Do You Have to Pay to Visit Venice? (Tourist Entry Fee Explained)
Last Updated on 11th May 2024 by Sophie Nadeau
This post may contain affiliate links. Please check out my privacy policy and disclosure for more information.
If you’re planning to visit Venice this year, then during your research you’ve probably come across information about paying to visit Venice. In this article, we’ll break down everything we know about the Venice tourist entry fee and answer the question ‘do you have to pay to visit Venice’?
Please note that guidelines are updated pretty regularly and so be sure to double check official government websites for any entry restrictions prior to your visit. We will endeavour to update this article as soon as we have more information about the future of the Venice tourist tax past the spring 2024 trial date.
Contents
How to pay the Venice entry fee
How much is the tourist entry fee? €5
Where to pay: You’ll have to pay the fee prior to your visit to Venice on a portal online (https://www.comune.venezia.it/cda– be wary of scam websites). During the trial period you can pay local authorities on-site (though do be wary of scammers and make sure you’re paying an official)
Payment methods: Credit/ Debit Card, PayPal, Bank transfer. There are also kiosks in the city.
How does it work? Once you have paid the fee, you will receive a downloadable QR code. This will then be checked by authorities at random points (there will be spot checks where you’ll have to present the QR code). Even those who are exempt from paying the fee (more below) will have to fill out the form and generate a QR code. If you don’t have a QR code you could be subject to a fine.
What is the Venice entry fee?
The proposed fee to visit Venice has been in the works for a good few years now (since 2019 when the city proposed an “entrance contribution fee”), though its start date has been pushed back several times. Essentially, Venice wants to be the first city in the world to charge non-resident tourists (i.e. day trippers who aren’t staying in Venice accommodation for the night) a fee to enter the city.
Each year around 30 million visitors flock to Venice in the hopes of crossing the Bridge of Sighs, admiring the gondolas gliding around the waterways of the city, and standing in awe of St Mark’s Square.
More than two thirds of these visitors only come for a single day! This astronomical number of visitors dwarfs the permanent resident population of 50,000 people and so you can truly see why something needs to be done.
The aim of the fee is to curb mass tourism (Venice has suffered more than any other destination in the world from mass tourism), raise some extra money for the city, and limit tour groups in a bid to combat the devastating impact that over-tourism has had on the Italian city.
The idea was partly inspired by the island of Ponza, which charges visitors to the island by charging a ‘disembarkation fee’ to get off the ferry. The fee is supposed to make tourists ‘think twice’ before visiting Venice as the idea is that €5 extra might deter visitors. (However, considering how expensive flights are post-Covid I’m not personally convinced that an extra five euros will deter many people.)
The initial tourist fee will be a trial period over a select number of dates in 2024, with the aim of making the fee permanent in 2025 if the trial goes well. The 30 days will coincide with peak tourism dates in order to curb visitors in the city that date.
Who has to pay the tourist fee?
During the trial period, the fee will be imposed on visitors who are only coming to the city for the day (including those who are getting off their cruise for a day in Venice).
However, the charge will not be imposed on visitors who are going to nearby islands such as Murano (more details in the next section on excluded areas).
There are a number of exempted people, the major one being those who are staying overnight in a hotel in Venice (you already have to pay a tourist city tax to stay in a hotel).
Other exempt categories include residents of Venice and the wider Veneto region, people visiting for work or volunteering reasons, family members of local residents, students enrolled in Venice’s universities, athletes visiting Venice for sports events and children under the age of 14.
The most important thing to note is that, during the proposed scheme, everyone has to register for a QR code, even if they are exempt from paying anything.
Which areas of Venice are affected?
Only the historic city centre of Venice is affected. The Lido of Venice (including Alberoni and Malamocco), Pellestrina, Murano, Burano, Torcello, Sant’Erasmo, Mazzorbo, Mazzorbetto, Vignole, S. Andrea, la Certosa, San Servolo, S. Clemente and Poveglia are currently excluded.
Places of transit are also excluded. such as Piazzale Roma, Tronchetto, or the maritime harbour. Essentially, if you don’t enter the historic old town afterward, then you don’t have to pay the fee.
Tourist fee trial dates 2024
These are the dates which have been announced so far for 2024, though more are subject to be added without notice. Essentially, busy tourist weekends plus a few other dates have been added to the list. Refer to the official website for more dates. The fee applies to the hours from 8:30 to 16:00.
| 25 April to 5 May 2024 |
| 11 and 12 May, Saturday and Sunday |
| 18 and 19 May, Saturday and Sunday |
| 25 and 26 May, Saturday and Sunday |
| 8 and 9 June, Saturday and Sunday |
| 15 and 16 June, Saturday and Sunday |
| 22 and 23 June, Saturday and Sunday |
| 29 and 30 June, Saturday and Sunday |
| 6 and 7 July, Saturday and Sunday |
| 13 and 14 July, Saturday and Sunday |
Over-tourism in Venice
As well as the logistical nightmare of millions of visitors coming in and out of the city each month, the number of tourists has put a huge strain on local infrastructure and local residents are suffering as a result.
One of the biggest problems that the tourism drive has caused is a lack of affordable housing for locals. Many locals have been driven out of the city to nearby areas as landlords have removed long-term rentals from the market in favour of short-term lets on platforms such as Airbnb.
Another structural issue that Venice faces is just what draws so many visitors to the city in the first place: Venice is quite literally built on water and the number of boats coming in and out of the lagoon surrounding the city on a daily basis are eroding the very foundations on which the city is built.
In 2021, the Italian government made the drastic measure of banning cruises from mooring in Venice city centre as a way of reducing the structural harm that the boats are causing to the city’s foundations. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough and, as of August, UNESCO threatened to add Venice to its list of endangered World Heritage Sites.
Limits to tour groups
As part of its multi-prong approach, the city has limited the number of people in a walking tour group to 25. This brings the walking tour limit in line with museum tour groups. As well as this, tour groups will not be permitted to stand on bridges, block narrow passageways, use loudspeakers, or block narrow streets.
I personally think that this change to the limit in tour group numbers can only be a good thing and would never recommend embarking on a tour with more than 20 people anyway for a number of reasons.
Firstly, part of the group is never able to keep up with the guide in such a big group and so the guide ends up having to waste a lot of time where they could be detailing various history notes trying to gather together group.
Secondly, you barely get any time to ask the guide questions as there are so many people who also want to ask questions! Finally, big tour groups are difficult for locals to navigate and go about their daily tasks as, even if the group stands to one side of the road, in a compact city in Venice, even with the best will in the world, they are inevitably going to hinder some people by accident!
Does anywhere else charge a fee?
Venice is the first city in the world to charge a fee and has decided not to set a daily limit on visitors (like other sites in the world have done such as Machu Picchu or Antarctica) because it is a city first and foremost and not a tourist attraction.
However, the idea of a charge to visit a village has already been done. In Devon, England, you have to pay to visit the village of Clovelly. Meanwhile, another destination in Italy, Civita di Bagnoregio, a tiny village that was once known as a ‘dying village’ has been charging visitors since 2013.
The initial charge was just €1.50, though this is now €3 during the week and €5 on weekends. The charge intrigued so many visitors that it actually increased tourism in the village from 40,000 in 2009 to 1 million in 2018.
A final note on whether paying the tourist fee is worth it
Venice is a beautiful city and is well worth a visit, even if you have to pay a fee to visit. With this being said, I am definitely a proponent of slow travel and helping the local economy and so I would recommend staying overnight in Venice if possible.
If it’s your first time in the city, be sure to check out our travel guides on how to spend one day in Venice and the best things to do in Venice.
