group of museum lovers. Their numbers have more than doubled since 2023.

Looking forward to BRUSK

Visitor numbers at Musea Brugge show strong interest from home and abroad in Bruges' art collections and historical sites, with a strong local presence of more than 53,000 visitors from Bruges itself.

‘This is very promising in the run-up to the opening of art gallery BRUSK, our newest location,’ says Mayor Dirk De fauw. ‘BRUSK will open on 8 May with a grand weekend of celebrations. We will get off to a flying start with the opening of two impressive exhibitions of international calibre. The strong visitor numbers at Musea Brugge form a solid foundation for BRUSK, which will undoubtedly attract many more high-quality visitors to our city in 2026.’