Venice tourist tax and access fee

Every hotel, B&B and short-term rental inside the municipality of Venice collects the overnight tourist tax, and the municipality reaches well beyond the historic centre: it takes in the Giudecca, the Lido, Murano, Burano and the other lagoon islands, plus Mestre and Marghera on the mainland. A guest who pays it is exempt from the access fee from the day of arrival to the day of departure.

The access fee falls on everyone else aged 14 or over who enters the historic city on a fee day: visitors sleeping in Padua, Treviso, Jesolo or any other town outside the municipality, and cruise passengers spending the day ashore. Residents of the municipality pay neither charge. Exempt visitors still have to prove the exemption at the checks, which the section on paying explains. Most visitors arrive at Piazzale Roma or Santa Lucia station, and both have one of the Venice tourist information offices for questions on the day.

With the charges worked out, the guide to things to do in Venice helps plan the visit itself, from St Mark's Basilica and the Rialto Bridge to the quieter lagoon islands.

The city has fixed 72 fee days for 2027, from 26 March to 15 August, and lists them on the City of Venice access fee calendar. On each of those days the fee covers arrivals between 08:30 and 16:30, half an hour later than in 2026. Most fee days run from Friday to Sunday, with two longer stretches around the spring holidays: 23 April to 2 May, which takes in 25 April and 1 May, and 28 May to 6 June, around Republic Day on 2 June. Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, 28 and 29 March, are fee days too.

The 2027 amount, the exemptions and the way to pay are due to be announced before the end of 2026, and the Venezia Unica access fee guide will carry them. Until then the 2026 season is the closest guide. It ran on 60 days between 3 April and 26 July 2026 (the 2026 access fee dates), from 08:30 to 16:00, and the resolution setting the 2026 access fee (in Italian) priced it at €5 when paid by the end of the fourth day before the visit and €10 from the third day before. The lagoon islands outside the historic city were not charged in 2026, and no fee has been due anywhere since 27 July 2026.

The overnight tourist tax is charged per person per night for the first five consecutive nights only, and the accommodation adds it to the bill. Three things set the rate: the type and category of the property, the zone and the season. High season runs from 1 February to 31 December, and January is the only low season month, with rates about 30% lower. The City of Venice overnight tax rate tables (in Italian) list every category, and the figures below come from the overnight tax rates from April 2025 (in Italian), still the published rates in October 2026.

The rates above apply from February to December. San Servolo, San Clemente, Sacca Sessola and La Certosa, the islands given over to hotels, pay the historic centre rate. B&Bs, holiday homes and tourist apartments are graded in lions rather than stars and pay €2.00 to €5.00 a night in the historic centre, with the same cuts on the islands and the mainland. Private homes let as tourist rentals pay one rate across the whole municipality, Mestre included: €5.00, €4.00 or €3.00 depending on the property's land registry category.

In January a four-star hotel in the historic centre charges €3.10 instead of €4.50, and tourist rentals drop to €3.50, €2.80 or €2.10. Children under 10 pay nothing and those from 10 to 16 pay half. As an example, two adults and a 12-year-old spending seven nights in June in a four-star hotel in the historic centre pay for five nights only: 5 × (€4.50 + €4.50 + €2.20) = €56. The child's half rate is €2.20 rather than €2.25 because the city rounds five cents down.

The two charges keep separate lists, and only a few groups appear on both. The overnight list is on the city's page of overnight tax exemptions (in Italian). The access fee list is article 5 of the access fee regulation (in Italian), in force since 2 January 2026 with 33 cases, six of them new.

The other new cases are relatives at a thesis defence, public employees living in service housing, people called to public offices, visits to tenants on a non-tourist lease and areas the city leaves out to make checks easier. The list for 2027 will be confirmed with the rest of the 2027 rules.

Italian law ties both charges to set uses. Under Legislative Decree 23/2011, article 4 (in Italian), the overnight tax pays for tourism, including support for accommodation businesses, the upkeep, use and restoration of the cultural and environmental heritage and the local public services linked to it, and waste collection and disposal. It can also fund urban security, including temporary local police staff. The City of Venice tourist tax guide for guests puts it in plainer words: the money improves the services, museums and events offered to visitors and pays for the maintenance and recovery of the city's cultural and architectural heritage.

The same article lists the uses of the access fee: waste collection and disposal, environmental protection, tourism, culture, local police and transport on the smaller lagoon islands. The city's regulation adds a second aim that the overnight tax does not have, which is to manage the number of visitors on the busiest days rather than only to raise money.

The overnight tourist tax is paid at the accommodation, usually with the bill, and the manager issues a receipt. A guest who changes hotel during the stay shows that receipt at the next one, so the nights already paid for are not charged again within the five-night limit. Hosts then pass the money to the city, and the City of Venice overnight tax page (in Italian) sets out their duties.

The way to pay the access fee in 2027 has not been published yet. In 2026 visitors paid online on the city's access fee portal and received a QR code in their own name, valid until midnight on the day of the visit, to keep at hand for checks at the main arrival points. Exempt visitors took an exemption QR code from the same portal, and after a ruling by the Italian data protection authority the 2026 rules for proving an exemption (in Italian) added other ways to obtain it and stopped asking people visiting friends to register.

A visitor found without a valid code on a fee day faces a fine of €25 to €150 plus the €10 fee, and false declarations can lead to a criminal complaint, as the city's access fee rules and fines (in Italian) explain. The access fee FAQ answers questions on payment and exemptions and will carry the 2027 answers once they are out.

As of October 2026, no increase in either charge has been approved. In September 2026 Michele Zuin, the city's budget councillor, floated an access fee of up to €30 with more fee days. The city argues that the current amount no longer deters day trippers and that visitors, not residents, should pay for the costs of tourism. A higher fee would need a change in national law, because Decree-Law 78/2010, article 14 (in Italian) caps both Venice charges at €10.

The same month the city outlined new overnight rates that would take five-star hotels to €8 or €9 a night, against €5 now, but no resolution has followed. What has been decided is the longer 2027 calendar, with 72 fee days instead of 60 and the fee window extended to 16:30. Any new access fee amount has to pass as a city resolution first, and it will appear among the access fee resolutions (in Italian).

Three choices make the biggest difference. A night in Mestre costs 30% less in tax than the same category of hotel in the historic centre and comes with the access fee exemption, and frequent trains and trams cross the lagoon to Santa Lucia and Piazzale Roma. A day trip from Monday to Thursday avoids the fee in most weeks, apart from Easter Monday on 29 March and the runs from 23 April to 2 May and 28 May to 6 June. A booking marked "city tax not included" means the tax is paid at the property on top of the quoted price.