Venice Access Fee 2026: 60 Paid Days, €5 Early or €10 Late, and a Bigger Fee Floated for 2027
Venice ran its day-tripper fee for the third year in 2026, and by now it's simply part of the trip. Sixty paid days this year, up from 54 in 2025 and 29 in 2024. The window ran from April 3 to July 26, mostly weekends, public holidays and the long bridges around them.
The rules stayed simple. If you entered the historic centre between 8:30 and 16:30 on a paid day and weren't sleeping in the city, you owed the fee. Pay at least four days ahead and it cost €5. Pay later and it was €10. Get caught without the QR code and fines ran from €50 to €300.
This is the view most of those payers came for. Gondolas parked along the bank, a water taxi cutting across, the vaporetto stop on the left. On a paid Saturday in May the same stretch carries tens of thousands of people who arrived by train in the morning and will leave by bus before dinner. That's the person the fee was built for.
Who didn't pay
The exemption list is long, and it matters more than the price. Overnight guests were exempt, though they still had to register through their hotel. So were residents of Venice and the Veneto region, people born in Venice, children under 14, students and workers with a reason to be there, and disabled visitors with a companion. Anyone heading only to Lido, Murano, Burano or Torcello was exempt too, as was anyone who stayed in the transit areas at Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto.
That last point is worth knowing. A day on the lagoon islands, reached from the bus terminal, never touched the fee.
The money
In 2024 about 485,000 people paid, bringing in a bit over €2 million against roughly €3 million in running costs. The city lost money. In 2025 it collected about €5.4 million from around 720,000 payers. By July 28 2026, two days after the last paid date, the count was past 650,000 payers and over €5 million. Forty-five thousand payments came in during the first four days of April alone.
Whether it cut crowds is a separate question. Venice has never claimed a big drop in day visitors. What it got was data: who comes, when, and from where. That was always half the point.
What happens in 2027
The official site says the experimental phase ended on July 27 and that any new scheme is up to the city's governing bodies. Dates for 2027 are expected in the coming months, and the number of days could go above 60. Simone Venturini, the new mayor, has talked about charging €30 to €50 on the busiest days. Nothing has been decided.
If you're planning spring 2027, the practical advice holds. Check the calendar on the city's booking site before you fix dates, book the QR code early to pay the lower rate, and if you can stay one night, the fee disappears and the city empties out after five. Venice at night is a different place. More on the city itself at Virtual Travel Guide.