Short answer
- Skating is free. The City of Chicago's own page says so, and if you bring your own skates you pay nothing at all.
- The skate rental price is not published by anybody. Not the City, not Choose Chicago, not Time Out, not Wikipedia. We looked, and we are not going to invent it.
- Reservations are required, according to Choose Chicago. The City's own page, which ranks first, does not say so prominently.
- The Maggie Daley Skating Ribbon is 619 metres away and charges $21 per person online at a weekend, $23 at the window, and $5 even if you bring your own skates.
- Last season ran 21 November 2025 to 1 February 2026. The 2026-27 dates are not out yet, and the official page still shows last year's.
01The short version
Bring skates if you own them and the afternoon costs you nothing. If you do not, you are hiring them at a price that no official source publishes, which is an odd sentence to write about the most photographed ice rink in the Midwest, and it is the reason this page exists.
Book a slot before you go. And if you are choosing between the two rinks downtown, know that they are seven minutes apart and that only one of them is free.
02What it costs, and the number nobody prints
The City of Chicago runs the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink through its Department of Cultural Affairs, and its page states it plainly: admission is free. That is the whole of the official pricing information. There is no rental figure anywhere on it.
So we went looking. Choose Chicago, the city's own tourism body, gets closest and still does not say it: "skate rentals are available, pricing varies". Time Out has no price. Wikipedia has no price. evisitorguide has no price. The Loop Chicago listing that Google is still ranking in eighth place now returns a 404.
This is the point where most guides quietly write "around $15" and move on. We do not have that number, we could not find anyone who does, and inventing it would make every other figure on this site worth less. If you find an official source that publishes it, tell us and it goes straight in with its date.
What this means in practice is simple and worth saying out loud. If you own skates, Millennium Park is free, full stop. If you do not, the only rental price you can check in advance belongs to a different rink.
03The free rink and the $46 rink are 619 m apart
Chicago has two famous downtown rinks. They sit in adjoining parks, 619 metres and 7.4 minutes' walk apart, and they are run by two different city departments. That is the whole reason their prices never appear on the same page: the Millennium Park rink belongs to Cultural Affairs, and the Maggie Daley Skating Ribbon belongs to the Park District, which publishes a full price list.
Every downtown option, with what each one charges
| Rink | Admission | Skate hire | With your own skates |
|---|---|---|---|
| McCormick Tribune, Millennium Park | Free | Not published anywhere | Free |
| Maggie Daley Skating Ribbon | Included in the rental | $17 Mon-Thu, $21 Fri-Sun online, $23 at the window | $5 per session after the first |
| Every other Park District outdoor rink | Free | $7, all ages | Free |
Millennium Park figures from chicago.gov and choosechicago.com; Maggie Daley and the other rinks from chicagoparkdistrict.com/facilities/ice-rinks. All read on 2026-09-22. Skate aids at Maggie Daley are $11 and skate sharpening is $10 a pair at the Midway Plaisance and Warren Park rinks.
For two adults on a Saturday that is nothing at Millennium Park against $42 online or $46 at the window a few hundred metres away. And the detail that catches people at Maggie Daley is the last column: after your first session it charges you 5 dollars a head to use your own skates, which the free rink up the path does not.
None of which makes the Ribbon a bad thing. It is a quarter-mile ribbon that winds through the park rather than a loop, and people who have done both often prefer it. It is simply not the same proposition, and no page we found tells you the gap before you walk to the wrong one.
04Season, hours and the date that is not out yet
Last season the rink ran from 21 November 2025 to 1 February 2026, weather permitting, open 11:00 to 22:30, daily.
Those are last season's dates, and we are printing them as such. As of 2026-09-22 the City's page still shows the 2025-26 season and the new dates have not been announced. If you are planning now, plan around the back half of November and check the City page before you book flights. We will update this the day the new dates appear.
Closures for severe weather are posted on Millennium Park's Facebook page rather than on the City site, which is worth knowing on a day when the forecast is doing something dramatic. Wheelchairs, powered and manual, are allowed on the ice with someone on skates escorting.
On when to come at all: January averages 11.3 inches of snow and a daytime high of 31.6°F, which for an outdoor rink is the point rather than the problem. What Chicago weather does month by month, and what else is open once the river cruises stop, is on the when-to-go page.
