Viking Ship Museum Oslo: Reopening Date and What to See

If you are planning a trip to Oslo and searching for the Viking Ship Museum, here is the short answer: it is closed, and it has been since 2021. The building at Bygdøy is being rebuilt and hugely expanded into the Museum of the Viking Age, which is planned to open in November 2027. You cannot see the Oseberg, Gokstad or Tune ships in the meantime.

The longer answer is more encouraging. Oslo still has a superb Viking exhibition open right now — in a different building, downtown, and only until December 2026. And 2026 happens to be the year the new museum stops looking like a building site. Here is what is actually happening, and how to plan around it.

Why a beloved museum was torn up

The old hall was designed by Arnstein Arneberg and opened in 1926. It was built for about 40,000 visitors a year. By the time it closed it was taking more than 500,000. That is not a small overshoot; it is twelve times the intended load, in a building with no modern climate control, wheeled about by the vibration of half a million pairs of feet.

For objects like the Oseberg finds — waterlogged oak, conserved a century ago with alum, and now chemically fragile — that combination was doing measurable damage. The rebuild is not a vanity project. It is a rescue with a museum attached.

What is happening in 2026

This is the year the ships stop being cargo and start being an exhibition again.

• Already done (2025): the Oseberg and Gokstad ships were moved into the new building.
• Late February / early March 2026: the Tune ship, the last of the three, made the move. It took several days — its route was longer and more winding than the others.
• Winter 2026: three of the ceremonial sleds from the Oseberg burial were moved into their new display cases, and over 5,200 objects began coming out of storage and into the museum at Bygdøy.
• Autumn 2026 — now: the enormous steel rigs that have encased and protected the ships are being dismantled, new support systems installed underneath them, and the ships become fully visible in their new hall.
• End of 2026: the centenary of the 1926 opening.

Museum director Aud V. Tønnessen, on moving the last ship: “The preparations have been extensive over several years, so this too will go well.” That is roughly the tone of the whole project — slow, cautious, and unwilling to rush a thousand-year-old hull.

What you can actually see in Oslo right now

This is the part most travel pages miss. The Viking objects did not vanish with the ships. The VÍKINGR exhibition at the Historical Museum in central Oslo — a different building from Bygdøy, run by the University of Oslo — has been showing the best of the Norwegian Viking Age collection while the new museum is built.

It is organised around three themes: journeys, warriors, and the transformation of Norse society between roughly 750 and 1050. On display are gold and silver that travelled to Norway from a long way away, shield bosses and weapon burials, a woman buried with war gear, and the celebrated Langeid sword, its hilt inlaid with gold and marked with Christian symbols — a single object that captures the exact moment Norse belief was changing.

Two practical warnings. First, VÍKINGR runs only until December 2026; after that the objects move to Bygdøy for the new museum, and there will be a stretch with very little Viking material on public view in Oslo at all. Second, individual pieces rotate out for conservation — the Langeid sword itself was away and is due back on 22 September 2026. If you are travelling for one specific object, check with the museum before you book.

The three ships, and why they matter

The Tune ship is the oldest excavation of the three. Oluf Rygh opened its mound in 1867 at the Haugen farm on Rolvsøy, in Tune parish, Østfold — the first Viking ship burial ever excavated in Norway. Built around AD 900, roughly 18.7 m long and 4.2 m wide, with 11 or 12 pairs of oars. It is also the most damaged: the mound had been robbed long before Rygh reached it, and only a wooden spade, a hand spike and some carved wood survived.

The Gokstad ship was found in 1880, when the sons of the Gokstad farm owner in Sandar, Sandefjord, dug into a mound and hit a bow. Dendrochronology puts its timber at around 890. At 23.8 m long and 5.1 m wide it is the biggest of the three, and a genuinely seaworthy ocean vessel. Inside was a powerfully built man of 40 to 50, about 181–183 cm tall, in a timber chamber — accompanied by twelve horses, six dogs and a peacock.

The Oseberg ship is the one people come for. Gabriel Gustafson and Haakon Shetelig excavated it in 1904–05 at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg, Vestfold. It is 21.58 m long, 5.1 m broad, and was buried no earlier than 834. Two women were inside: one about 80, arthritic; the other 50 to 55, long misread as much younger. One was dressed in fine red wool with silk appliqué. With them went four decorated sleds, a carved wooden cart, beds, chests, textiles, the so-called Buddha bucket, fourteen horses, an ox and three dogs. It remains the richest Viking burial ever found — and the source of the carved serpent heads that define how we picture Viking art.

Worth keeping in proportion: ship burials of this quality are vanishingly rare. For context, Norway’s oldest known ship burial at Herlaugshaugen predates the Viking Age proper, and the Grønhaug ship was only firmly dated to 864 in recent years. Three near-complete hulls under one roof is not normal. It is why the Bygdøy collection matters.

Planning a trip — US and EU readers

• Travelling in 2026: go to the Historical Museum downtown for VÍKINGR, not to Bygdøy. The peninsula still has the Fram and Kon-Tiki museums if you want to make a day of it.
• Travelling in 2027: the opening is planned for November. Book flexible fares. Major museum openings slip, and this one has already absorbed a budget cut of roughly 250 million NOK since 2022.
• Coming from the EU: Oslo is a short hop from most European hubs, and a two-night stop pairs naturally with Tønsberg and the Vestfold burial-mound landscape where the Oseberg and Gokstad ships actually came from.
• Coming from the US: if you are crossing the Atlantic for this, wait for 2027 and confirm the date before booking. A 2026 trip gets you VÍKINGR, which is excellent, but no ships.
• Either way: check the official museum sites close to your travel date. Everything above is the published plan, and plans on a project this size move.

Frequently asked

Is the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo open? No. It closed in 2021 and is being rebuilt as the Museum of the Viking Age, planned to open in November 2027.

Can I see the Oseberg ship anywhere in 2026? No. All three ships are inside the closed construction site at Bygdøy. The steel rigs protecting them are coming off this autumn, but the building is not open to visitors.

Where can I see Viking artefacts in Oslo instead? The VÍKINGR exhibition at the Historical Museum in central Oslo, until December 2026.

Why did it take so long? The ships could not simply be wheeled out. Each was encased in a purpose-built steel rig, moved a few metres at a time, and monitored continuously. The alum-treated Oseberg timbers are chemically unstable and will not survive rough handling.

How many objects will the new museum show? Around 5,400, with climate control and vibration protection the 1926 building never had.

For a hundred years the Oseberg ship sat in a whitewashed hall that was slowly failing it. The next time it is seen in public it should be in a building that can actually keep it. That is worth a two-year wait — and, this autumn, worth knowing that the scaffolding is finally coming down.