The grand hall, within sight of the Kremlin, hosted the funerals of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev.
Gorbachev will be given a military guard of honour - but his funeral will not be a state one.
State television on Thursday showed Putin solemnly placing red roses beside Gorbachev's coffin - left open as is traditional in Russia - in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, where he died on Tuesday aged 91.
Putin made a sign of the cross in Russian Orthodox fashion before briefly touching the edge of the coffin.
He said Gorbachev's ceremony would have "elements" of a state funeral, and that the state was helping to organise it.
When Yeltsin died in 2007, Putin declared a national day of mourning and, alongside world leaders, attended a grand state funeral in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Gorbachev's foundation said the funeral would begin at 12 noon (0900 GMT), not 10 a.m. (0700 GMT) as previously announced. »