05The free lessons nobody mentions
At the bottom of the official page, under everything else, is the best-value thing in this article: free ice-skating lessons, with the skate rental included. That is also the only circumstance in which the City tells you anything at all about skate hire.
The free lessons, as the City publishes them
| Price | Free, and skate rental is free for the lessons |
| When | Saturdays and Sundays, 9 to 10 a.m. |
| Levels | Beginner, intermediate, and hockey skills |
| Places | 20 per level |
| Registration | Opens opens the Monday before each weekend |
| Arrive by | 8:45 a.m. |
Read from the City of Chicago's McCormick Tribune Ice Rink page on 2026-09-22. The hockey skills level is not a learn-to-skate class: the City states it is for people who can already skate in hockey skates. Parents must register themselves to go on the ice with a child.
Walk-ups are allowed if registered skaters do not turn up by nine, which is the sort of detail that only matters if you know it. And helmets are strongly encouraged for beginners, in the City's words rather than ours.
06Questions people actually ask
Is ice skating free at Millennium Park?
The skating is. The City of Chicago's own page for the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink states plainly that admission is free, and that has been true for every season it has run. What is not free, and not published either, is hiring skates: no official source gives a price for it. If you bring your own skates you walk on and pay nothing, which is the single most useful thing to know about this rink.
How much does it cost to ice skate at Millennium Park?
Nothing to get on the ice, and nobody will tell you what the skates cost. We checked the City of Chicago's page, Choose Chicago, Time Out, evisitorguide, Wikipedia and the Loop Chicago listing, which is ranking in Google and now returns a 404. Choose Chicago goes as far as 'skate rentals are available, pricing varies' and stops there. We are not going to invent a figure: bring skates if you have them, and budget for a rental you cannot check in advance if you do not.
Do I need a reservation to skate at Millennium Park?
Choose Chicago, the city's official tourism body, states that advance online reservations are required. The City's own rink page, which is the first result in Google, does not say so anywhere prominent. Two official sources, one of them silent on the thing most likely to ruin your afternoon. Book before you go and treat the free admission as free entry to a reserved slot rather than a walk-up.
What is the difference between the Millennium Park rink and Maggie Daley?
Six hundred and nineteen metres, and up to $46 for two people. They are in adjoining parks, a seven-minute walk apart, and they are run by different city departments, which is why no page puts their prices side by side. Millennium Park is free to skate. The Maggie Daley Skating Ribbon charges $21 per person online for skate rental at the weekend, $23 at the window, and $5 per person even if you bring your own skates after the first session.
When does the Millennium Park ice rink open?
Last season it ran 21 November to 1 February, weather permitting, open daily 11 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. The 2026-27 dates have not been announced: as of 22 September 2026 the City's page still shows last season's. If you are planning a trip now, late November is the date to plan around, and the City's page is where the new one will appear.
Are there free skating lessons?
Yes, and they are buried at the bottom of the official page. Free lessons run Saturdays and Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m. at three levels, beginner, intermediate and hockey skills, and skate rental is free for the lessons, which is the only circumstance in which anyone tells you what the skates cost. Twenty places per level, registration opens the Monday before, and you are asked to arrive by 8.45.
Which Chicago ice rink is cheapest?
Millennium Park if you own skates, because it costs nothing at all. If you need to hire them, every other Park District outdoor rink charges $7 for all ages with free admission, which makes them a third of the price of the Maggie Daley Ribbon at a weekend. The expensive option is the famous one, which is the usual shape of these things.
Diego FresnoI went to Chicago in July 2025, so I have not skated on this rink and this page does not pretend I have: in July the McCormick Tribune plaza is a restaurant terrace. What this page is worth is the checking. The claim that no official source publishes the rental price is not a rhetorical flourish, it is the result of going through six pages one at a time, and one of the six turned out to be a dead link that Google is still ranking.
Admission, hours, season dates, weather policy, accessibility and the free lessons read from the City of Chicago's McCormick Tribune Ice Rink page on 2026-09-22. Reservation requirement from choosechicago.com, same day. Maggie Daley and Park District rink prices from chicagoparkdistrict.com/facilities/ice-rinks, same day. Distance between the two rinks routed with OpenRouteService on OpenStreetMap data. NOT verified: the skate rental price at Millennium Park, which no official source publishes and which is therefore absent here rather than estimated; and the 2026-27 season dates, which had not been announced when this was written.