Riga Christmas Market 2026: Complete Guide

Dome Square vs. Līvu Square

Dome Square, right beside the Dome Cathedral, is the atmospheric one — a ring of wooden chalets around a decorated tree, framed by 800-year-old facades. Expect mulled wine (karstvīns), Latvian handicrafts (amber jewellery, wool mittens, ceramics), and piparkūkas gingerbread.

Līvu Square, a five-minute walk away, is the smaller and more food-and-drink-focused of the two, and in recent years has had its own Christmas tree built from wooden planks. Most visitors do both in a single evening; they're close enough to combine with dinner in the Old Town.

One correction worth making, because plenty of guides repeat it: the open-air ice rink is not reliably a Līvu Square fixture. The public rink most often reported in recent seasons is in Esplanāde Park, by the Rainis monument, free if you bring your own skates with hire available on site. If skating is the reason you are going, check the current season's listing rather than trusting any guide, including this one.

Opening Hours

The city publishes a new schedule each autumn. The 2025/26 hours below are a reliable guide to what to expect, and have been stable for several seasons:

Hours above are the 2025/26 season as published by Riga City Council. New Year's Eve runs much later — see our New Year's Eve in Riga guide for that night specifically.

What to Eat and Drink

Dome Square runs to dozens of traders, a good share of them food and drink. The things worth queueing for:

• Karstvīns — Latvian mulled wine. You usually pay a deposit on the mug and can either keep it or hand it back.
• Hot Riga Black Balsam — the city's 1752 herbal liqueur, served warm with blackcurrant juice or stirred into the mulled wine. Stronger than it tastes.
• Piparkūkas — thin, dark, heavily spiced Latvian gingerbread, often hand-decorated. Latvians eat these by the bagful from late November.
• Grilled sausages with sauerkraut, smoked meats, and soup served in a hollowed-out bread loaf.
• Honey, jams and berry syrups — the easiest gifts to get home, and they survive hand luggage.

What to Buy

Most Dome Square stalls are run by the people who made the goods, which keeps prices fair and the quality higher than a typical tourist market. Look for:

• Hand-knitted mittens and socks in traditional Latvian patterns
• Amber and silver jewellery
• Wooden toys, carved spoons and wickerwork
• Sheepskin slippers and leather goods
• Beeswax candles and ceramics

Most stalls take cards, but carry a few euros in coins for the smallest ones.

Going with Children

Weekends and holidays at Dome Square bring Santa and his elves, a carousel, pony rides, animals to meet and craft workshops. Friday evenings tend towards DJ sets, while weekends add choirs, folk groups and dancing on the stage. The programme changes year to year and is published on the market's own site, vzt.lv, usually in November.

More on travelling with children in our Riga with kids guide.

Riga's Other Christmas Markets

Dome Square and Līvu Square are the two inside the Old Town. Three more are worth the walk or the tram:

• Esplanāde Park — about ten minutes' walk from the Old Town, near the Nativity Cathedral. A smaller, more family-oriented market, and the usual location of the city's public ice rink.
• Kalnciema Quarter — weekend markets among restored 19th-century wooden houses across the river, and the best of the lot for design-led gifts rather than souvenirs. Walk over along the Daugava promenade.
• Ķīpsala — a large indoor Christmas fair at the exhibition centre, typically one weekend in December, with several hundred Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian makers under one roof. Dates for the coming season had not been published when we last updated this page, so check before planning a day around it. It is the warmest shopping on this list.

Making more of the trip? See the best things to do in Riga in winter and day trips from Riga, which ranks the day trips by how well they hold up in the cold.

Weather & What to Pack

Riga in December sits around -1°C to 2°C, with occasional snow and sunset as early as 3:30–4pm. It's genuinely cold, not "bring a light jacket" cold. Pack a proper insulated coat, waterproof boots (cobblestones get slippery), gloves, and a hat — the market is designed for standing around a mulled-wine stall, not power-walking between sights.

The upside of the cold: this is the cheapest stretch of the year to visit Riga, on both hotels and flights. How much cheaper depends entirely on your dates and where you are flying from, and the market weekends themselves are the exception — they are the one time in winter when Old Town rates climb. We do not print a percentage here because any figure would be wrong for most readers; check live prices for your dates against a week in, say, February.

Building a Winter Riga Itinerary

A Christmas market visit pairs naturally with a broader winter city break. Old Town and the Art Nouveau district are both fully walkable in the cold — in fact, the Art Nouveau facades on Alberta Street look especially dramatic against grey winter skies and bare trees. The Central Market's covered pavilions are a good indoor detour if you need to warm up between market visits.

If you're staying a few days, see our month-by-month guide for what else is running in December, or our 3-day itinerary for a full trip structure you can adapt to shorter winter daylight hours.

Last updated: October 2026. Opening hours shown are the 2025/26 season as published by Riga City Council. Market dates vary year to year and are confirmed by Riga City Council closer to the season — check current dates before booking non-refundable travel.