Paris does not leave Sunday shopping to chance: the city has twelve international tourist zones where shops may open on Sundays and until midnight on weekdays, under a collective agreement. That is a permission, not an obligation, so a shop in a zone may still be closed. Choosing where to stay for shopping comes down to which zone you want to walk out into, and how far its hotels are from the station. The table gives the zone for each area; the sections below the table say what our data confirms and what it does not.
| Area |
International tourist zone |
What the data says |
Hotels below |
| Opéra and Grands Boulevards |
Haussmann |
Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Passage Jouffroy are inside |
InterContinental, Westminster |
| Champs-Élysées and Triangle d’Or |
Champs-Élysées–Montaigne |
Avenue Montaigne and avenue George-V in full |
Crillon, Fouquet’s |
| Saint-Germain-des-Prés |
Saint-Germain; Rennes–Saint-Sulpice |
Most of the district between the Seine and Montparnasse |
Montalembert, L’Hôtel |
| Marais |
Le Marais |
Place des Vosges, rue des Rosiers, Village Saint-Paul |
Pavillon de la Reine |
| Montparnasse |
Rennes–Saint-Sulpice |
Rue de Rennes up to boulevard du Montparnasse, and the station surroundings |
None listed |
| Bercy Village |
Saint-Émilion–Bibliothèque |
Open every day; shops 10 am to 8 pm |
Pullman Paris Centre – Bercy |
Department stores: Opéra and the Grands Boulevards
The order for the Haussmann zone names place de l’Opéra, boulevard des Italiens, boulevard Montmartre, rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, rue La Fayette (up to rue du Faubourg-Montmartre) and part of rue Saint-Lazare, interior streets included. Our data places Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Passage Jouffroy inside it; Printemps is in the same district; we could not read the opening hours of either store, because their sites were blocked. The hotels here are mostly three and four stars: 139 classified hotels in the area, 65 of them four-star and 56 three-star. See hotels around the Opéra for the full list, or hotels in the 2nd arrondissement for the stretch around the Bourse.
Photo: Moonik, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Luxury: Champs-Élysées, Saint-Honoré and Vendôme
The Champs-Élysées–Montaigne zone covers avenue Montaigne and avenue George-V in full, part of avenue Matignon, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré and the stretch of the avenue between rue de Berri and avenue Tilsitt. The Saint-Honoré–Vendôme zone runs from the Madeleine to rue du Louvre; by our reading it takes in rue Saint-Honoré, place Vendôme and rue de la Paix, and its perimeter names rue de Rivoli, place de la Concorde and rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. Wikipedia credits Sunday and late opening for part of the avenue’s commercial success. Eight of the thirteen palaces named in 2026 stand in the 8th arrondissement. For hotels see hotels near the Champs-Élysées.
Photo: Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Boutiques on foot: the Marais and Saint-Germain
In the Marais the zone covers everything east of rue des Archives, with place des Vosges, rue des Rosiers and Village Saint-Paul; rue des Rosiers has been pedestrian on Sundays since 2006, and rue des Francs-Bourgeois is also busy that day. The Les Halles zone covers the BHV and Beaubourg side to the west. In Saint-Germain the two zones together cover most of the district, and the guide to Saint-Germain-des-Prés compares hotels there.
Photo: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Montparnasse
The Rennes–Saint-Sulpice zone covers rue de Rennes between rue du Vieux-Colombier and boulevard du Montparnasse, the surroundings of the Gare Montparnasse and boulevard Raspail. The grounds of the six big Paris stations, Montparnasse among them, also hold a Sunday exemption. Two hotels cite shopping centres on the spot, the Pullman the Gaîté block (60 shops and a food hall of 25 restaurants) and the Edgar Quinet the one in the Tour Montparnasse; these are the hotels’ own statements, which we did not cross-check. The hotels of the area are on the home page.
Several well-known areas sit outside any zone. The 7th around the Eiffel Tower and rue Cler has none; the 10th and 11th have none, and the Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est stations hold their own exemption for shops inside the stations; the 5th, around the Sorbonne and rue Mouffetard, has none; Pigalle and the Saint-Georges quarter have none, though the food shops of rue des Martyrs may open on Sunday mornings. Montmartre has a zone around rue des Abbesses, rue Lepic and rue de Steinkerque, with small shops rather than department stores. Bercy Village, in the Saint-Émilion–Bibliothèque zone, is open every day.
How we chose
We selected hotels whose street our data places inside, or within the named perimeter of, an international tourist zone, and gave each the station distance from its file. We did not rank them. Opening hours of individual shops were not read, so confirm a shop before planning around it. No prices are published here.
Which area for whom
- First-time visitors who also want department stores. Opéra, where lines 3, 7 and 8 meet and the Haussmann zone begins.
- Luxury shopping. Champs-Élysées–Montaigne, or rue Saint-Honoré near the Concorde.
- Boutiques and a Sunday stroll. The Marais, with the zone’s Sunday opening and rue des Rosiers pedestrian that day.
- A shopping centre and cinema in one evening. Bercy Village, open until 2 am for its restaurants.
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