As Frommer's predicted in July, the tourist-laden Italian city of Venice has officially announced it will not only continue its new entry fee for day-trippers, but will also double the number of days the fee is collected and, in some cases, double the cost.
For 29 days from April to July 2024, the city mandated a Venice Access Fee of €5 (US$5.35) per visitor to enter the city between 8:30am and 4pm for any tourist who didn't also have a hotel reservation. Officials announced that some €2.4 million ($2.6 million) was collected in total, amassed from about 1,000 tourists for each day the fee was in effect.
So in 2025, they're going to do it again, only more often. The visitor tax will be required Friday through Sunday and on holidays from April 18 to July 27, 2025, increasing the period of enforcement from 29 days to 54 days.
They're also adding a new wrinkle: If visitors to Venice don't arrange to pay the entry fee at least 4 days ahead, the cost will double from €5 ($5.35) per visitor to a last-minute charge of €10 ($10.70).
If you're planning to explore Venice for the day in 2025, you must now check whether your visit coincides with the fee calendar, and if you're going with a group or guided tour, you must also check whether your tour organizer is handling the fee for you.
The Venice Access Fee can be paid in advance at the city's official website: cda.veneziaunica.it/en/access-fee. At press time, no dates in 2025 were available for reservations yet.
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Critics of the plan—and there are many among Venice's 50,000 residents—have pointed out that the fee made no dent in overcrowding in 2024.
"Data offered by the control room show that on average during the period of implementation of the fee, we had about 7,000 more tourist entries than in previous years," said Giovanni Andrea Martini, a councilor in the local government. "This shows that the access fee is not at all a system able to manage the flows."
During summer protests, residents complained that the entry ticket "does not improve the life of Venetians" and that "tourists and residents are increasingly controlled."
Martini and other opponents of the fee have devised plans to limit vacation rentals in Venice as a better way to return housing inventory to permanent residents and curb overcrowding from tourism. But so far those proposals have not advanced.